More great news, this time on the Ozzy Osbourne front. He’s not going to die:
Rock star Ozzy Osbourne is breathing unaided for the first time since his quad bike accident a week ago.
The former Black Sabbath singer has been taken off a ventilator and has been able to speak to his family.
And with his old verbal fluency unimpaired, I trust.
Not long ago I caught Ozzy and daughter Kelly doing their Christmas single Changes on Top of the Pops, which is now number one in the hit parade apparently. And then immediately after that Ozzy had to be rushed to hospital following his prang, and Kelly rushes there to see him. You can’t buy publicity like that, because you can’t fake it.
This tune, for me, personifies the way that pop music these days, at least the sort of pop music you see on British telly, has become more and more something that your granny can recognise and sing along with. Not like it was in my day. In my day we used to drive elder brothers and sisters crazy, never mind our parents and grandparents. But now the man who used to bite the heads off bats is in that same celebrity category that used to be occupied by the Queen Mother and now also accommodates England’s rugby darling Jonny Wilkinson. (Although, it seems that many elder brother types are angry about Changes. This angry bloke reminds me of how my contemporaries at Essex University in the early seventies reacted to Donny Osmond.)
With his latest effort Ozzy has apparently set a new pop record, of the Guinness-Book-of variety:
The singer has set a new record for the longest time taken to reach number one during a career, reaching the top of the charts 33 years after his first hit with Black Sabbath, Paranoid, got to number four in August 1970.
Ah, Paranoid. Those were the days, eh? Who would have thought that Ozzy Osbourne of all people would live long enough to break a record like that?
Ozzy is a great performer with a massive stage presence. I’ve seen him hold some of the most unruly crowds in the palm of his hand.
As for his recent American TV show, the one thing you can say for it is that it does provide the odd humorous insight. For instance when he was at a pre-show sound check or what have you and noticed that the engineers had fit a bubble making machine to the set. As the bubbles were tested the look on Ozzy’s face was a marvel. He opened his mouth and said something along the lines of:
“What? What are those? Bubbles! I’m supposed to be the prince of f***ing darkness!!”
Brilliant.
And just to humour him they cut the power to the lighting circuits.