Mama, I’m Coming Home: Remembering Ozzy Osbourne

Sitting atop a black throne, clad in leather, Ozzy held the microphone like a saber to his mouth. The Prince of Darkness was making his last appearance before the court of heavy metal. This show, billed as Back to the Beginning, was meant to be his final performance – and it was. All proceeds from the show went to the organization Cure Parkinson’s, raising up to $190 million. He was joined by all stars of metal from Metallica, Anthrax, Tom Morello, Gojira, and rock musicians across the gamut – truly too many to list – all uniting to pay tribute to their forebearer. But with all that star power, there was only one star that mattered – Ozzy himself. 

“The times have changed and times are strange,” he sang from his throne. “Here I come, but I ain't the same. Mama, I'm coming home.”

Osbourne was visibly emotional in the performance. While he’s an icon of heavy metal ever since his days fronting the vastly influential Black Sabbath, this powerful ballad has become something of a rallying cry. “Mama, I’m Coming Home” is one of his most overtly sentimental works, made all the more impactful knowing the riotous spirit that was Ozzy, the Prince of Darkness, who would bite the heads off bats and wreak havoc across our mortal realm, could also be so tender and thoughtful. But here, he’d never sounded so weary and so reflective. The crowded stadium held up their lighters, many people visibly crying as he sang. 

The performance came just a few weeks before his death. Osbourne passed away on July 22, 2025. He was 76. A cause of death has not been announced, but Osbourne has been open with his health issues over the years, including Parkinson’s disease and a spinal injury. 

“It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning,” his family shared in a statement. “He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time.”

Saying Osbourne was an icon feels like underselling it. Born Dec. 3, 1948 in Birmingham, England, Osbourne felt the call to music when he was 14 after hearing The Beatles song “She Loves You.” Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler played in a band called Rare Breed in the late 1960s. After the band broke up in 1967, they were both recruited by Tony Iommi and Bill Ward and formed a new band in 1968 that would become Black Sabbath (starting as The Pola Tulk Blues Band, then Earth, before eventually settling on their final name). 

From the beginning, the band adopted imagery and aesthetics of the occult. On their 1970 debut self-titled record, they opened up with a song also called “Black Sabbath,” based off a supernatural experience Butler recalls after reading an occult book during the making of the album. Over Iommi’s brooding riffs and Ward’s menacing drums, Osbourne’s devilish vocals bellow, “What is this that stands before me? Figure in black, which points at me.” It was a mission statement from hell, setting the band on a path of darkness that would make them key figures in the development of heavy metal. Within even just the first track you can feel the birth of doom metal and the start of generations of people young and old, offering up their souls to the altar of metal. 

Later that year, Black Sabbath released their breakthrough album, Paranoid. The album has since become a classic, many of the songs become something of rock standards – the riotous title track, the foreboding “War Pigs,” and the sensational “Iron Man.” And that’s without getting into some of the album’s experimental, psychedelic moments like “Electric Funeral” or the stunning “Planet Caravan.” 

Album after album, Sabbath continued to rewrite the playbook on rock music. 1971’s Master of Reality continued to push the band into new dimensions, real and metaphorical with menacing tracks like the opener “Sweet Leaf” and stunning reflective pieces like “Solitude.” They’d continue to build on these dynamics with 1972’s Vol. 4, which also included a massive left turn with Osbourne pulling back the veil of darkness with “Changes,” one of his most affecting vocal performances. 

Osbourne fronted Black Sabbath through 1979 before he was dismissed due to his mounting substance abuse problems and replaced by Ronnie James Dio. This spurred Osbourne into starting his momentous solo career, composing his first two solo albums (1980’s Blizzard of Ozz and 1981’s Diary of a Madman) alongside guitarist Randy Rhodes. Together they composed some of Ozzy’s greatest hits, including the iconic “Crazy Train” and “Mr. Crowley.” Rhodes would die in 1982 in a tragic plane crash while touring with Osbourne.  

Osbourne’s career highlights would only continue. He’d put out 13 solo albums, and reunited with Black Sabbath for a world tour in 2011 as well as the group’s final album titled 13 in 2013. He starred in his own reality show, Meet the Osbournes, alongside his family from 2002 to 2005. His wife Sharon Osbourne and son Jack Osbourne organized the highly successful Ozzfest touring music festival throughout the ‘90s and into the 2000s, bearing his name and which Ozzy and Black Sabbath would frequently play. 

Going through Osbourne’s accomplishments and the things he’s influenced here is a fool’s errand. There’s simply too much to list. And even all of those don’t totally encompass who Ozzy was. He wasn’t the platinum records and the commercial hit singles. Ozzy was larger than life itself. 

Much gets made about the idea of a “real rock star.” Who knows what that means, who gets to call something real or not. Arguments about authenticity in metal and rock music generally will plague us forever. I doubt there will ever be universal agreement. But there does feel like something we can all agree on. Ozzy was instrumental in all of this. This beautiful world of hard rock, heavy metal, hardcore lifestyle, that feeling in your spine when a brutal riff blares and the singer’s voice sails up into the stratosphere. 

Losing Ozzy hurts. As much as we all knew this day would come, as much as Ozzy himself knew it would come, it still hurts. And yet he gave us this beautiful parting gift. Not just a catalog of music, but a final performance that didn’t just honor himself but everything that came out of the music he, Ward, Iommi, Geezer, Rhodes, and so many others made.

His heartwrenching performance of “Mama, I’m Coming Home” wasn’t the finale. He ended the epic all-day concert the way it all began, alongside his musical brothers of Black Sabbath. As the crowd cheered along, they gave one final hurrah – a ripping rendition of “Paranoid.” It’s a time-honored tradition to play one of your biggest songs last. But ending with “Paranoid” also seemed to say something more. It was a way for a rock star to burn out in a blaze of glory, not to fade away. A passing of the blow torch. The Prince of Darkness has left us from this realm, but his spirit will live on eternally. 

Join us in remembering Ozzy Osbourne on the airwaves and revisit some of our favorite songs from his career below.