The echoes of Ozzy Osbourne will outlast the chaos

If there was anybody who should have lived fast and died young – and left a goodlooking corpse, as the saying goes – it was Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne.

He used to call himself a “raging alcoholic and a raging addict” and once described his “heavy metal music” as something “to get a brain seizure by”.

Yet, despite the years of partying, performing, snorting and boozing, Ozzy managed to make it to the ripe old age of 76.

And he was, he would admit, anything but good looking at the end, more like wizened and rambling.

ALSO READ: RIP Ozzy Osbourne: Black Sabbath frontman dies just weeks after farewell gig to fans

Like many geriatric rockers – we’re looking at you, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards – Ozzy lived to perform, playing his final show, Back to the Beginning, alongside the original line-up of Black Sabbath, in Birmingham on 5 July this year.

He and Black Sabbath will, however, be remembered not for his behaviour but for their deep, sometimes disturbing songs, which railed at conventional society, taking telling swipes at both religion and war.

Ozzy was never one to “go gentle into that good night” as his fellow boozer, tormented Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, had warned against.

The noise he made in life will echo long after it.

NOW READ: RIP Brian Wilson: Tributes pour in for The Beach Boys surf-rock poet