The astonishing claims about the Birmingham-born Black Sabbath icon, who died last year, were made by American heavy metal star Dee Snider, of Twisted Sister.
In a post on X, he claimed Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler penned all of the band’s lyrics.
He also claimed Ozzy’s first two solo albums featured lyrics written by Bob Daisley, and that the No More Tears album had contributions from Lemmy Kilmister.
Snider also suggested that Sharon Osbourne “doesn’t like to share” while discussing the legacy of Ozzy’s music, but aded that while many artisits don’t write their own material they can still make songs their own.
Is Dee Snider somehow trying to make himself relevant by making these statements? Sure seems like it to me.
Dee is hardly dropping some breaking news, here.
https://rockandrollgarage.com/geezer-butler-explains-why-he-was-black-sabbaths-main-lyricist/
Yeah, wtf. “The bassist writes the lyrics” has been an Ozzy thing forever. There’s nothing wrong with it. Especially in Sabbath. They’re a band, people contribute. What’s the stink about?
IDK who penned the words, the album Paranoid is a masterpiece and nobody else has the vocal style of Ozzy and it is a major reason that it’s a masterpiece.
nobody else has the vocal style of Ozzy
Meanwhile there’s a whole industry of doom-metal working off Sabbath’s and Ozzy’s style. E.g. Druidess, Hail Darkness, Stoned Jesus, Castle Rat, etc.
I don’t know these bands, thank you! I will check them out
Oh if you like any of those, I have some for you too. In no particular order, and they don’t necessarily sound like Sabbath or Ozzy and they all vary a little, and have varying levels of heavyness, but they follow a general vibe (of one of like 4 genres) that was kinda sorta born from the Sabbath roots (an album rec in parentheses, where remembered lol):
Electric Wizard (Dopethrone), Sleep (Holy Mountain), Acid Witch (Witchtanic Hallucinations), Om (Pilgrimage), Baroness (Red Album), Bongripper, Dozer, Kyuss, Earth (Earth 2), Noothgrush, Neurosis, Dystopia, High on Fire, Mastodon, Orange Goblin, Torche, Inter Arma, Weedeater, Yob.
I have known a couple of these but I will check out the rest. Thank you friend
Sabbath basically invented doom metal (together with Beatles), so there are a whole lot of bands paying tribute to them, and imitating Osborne’s vocals was quite fashionable in stoner rock. These bands are just what I’ve found in the past few years, though Stoned Jesus are pretty old. Truckfighters are also somewhat similar.
Yeah, it’s like saying geddy lee didn’t write Rush’s lyrics.
AFAIK, as soon as they saw that besides being an excellent drummer, Neil Peart was a voracious reader, they went, phew, we can get him to write the lyrics.
tbh if Dee Snider says it I’d assume he’s right
Don’t need to assume anything. He just read the liner credits on the albums lol.
Blizzard of Ozz literally says “All songs written by Ozzy Osbourne, Randy Rhoads and Bob Daisley, except where noted.”. Same with Diary of a Madman. “All songs by Ozzy Osbourne, Randy Rhoads, Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake, except where noted.”
Bark at the Moon is where the controversy starts, where Ozzy is the sole writing credit, but Daisley and Jake Lee claim they wrote a good chunk of it and Sharon screwed them out of credits.
The Ultimate Sin lists Jake Lee with credits again. No Rest for the Wicked has everyone with writing credits. Same with Just Say Ozzy.
No More Tears explicitly credits everyone. “All tracks are written by Ozzy Osbourne, Zakk Wylde and Randy Castillo, except where noted.” And Lemmy is credited on I Don’t Want to Change the World, Mama I’m Coming Home, Desire, and Hellraiser.
Bark at the Moon is the only controversy. Every other album has credit given to other writers. And all of Black Sabbath’s are credited to all four of them. It has been long known though that Geezer was the primary lyricist, and Ozzy only contributed some original lyrics, but did a lot more with the actual arrangement of the songs.
Uh, wasn’t this already well known? Next up we’re gonna learn that Robert Halford is gay…
Not only well known, but all the albums explicitly credit those guys too lol.
The big controversy was always Bark at the Moon, where Sharon got involved and only Ozzy is credited as a writer. Every other album has credit where credit is due.
Blizzard of Ozz: All songs written by Ozzy Osbourne, Randy Rhoads and Bob Daisley, except where noted Diary of a Madman: All songs by Ozzy Osbourne, Randy Rhoads, Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake, except where noted
Lemmy is explicitly credited on 4 songs on No More Tears.
It’s been known for about 50 years that Geezer was the main lyricist for Black Sabbath. Ozzy just did arrangement and contributed some lyrical changes here and there.
There’s not even any controversy here.
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what an awful headline. this made it sound like Kelly is the “rock star” who “takes on Sharon” by claiming Ozzy didn’t write his songs.
Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler penned all of the band’s lyrics.
This was common knowledge when I was getting into music in my early teens about 20 years ago, and it was repeated in music magazines and conversations about music a lot. This happening doesn’t make it true obviously, but like, it was known. I even remember saying it once or twice.
I think one of the old heavy metal musicans from the Sabbath era released an auto/biography around that time (early 00’s) and it was said there too/first? I can’t remember. I read a bunch of that shit around that time though, so it might just be conflated memories?
Yeah like it’s not even a big deal. Plenty of artists don’t write all their own songs. There’s lots of collaboration in writing a song as part of a band. Idk why they feel the need to fight over it 🤷♀️
The osbourne lot are just trashy, shitty people. This is what they do.
Snider isn’t wrong to be fair.
He gave a damn good live performance, too.
why she pissed? he’s right.
Look I know she’s gone through a lot lately. Father died last year, split with Sid Wilson from Slipknot, but I mean…he’s not wrong.
Ozzy raised her on reality tv. She’s not going to be perfectly adjusted
… split with Sid Wilson from Slipknot…
Hey, that exact thing happened to Slipknot 😀
sid just got the boot from slipknot, what’s going on with him?
I’ll believe this just because fuck the Osbournes. You can tell they’re not the real deal by how Sharon and Jack suck up to right wing conservative christian pedophiles, and worship AI.
I had never even thought about whether Ozzy wrote his own songs, and I’m not sure how much it matters. Why bring it up now?
if i had a nickel for every Birmingham-based band adjacent to Sharon Osborne who failed to properly credit and compensate all of their writers to create the image of a solo genius at the helm, i would have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice
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Sharon is certainly the bigger asshole of the two tbh.
I was at the show when Bruce Dickinson got fed up with Ozzy but mostly with Sharron and the next day Iron Maiden was kicked out of the Ozzfest. At the time I was thinking wow what the fuck is that about. But he was right. She made Ozzys problems worse. It took over an hour after Iron Maiden was done for Black Sabbath to start. It seemed like they were about start and the band stood out there for like 15-20 minutes before Ozzy came out. And it was like one song pause for 5 minutes play another song. No wonder they had problems with Ozzy.
Was this when Ozzy was on very heavy medication (lawsuit filed in 2004) that fucked him up pretty bad?
It was in 2005
https://www.loudersound.com/features/iron-maiden-egged-ozzfest-2005-black-sabbath-sharon-osbourne
Oh man reading this brought back the memories 🤣
Dee Snider is a fucking saint and can do no wrong.
Dee Snider is a complete asshole any way you turn him up. He is honest though.
