ROCK OF SAGES SERIES: "Crazy Train" Ozzy Osbourne (1948-2025) (#7)
All the Greats Before the Fire In My Backyard
I know what you’re thinking.
How in the world did four of the most legendary rock musicians of all time end up around the firepit in my backyard?
But there they are—John Entwistle, Eddie Van Halen, Neil Peart, and now, Ozzy Osbourne—seated in worn lawn chairs like old friends, faces lit by the glow of flame and conversation. The immortal bassist of The Who. The revolutionary lead guitarist of Van Halen. The brilliant percussionist of Rush. And now, perhaps, the missing voice—joined today, July 22, 2025, by the “Prince of Darkness” himself. A celestial quartet. Is that possible?
I’m getting carried away.
Hold that thought.
We’ll return to them.
Growing up in a home with six boys and one girl—Catholic, conservative, but not joyless—music had its place. The Beatles were generally fair game, at least until “Revolution” spun a little too close to “annoying.” My parents weren’t rigid, but they held a sacred sense that art ought to say something good about the world. Music, like everything else, was to form you—not fracture you.
But then came high school. Angst. Hormones. The slow unraveling of childhood certainties. The red apples. Many of them. And with these, an unexpected hunger for something heavier—louder. Something that didn’t gloss over the chaos, but ran straight into it screaming.
That something was Crazy Train.
You didn’t so much listen to it as feel it in your chest. That maniacal laughter—like a demon-possessed jester—cracked the sky. Then came one of the most instantly recognizable riffs in rock history: Randy Rhoads slicing through the silence like a chainsaw through steel. And suddenly, the world was different. More vivid. More unhinged. More honest.
It didn’t feel like rebellion. It felt like something caged in need of release. Truthfully, not much different from Animal of The Muppets. You laugh because you relate.
As far as my parents were concerned, it was never cranked in the Schlueter home. Though our neighbors a couple blocks over could tell you when our parent were gone. In garages, in friend’s basements, in parking lots with the windows down, Crazy Train summoned us all to a kind of association of escapees from the Island of Misfit Toys proclaiming: “This world is insane. And we’re not going quietly.”
The Man Behind the Madness
Ozzy Osbourne was always more than a rocker. He was a myth in motion.
Born John Michael Osbourne in the gritty industrial city of Birmingham, England in 1948, Ozzy came from working-class roots—one of six children, something like us. His father worked night shifts at General Electric. His mother was a factory worker. Dyslexia, ADHD, and poverty shaped him early. Music became his escape.
Black Sabbath, formed in 1968, gave him a voice—and that voice gave the world something it didn’t know it needed: an anthem for the shadows.
Despite the name, Sabbath wasn’t born from a séance—it was born in Birmingham. Steel mills. Cracked sidewalks. Post-war smog. It was the sound of working-class lads staring down a world that felt more haunted than holy. The name came not from devil worship, but from a Boris Karloff horror film poster spotted near their rehearsal space. They figured: if people pay to be frightened, why not write songs that tell the truth about the real horrors—war, corruption, addiction, evil?
And here’s the twist: some of their early work had more Christian sense than many Sunday sermons. Geezer Butler, the bassist and primary lyricist, was raised Catholic and deeply spiritual. Their lyrics didn’t celebrate darkness—they exposed it. Called it what it was. Songs like War Pigs weren’t anti-religious; they were prophetic:
Generals gathered in their masses / Just like witches at black masses…
Politicians hide themselves away / They only started the war.
Others, like After Forever, posed a direct challenge to skepticism:
Have you ever thought about your soul can it be saved?
Or perhaps you think that when you're dead you just stay in your grave
Is God just a thought within your head or is he a part of you?
Is Christ just a name that you read in a book when you were in school?When you think about death do you lose your breath or do you keep your cool?
Would you like to see the Pope on the end of a rope do you think he's a fool?
Well I have seen the truth, yes I've seen the light and I've changed my ways
And I'll be prepared when you're lonely and scared at the end of our daysCould it be you're afraid of what your friends might say
If they knew you believe in God above?
They should realize before they criticize
That God is the only way to loveIs your mind so small that you have to fall
In with the pack wherever they run
Will you still sneer when death is near
And say they may as well worship the sun?I think it was true it was people like you that crucified Christ
I think it is sad the opinion you had was the only one voiced
Will you be so sure when your day is near, say you don't believe?
You had the chance but you turned it down, now you can't retrievePerhaps you'll think before you say that God is dead and gone
Open your eyes, just realize that he's the one
The only one who can save you now from all this sin and hate
Or will you still jeer at all you hear, yes I think it's too late
By 1979, Sabbath had cut ties with him. Substance abuse. Erratic behavior. Creative tensions. By all rights, he should’ve disappeared into rock’s graveyard of forgotten casualties.
Instead, he released Blizzard of Ozz.
With the help of the virtuosic Randy Rhoads—classically trained, spiritually searching—Ozzy opened a new chapter. Crazy Train was the lead single. Released in 1980, it tore through the noise with a message that still resonates:
Maybe it’s not too late
To learn how to love and forget how to hate…
Wait—what? This from the “Prince of Darkness”?
