My daughter is a professional musician and has always had a tremendous grasp on all aspects of music. There was always music of many kinds in our house, either being played on the stereo or live with guitar and piano and voice. From heavy metal to classical to rap, we listened to all of it. One day, when she was about 2 1/2, we heard her humming a tune in her sweet little toddler voice. As we approached, I recognized it as “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath. It is a pretty easy piece to play, and I played and sang it often. Yes – my children grew up listening to the Prince of Darkness and his band on a regular basis, and they turned out okay. Maybe we can lay that ridiculous argument to rest.
I was told by well-meaning, but fairly clueless Christians that if I listened to that kind of music, it would ruin my soul; this is one of the reasons so many churches promoted Christian versions of popular music. To me, most of the lyrics in Christian rock are boring or vapid, but the notes and chords are the same as its secular sibling; there’s even religious screamo music, although nobody can understand the lyrics. My favorite bands growing up were Led Zeppelin (too sensual), Queen (too gay), and Black Sabbath (too satanic); and yet, I turned out okay. The thing most people missed about Ozzy was that many of his and Black Sabbath’s lyrics were more God-focused than so-called holy roller rock. Take “War Pigs” (v. 3), for example. “Hand of God has struck the hour, Day of Judgment God is calling. On their knees the war pigs crawling, begging mercies for their sins. Satan laughing, spreads his wings.” Sounds like a line from a fire and brimstone sermon!
In “Crazy Train”, Ozzy sang, “Crazy, but that’s how it goes, millions of people living as foes. Maybe it’s not too late to learn how to love and forget how to hate.” So sure, maybe he bit the heads off of a couple of winged creatures (possibly by accident), and he, like so many in his world, ingested dangerous amounts of drugs and alcohol; but so did lots of other people through history. Ozzy died this week, leaving a mixed legacy, but his relationship with God was probably no different than most of ours. May he rest in power and be remembered for the good he did. Let’s hope and pray that God gives him the same grace we seek for ourselves. Thanks for the music, Ozzy; you were one of the best.
Prayer – Holy God, forgive us for the wrong we have done, and give us grace, we pray. Amen.
Today’s art is the album cover of Black Sabbath’s “Heaven and Hell.”