{"id":286251,"date":"2025-11-27T14:19:26","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T14:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/286251\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T14:19:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T14:19:26","slug":"ozzy-osbournes-crazy-train-the-story-behind-the-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/286251\/","title":{"rendered":"Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train: the story behind the song"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summer \u201979, and West Hollywood\u2019s glitzy Le Parc Hotel has a nuisance guest. In the months since his ejection from Black Sabbath<\/a>, Ozzy Osbourne<\/a> has holed up in a suite he can scarcely afford, nursing \u201cboxes of beer\u201d and feeling \u201cunhappy as fuck\u201d.<\/p>\n

Reports of the singer\u2019s state are sketchy \u2013 his most regular visitor is his dealer \u2013 but the rumour is that he\u2019s not long for the music industry, nor for this world. \u201cI really did think: \u2018This is the fucking end for me,\u2019\u201d he told Classic Rock in 2010<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019d been booted out. I just got fucked up every day. Never went outside. Never even opened the drapes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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There is some debate over the roots of the band that resurrected Ozzy. His own recollection is that \u201cone morning, Sharon just came round and told me: \u2018Get your shit together, I\u2019ll manage you.\u2019 Once she was in the picture, things got rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n

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But bassist and co-writer Bob Daisley recalls the timeline differently, insisting Ozzy\u2019s future wife \u201chad fuck-all to do with it when it started\u201d, and that he co-founded a line-up that was originally planned as an egalitarian band, not a star vehicle (\u201cIt wasn\u2019t \u2018the Ozzy Osbourne solo record\u2019,\u201d he told me. \u201cThat\u2019s absolute bollocks\u201d).<\/p>\n

Neither side, however, denies the impact of Californian guitarist Randy Rhoads<\/a>. At their first meeting, at the offices of Jet Records in late 1979, Daisley recalls the ex-Quiet Riot guitarist as a wisp of a man. \u201cI walk in and see this young guy. His clothes were very fitted, his hair was perfect, his nails were manicured.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Photo\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Yet looks deceived. Rhoads brought a ferocious neo-classical guitar technique \u2013 and an irresistible riff that lit up the band\u2019s first writing sessions. Unusually, the Crazy Train lick was not in the standard metal keys of \u2018A\u2019 or \u2018E\u2019, marking the first time a guitarist had written to order for Ozzy\u2019s doomy holler.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Sabbath,\u201d he noted, \u201cthey\u2019d just write something and say, \u2018Put a vocal on that\u2019. Randy was the first guy to make it comfortable for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Classic Rock, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

Years later, questions would be raised over the authorship of the Crazy Train riff (\u201cWe were hanging out, and I showed Randy the riff to Steve Miller\u2019s Swingtown,\u201d said Quiet Riot<\/a>\u2019s Greg Leon. \u201cI said: \u2018Look what happens when you speed this riff up.\u2019 We messed around, and the next thing I know he took it to a whole other level\u201d).<\/p>\n

Daisley, however, is adamant that \u201cthat signature riff in F-sharp-minor from Crazy Train was Randy\u2019s, then I wrote the part for him to solo over, and Ozzy had the vocal melody. The title came because Randy had an effect that was making a psychedelic chugging sound through his amp. Randy and I were train buffs, and I said: \u2018That sounds like a crazy train.\u2019 Ozzy had this saying \u2018You\u2019re off the rails!\u2019 so I used that in the lyrics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beneath the verse\u2019s piston-pump chug, however, the Crazy Train lyric tackled weightier themes than runaway locomotives. In echoes of Geezer Butler<\/a>\u2019s observations on Sabbath\u2019s War Pigs, this new song carried an anti-conflict message, most notably in a final verse that referenced \u2018Heirs of a cold war, that\u2019s what we\u2019ve become\/ Inheriting troubles, I\u2019m mentally numb\u2019.<\/p>\n

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OZZY OSBOURNE – “Crazy Train” (Official Video) – YouTube
\n\"OZZY<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

After fruitful rehearsals at Gloucestershire\u2019s Clearwell Castle, recording for Ozzy\u2019s Blizzard Of Ozz album began at Surrey\u2019s Ridge Farm studios in March 1980. While Daisley was given the nickname \u2018Sid Serious\u2019 for his perfectionism, Ozzy\u2019s behaviour was harder to call.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019d start out pretty straight and sober, probably take a bottle of scotch in there with him,\u201d engineer Max Norman told KNAC. \u201cHe\u2019d be nipping away at the scotch as we were doing a song\u2026 If he wanted to take a piss in the middle of the take, he\u2019d do it right there on the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

By contrast, when it came to tracking the formidable Crazy Train solo, Rhoads was sober and laser-focused, playing and recording three near-identical passes of the tapping and dive-bomb-packed passage.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you listen to Crazy Train real close,\u201d Norman told Jas Obrecht, \u201cyou\u2019ll hear there\u2019s one main guitar around the centre, and two others playing exactly the same thing, panned to the left and right. What happens is you don\u2019t hear them, you just hear it as one guitar. Randy was the best guy at overdubbing solos and tracking them that I\u2019ve ever seen. I mean, he used to blow me away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Released as a single in 1980, Crazy Train was only a minor hit (peaking at No.49 in the UK). But the song was a highlight of the Blizzard Of Ozz tour which lifted Ozzy out of the doldrums, and its influence on the guitar scene was inestimable.<\/p>\n

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\"Fin\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember the moment I first heard Randy,\u201d says Rage Against The Machine<\/a> guitarist Tom Morello<\/a>. \u201cI was packed in the back of somebody\u2019s mom\u2019s hatchback in Libertyville, and Crazy Train came on. This blistering riff came at me, followed by an incredible solo, and of course there was Ozzy \u2013 I recognised his voice as the guy from Black Sabbath. By the end I was like: \u2018What just happened?\u2019 Randy was the greatest hard rock guitar player of all time.\u201d<\/p>\n

But not for long. Following the notorious plane crash in March 1982 that killed Rhoads and two others, the song became a bittersweet moment in the Osbourne catalogue. More recently, its emotional wrench was painfully evident on a 2016 episode of the father-and-son journey Ozzy And Jack\u2019s World Detour, with Ozzy sat shell-shocked as he listens to a long-lost and unmixed master tape of the song that saved him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember the fun we had writing and making Crazy Train,\u201d he says to the camera. \u201cListening to this, it\u2019s like going back to a good time, but a really horrible time at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crazy Train (Live 1981) – YouTube
\n\"Crazy<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summer \u201979, and West Hollywood\u2019s glitzy Le Parc Hotel has a nuisance guest. In the months since his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-286251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}