Ozzy Osbourne fans are familiar with "Suicide Solution" and most likely the controversial story surrounding the song. Now, the Prince of Darkness has finally explained the meaning behind the song released in 1980.
Despite the name – which translates to something like "Suicide Solution" – Ozzy always said that the lyrics had a message against the practice; however, even so, the vocalist was the target of a lawsuit that cited the song as the cause of the suicide death of a young man in the USA. Jack McCollum took his own life while listening to the song.
Ozzy, however, won the lawsuit and on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the album Blizzard of Ozz , the singer explained the true meaning of the song in a track-by-track analysis of the album for SiriusXM . He insists that people “got it all wrong”.
“Well, all of that was taken out of context. Look, we wrote that song about… We were all having a really heavy drinking session at the time. I had been drinking heavily for a long, long time. And it’s like, ‘Suicide Solution’ means a solution in the liquid sense—not a form of resolution. People got all of that wrong.”
“Sharon [Osbourne, Ozzy’s wife and manager] called me in England. She said, ‘Get on a plane. You need to show up.’ I said, ‘Tell me what I need to show up for.’ She said, ‘I’ll tell you when you get here.’ I said, ‘Problems?’ She said, ‘Just get on the damn plane.’ I got to Los Angeles airport, got off at the terminal, and there must have been about 200 cameras. I’m looking over my shoulder [while] standing there, and [there were] about 15 microphones in front of me: ‘What do you think of this lawsuit?’ And I’m like, ‘What lawsuit? I’m going back to the hotel. I’ll find out what it’s about.’”
See the full interview below.
