Ozzy Osbourne gets through the gates with love in Knight’s tribute

Ozzy Osbourne, aka the “Prince of Darkness”, the legendary heavy metal* rocker and lead singer of Black Sabbath, has left us at the age of 76. Succumbing* to Parkinson’s disease*, he played his final gig with Black Sabbath only two weeks ago in his hometown of Birmingham, England. During the concert he was unable to stand, so he sang seated on a black throne adorned with skulls and bats, which was a fitting finale to a remarkable music career.

Ozzy formed Black Sabbath in the late 1960s and had instant success with a heavy metal sound that broke new ground. With his distinctive vocal sound, distorted guitars and heavy rock beat, the band’s first two albums, Black Sabbath and Paranoid, were huge sellers.

If you’re a budding teen muso or a headbanging fan, do yourself a favour and ask your parents or teacher to choose a couple of the band’s old songs for you! When Black Sabbath sacked Ozzy in 1979, he formed his own outfit and produced albums including the Diary of a Madman, the title of which summed up that period of Osbourne’s life perfectly.

But Ozzy Osbourne was not just a mad heavy rocker from central casting*. He and his second wife Sharon, his manager and a very astute* business woman, created the reality TV show The Osbournes, which delivered Osbourne a new generation of fans in its 2002-2005 run on MTV. The show was a runaway success and took viewers into the Osbourne home, showing not only the kooky lifestyle of the rock legend but what a surprising family man he was to his children.

So when Ozzy passed, I felt I had to pay tribute to such a unique character. The obvious irony with Ozzy Osbourne was that he called himself the rock ‘n’ roll “Prince of Darkness”, but in reality, he was devoted to his family. So I felt I had to illustrate this conundrum* of a man.

Osbourne had many flaws … but I decided that the gates of Heaven should be open to him – and that scene is always a fun-to-draw visual metaphor*. So I sketched Osbourne entering through the pearly gates, clad in his usual black, his long hair and sunglasses, which have become such trademarks of the man.

“Can you imagine a figure like this in the white halls of Heaven?” I thought.

St Peter himself might have had the same thought, being charged with the responsibility of manning the front door! This aspect of Ozzy’s character in the cartoon is fleshed out when there is a question about what type of wings the wild man of rock will be fitted out with: angel wings or wings from “a bat out of hell”? The much adored Ozzy Osbourne will be “fitted with angel wings”, declares St Peter! A good choice.

Vale*, Ozzy Osbourne.

POLL

GLOSSARY

• heavy metal: style of rock music with a strong beat, played very loudly using electric guitars
• succumbing: giving in, or yielding, losing a fight or battle and accepting defeat
• Parkinson’s disease: progressive nervous system disorder, causing muscle tremors and rigidity, reduced mobility, stooped posture, slow movement
• central casting: an expression used to suggest a stereotype, or a common character
• astute: able to assess situations quickly and take advantage of them
• conundrum: a confusing and difficult problem
• metaphor: something that describes or expresses a person or object by referring to something that is considered to have similar characteristics
• vale: Latin word that is used when someone dies to say farewell

EXTRA READING

Bats are heavy metal singers of animal kingdom

Remembering The King

Farewell to voice of stolen generation

QUICK QUIZ

1. What disease was Osbourne suffering from?
2. Which legendary heavy metal band made Osbourne’s name?
3. What was the solo album title that summed up that period of Osbourne’s life perfectly?
4. What was his hugely successful MTV reality TV show called and when did it air?
5. Which visual metaphor did cartoonist Mark Knight choose to illustrate his thoughts?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. What would they say?
Write a script of the conversation that you think Ozzy and St Peter would be having in the cartoon.

Time: allow at least 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English

2. Extension
Can you think of a different visual metaphor that could pay tribute to Ozzy Osbourne? Use ideas from the story to create a drawing, cartoon, symbol or logo.

Time: allow at least 60 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Visual Arts

VCOP ACTIVITY
Describe it
Look at the cartoon and make a list of five nouns that you see. Then describe those five nouns with five adjectives. Now add a preposition to those five nouns and adjectives.

Finally, choose your favourite bundle and put all the words together to make one descriptive sentence.

(For lower reading level articles, remove “add a preposition”)