Why the First Ozzy Osbourne Song I Ever Heard, with Lita Ford, is Still Possibly My Favorite

I wasn’t exposed to Black Sabbath or Ozzy Osbourne much during my ‘80s youth. My only source of music as a child from Silver Spring, Maryland, was the radio, because my parents refused to get cable (and MTV). So while I heard a bit of Def Leppard on Q107 (WRQX, 107.3 FM), I wasn’t old enough yet to know about “Crazy Train” or crank up “Iron Man.”

Yet, in a slightly foreshadowing event in the late ’80s, my adolescent ears one day happened upon Lita Ford’s song “Kiss Me Deadly.” Suddenly, I was head over heels for hair metal. Lita wasn’t like the other lady pop stars — she was just this badass, rough-around-the-edges chick singing “I didn’t get late … got in a fight” (I didn’t know what “laid” meant, so I just sung “late”). She sung like she didn’t care and played guitar like a bandit.

Hence, the story of my gateway to Ozzy Osbourne’s music began. Ford’s next single, the power ballad “Close my Eyes Forever” featured Osbourne. The duet hit the U.S. airwaves in 1989 — and blew me away with its dramatic production, melancholy strings, and looming sense of doom and darkness. But it was Osbourne’s voice, a deep, reverberant, demonic counterpart to Ford’s raspier vocals, that truly captured my attention. A short time later, on a trip at the mall, I snagged the cassette single at the record store. I took it home, and played it about 100 times.

Osbourne’s legacy obviously runs deeper than this single. Beyond Black Sabbath favorites like “Paranoid,” the metal singer’s solo catalogue is loaded with epic tracks that rightly solidify his stature as the “Prince of Darkness.” Often described as “haunting” with its unique timbre and natural harmonics, Osbourne’s voice is one of rock’s most powerful and most recognizable.

One only needs to crank up “Mama I’m Coming Home” to understand what all of the fuss is about.

Yet the song I’m cranking up now, hours after his death at age 76 was announced, is “Close my Eyes Forever.” While the song was written as sort of a joke (and in a state of drunkenness, as both Ford and Osbourne have attested), it’s ironically profound in its absurdity:

Heaven is in the palm of my hand … And it’s waiting here for you … What am I supposed to do in the time of tragedy?

So as much of the world will recall Osbourne’s reality show on MTV as his greatest legacy, this song, in my opinion, exemplifies the special gifts he offered as a rock musician to the world.

Rest in peace, Ozzy Osbourne, rockdaddy and forever the prince of darkness, and inspiration to so many musicians, young and old.

[SEE RELATED: Living Like a Runaway: On Meeting Lita Ford, Rock Mama and Metal Goddess]