But that’s the thing about Ozzy. The persona was monstrous, yes. But the man was more mystery than menace. What the world heard as madness was, in truth, a lament. The crazy train wasn’t a joyride—it was a warning.
I’m going off the rails on a crazy train…
He wasn’t exalting the descent. He was testifying to it.
Truth Via Negativa
In theology, via negativa refers to the way we come to understand truth by contrast—by recognizing what it is not. And Crazy Train is precisely that: a via negativa in power chords.
It doesn’t offer answers. It detonates illusions.
In the frantic riffing and apocalyptic imagery, we confront a cultural diagnosis: a world unraveling from its moral spine. The Cold War. Nuclear threat. Generational division. The fraying of family, faith, and reason. Ozzy wasn’t celebrating the chaos—he was screaming against it.
He was, in his way, a prophet of disorder. This is what happens when truth becomes subjective. When morality becomes optional. When freedom is defined as the absence of boundaries.
But every train needs rails. And Ozzy knew it.
The crazy train doesn’t end well.
That’s the point.
In fact, as his life unfolded—through decades of addiction, rehab, reality shows, and the slow diminishment of his body—you began to see the man behind the mayhem. A husband. A father. A fragile soul, both haunted and humbled.
And here’s the grace: Ozzy Osbourne, despite everything, kept showing up.
For his family. For his fans. For life itself.
That takes courage. Dare I say, holy courage. That defies human understanding.
From Persona to Person
By the time The Osbournes hit MTV in 2002, the world was stunned. Here was the madman of metal… folding laundry? Shuffling around in slippers? Trying to parent teenagers?
And yes, he was hilarious. Awkward. Muddled. But he was also oddly endearing. For all the bleeps and stumbles, you saw in Ozzy something rare: reality. Not the reality the network curated—but a man who bore the weight of his choices, and who loved his wife and children, however imperfectly.
We often forget: the persona is not the person.
Ozzy gave the world a mask so he could survive it. But behind the eyeliner and the screams was a human being—a child of God, no less—carrying more than most of us could fathom.
And if we dare to look closely, we might see in that chaos a mirror.
We all ride the crazy train sometimes.
We all wrestle with our own private madness.
We all want to scream into the sky and say:
“This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be!”
Back to the Firepit
And now, back to that photo.
I look at it again—Ozzy beside Neil, John, and Eddie—and I can’t help but feel a strange sense of the holy. There they are—or at least, a dream conjured by memory.
But if you’re willing to more than look, you’ll see through the image a window into something real.
That firepit has been the gathering place of our family for years. A sacred space of birthdays and beverages, guitars and grace. Sometimes over ninety of us—laughing, praying, singing, crying, sharing stories. Some of us loud, others quiet. But always together. It’s where heaven has kissed earth—punctuated by miracles. Emotional and physical healings that have defied explanation.
That place—our backyard, before that fire—has reminded us not just who we are, but Whose we are. A Someone who made us for more than this world. Who fashioned us for glory.
And that’s the key to it all: we were made of glory to give Him glory.
Every gift—every riff, rhythm, lyric, and soul-shout—was never meant to end in itself, but to return to the Source. We are not the song; we are the instruments. What matters is the Hands that play us.
So when I see that image—those four titans of rock seated like brothers—I don’t just see legacy. I see longing. I wonder what their brilliance might look like, refined before the throne of God. What sound might now be rising—not as performance, but as praise? What kind of music—pure, perfect, eternal—might burst forth from souls finally free of the distortions of this world?
Could it be… that the very gifts that drew millions to their feet might now draw saints and angels into awe?
Not a new band, but a glorified one.
Perhaps these four greats are closer than we think. Perhaps they are, even now, being refined in a different kind of fire. Not one that destroys. But one that perfects. A holy fire.
Because this life is no escape from suffering. As anyone alive for more than ten seconds can attest, this world is a purgatorial pilgrimage—a journey through ache and awe, through loss and love. A journey that calls us not to numb the pain, but to let it teach us how to receive.
To receive truth. To receive one another. To receive grace.
We’re not home yet. But we’re being made ready.
And maybe that’s what Ozzy was really shouting all along.
So pray for him. Not because he was perfect, but because he wasn’t.
Not because he was lost, but because he longed.
And not because he screamed into the void—but because something in his scream helped us recognize our own.
There is another train. And the good news is:
It still has room.
Climb aboard.
Let the fire refine you.
Let the rails lead you home.
And as you go, play your note—your own gift—
not for applause,
but for the glory of the One who gave it.
Because in the end, every soul finds its crescendo in the eternal symphony of Love.
Greg Schlueter is an author, speaker, and movement leader passionate about restoring faith, family, and culture. In addition to directing communication and marketing for the Institute of American Constitutional Thought and Leadership, he leads Image Trinity (ILoveMyFamily.us), a dynamic marriage and family movement, and offers thought-provoking commentary on his blog, GregorianRant.us. He hosts the popular radio program and podcast IGNITE Radio Live alongside his wife, fostering meaningful conversations that inspire transformation. They are blessed with seven children (one in heaven) and a growing number of grandchildren. Recent books: The Magnificent Piglets of Pigletsville, Twelve Roses, Ride Of A Lifetime, and Slaying Giants (SlayingGiants.us).
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