Ozzy Osbourne Says This Beatles Song ‘Sucked’ Him In
We’d be here forever if we had to name every single person, famous or not, who The Beatles inspired at some point. They’re one of the most influential bands on the planet. But The Beatles have one unexpected admirer who could be the president of their fan club: Ozzy Osbourne, the Prince of Darkness himself. We can’t really picture Osbourne sitting down and listening to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, but it happened nevertheless.
This Beatles song ‘sucked’ Ozzy Osbourne in
Growing up in Birmingham, England in the 1950s and 1960s, Ozzy didn’t have many prospects. He was either going to spend his life in jail or the factories. That is until he heard The Beatles on the radio for the first time. The song that “sucked” him in? The Beatles’ single, “She Loves You.”
Osbourne gave his top 10 favorite Beatles songs to Rolling Stone and put “She Loves You” on top. “This is the one that sucked me in. I was a 14-year-old kid with this blue transistor radio. I heard ‘She Loves You,’ and it floored me. It was as if you knew all the colors in the world. Then someone shows you a brand new color, and you go, ‘F***ing hell, man.'”
After “She Loves You,” Osbourne’s list includes “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “I Am the Walrus,” “A Day in the Life,” “Hey Jude,” “Help!,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “Something,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” and “The Long and Winding Road.”
Ozzy Osbourne felt hope after hearing ‘She Loves You’
Osbourne gives credit to The Beatles for virtually saving his life. Before hearing their music, Osbourne’s life was going nowhere. He was literally nowhere man. But hearing “She Loves You” made him want to become a musician. All of a sudden, he had hope for his future. They were the “key” and his “way out,” he said in an interview on The Whoopi Goldberg Show. Soon, Osbourne began playing the blues in various bars around Birmingham, not too far from Liverpool, The Beatles’ hometown.
“I feel so privileged to have been on this planet when the Beatles were born,” Osbourne told Rolling Stone. “They are and will forever be the greatest band in the world. I remember talking to Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols. He said, ‘I didn’t like the Beatles.’ I said, ‘There’s something f***ing wrong with you.'”
Listening to The Beatles made Osbourne ‘feel better’
Really any Beatles song made Osbourne feel better. “‘Eleanor Rigby’ is f***ing phenomenal,” Osbourne commented on another of his favorites. “I don’t know why. I just know that every time I heard something from the Beatles, it made me feel better that day.”
Anytime Osbourne hears a Beatles song, it takes him back to a specific memory. Listening to “Something,” Osbourne remembers, “Black Sabbath were doing a residency in a bar in Zurich. It was winter and we were driving in the van to get home for Christmas. We were homesick and had no money, one cigarette between the four of us. This song reminds me of that time, because we kept hearing it as we were going over the Alps.”
The Beatles flipped a switch in Osbourne’s head. To this day, Osbourne is still waiting for his own Sgt. Pepper. He might doubt whether he’s gone to The Beatles’ level, but Osbourne has still had a remarkable career in his own right. It’s true, though; there’d be no Ozzy Osbourne without The Beatles.
