Randy VS. Speak Of The Devil

[axeman_12656]

BTW, are we supposed to believe that Ozzy played the harmonica on The Wizard Any eyewitnesses here?

I saw him play it with Sabbath in 2004. When he did it then it was far from perfect, but sounded fine. Not to mention Bill Ward doesn't play to a click track so It was live. Otherwise the timing would be off.

[the crush]

First time posting here. I agree with all of the different possible reasons for Randy maybe not liking Sabbath tunes, except I don't agree with the guy who thought that maybe Randy's Christian upbringing made Sabbath's lyrics put him off. This is the biggest myth in history of rock - that Sabbath's (with Ozzy) lyrics should be in any way Satanic! On the first LP some songs mention the name Satan and Lucifer and that's about it. Sabbath's lyrics are dark at times, sure, but so were Ozzy's (or Bob's to be accurate) too so I can't see why Sabbath's lyrics in any way should put Randy off.

Regarding the Sabbath songs in Ozzy's set with Randy. I agree that Randy does them good, but what I can't understand is why they did those three songs only for all the tours. It's not like those three were Sabbath's only big numbers. Why didn't they mix those songs up with some other Sabbath tunes?

that would have been cool if they did mix up different sabbath tunes during their tour i have always woundered why they just did the 3 sabbath songs to you think they would of added different songs thru the couple years they toured

[Anders Hedman]

First of all, welcome.

Thank you.

They sang pro-drug songs which are offensive to many people, Christian and non-Christian alike.

Only "Sweet Leaf" and "Killing yourself to live" come to my mind as openly pro-drugs (pot) ("Hand of Doom" on the other hand is anti-heroin), but Ozzy (with Randy) promotes pot just as much in "Flying high again", so why should promoting pot put Randy off?

They did promote the Satanic image, so saying it's the 'biggest myth in the history of rock' is kinda silly. It's only later that the members of the band grew up and wanted to get away from the whole Satanic image.

I believe it's quite the opposite. Take the record sleeves for example. With Ozzy the only Satanic image I can find is the inverted cross on the fold out to the first LP (something the band claim was the record company's idea). It's after Ozzy left that the images started to touch on Satanism. Take "Born Again" from 83 with its devil-child or the last album with Dio (as Heaven and Hell), "The Devil you know", with a grotesque painting of some Satan-like figure, for example. Besides, how a band where every member wore Christian crosses around their necks ever could be accused of being satanic goes beyond me. Actually I can even find quite a bunch of BS songs promoting Christianity or equal themes ("After Forever" is most openly pro-Christian).

Ozzy loves to bring up the fact that he's not a Satanist, yet he was more than happy to promote the image on his way up the ladder of stardom.

Please exemplify when he promoted this image!

Having said that, Randy was well known for disliking some bands because he simply didn't like the songs...

And this is probably the reason he didn't like to play the Sabbath songs. That and the fact that he felt that with two albums with Ozzy under their belt they should've had enough material to do shows with only their own songs.

Out of curiosity, why'd you pick this old thread for your first post? I mean it's over a year old...

You gotta start somewhere I resently discovered this forum and got absorbed by all the interesting posts, and felt I had little to add to the vast knowledge among the frequent posters. But this post made me finally take the step to post something, because I feel that Sabbath promoting a Satanic image is actually a bit of a myth which I like to point out. Cheers!

[Tito]

theres no such thing as bad publicity in rock n roll!!!!

[Paul Wolfe]

They did promote the Satanic image, so saying it's the 'biggest myth in the history of rock' is kinda silly. It's only later that the members of the band grew up and wanted to get away from the whole Satanic image.

I believe it's quite the opposite. Take the record sleeves for example. With Ozzy the only Satanic image I can find is the inverted cross on the fold out to the first LP (something the band claim was the record company's idea).

This is from the Ozzy era of Black Sabbath:



As for the 'Christian' crosses, what makes a cross 'Christian'? The crucifix - a cross with a representation of Christ being crucified on it - is Christian. A cross in and of itself could be anything. It was originally a device used by the Romans to kill people, so how do you know Ozzy wasn't promoting that? I'm not saying he was, it's just an example.

Ozzy with Black Sabbath made music to scare people. They themselves said that when the started. 'People like scary movies, maybe they'll like scary music' The name itself insinuates Satanism - the sabbath is the day of rest to praise God, so the black sabbath is to praise Satan. It was a gimmick and it worked! But to call it a myth is wrong. They started it, so they must live with it.


I'm not attacking you, because obviously you can back up your opinion and I appreciate that. I am just elaborating on my opinion. It's good to have the discussions... it stimulates the brain when I have to think!

[Stiltzkin]

[zzy with Black Sabbath made music to scare people. They themselves said that when the started. 'People like scary movies, maybe they'll like scary music' The name itself insinuates Satanism - the sabbath is the day of rest to praise God, so the black sabbath is to praise Satan. It was a gimmick and it worked! But to call it a myth is wrong. They started it, so they must live with it.

source of inspiration

[Paul Wolfe]

NIIIIIIICE!

[Stiltzkin]

NIIIIIIICE!

yeah that's what started the whole scary movies/scary idea.
I believe they were gigging in Germany(as Earth) when they saw the
'Black Sabbath' poster, so while the name and basic idea might stem
from something remotely satanic, in their(Black Sabbath) case,
it came from a movie

[Anders Hedman]

This is from the Ozzy era of Black Sabbath:

I forgot about that one, since I was dumb enough not to scan through the BS covers before posting. But nevertheless - record sleeves with Satanic images are scarce among the Ozzy era BS albums.

As for the 'Christian' crosses, what makes a cross 'Christian'? The crucifix - a cross with a representation of Christ being crucified on it - is Christian. A cross in and of itself could be anything. It was originally a device used by the Romans to kill people, so how do you know Ozzy wasn't promoting that? I'm not saying he was, it's just an example.

The cross with the diagonal above the middle is recognized as Christian among most people, and of course BS knew that. I can't see it being interpreted any other way, really, even though the symbol probably has represented various things over time. It's the same with the inverted cross: people recognize it as Satanic and that's why lots of bands who want to steer up some attention use it. Even though I've read the inverted crucifix is originally Christian as well, but does that matter as long as most people recognize it as the Satanic cross?

Ozzy with Black Sabbath made music to scare people. They themselves said that when the started. 'People like scary movies, maybe they'll like scary music' The name itself insinuates Satanism - the sabbath is the day of rest to praise God, so the black sabbath is to praise Satan. It was a gimmick and it worked! But to call it a myth is wrong. They started it, so they must live with it.

I agree with what you write. But over all they left all the occult themes pretty fast after the first album. Except for the SBS sleeve there's hardly any Satanic references after the first album. The albums after Ozzy is a different kettle of fish, or how you say it (English, as you understand, is not my native language).

I'm not attacking you, because obviously you can back up your opinion and I appreciate that. I am just elaborating on my opinion. It's good to have the discussions... it stimulates the brain when I have to think!

A good discussion is always stimulating. I'm no expert on BS, haven't read any in-depth biographies about them, but I've loved them for three decades and It's always amazed me how they are always associated with this Satanic image, when in reality it's a very small part of what that they did which you can say are flirting with Satanism.

[RRFan4Ever]

I've read the inverted crucifix is originally Christian

St Peter was crucified upside down evidently, so the inverted cross can be Christian also.