“Can you believe I’m in Ozzy’s hometown tonight?” It’s a quarter to ten, and Lita Ford, 66, is backstage at K.K. Downing’s club in Birmingham, zipped into leather, the air thick with anticipation and sweat. Ford is about to deliver what will be the most wrenching live performance of “Close My Eyes Forever” — her aching 1989 power ballad with Ozzy Osbourne that became Osbourne’s first and only Top 10 hit.
“It’s going to be really emotional,” she says. “I didn’t tear up until I turned around and looked at the beautiful stage set we have in Ozzy’s honor, and everything sort of kicked in. I keep thinking — how did we end up here? How did Ozzy end up passing away? And here we are in Birmingham — Birmingham! — where it all began.”
That kind of eerie alignment is how the song came into the world in the first place. It was 1987. Ford was 29, figuring out her post-Runaways identity; Osbourne was 39, adrift in addiction. But one wine-soaked night at Record One Studios in Los Angeles, the two rockers went into a cramped room with a keyboard and an amp, and by morning, had written something bruised, delicate, and timeless.
Ford spoke to Rolling Stone about that night, what Black Sabbath meant to her, and the Easter dinner that ended with Osbourne holding a carving knife as everyone realized, a bit too late, that this was not a great idea.
Tonight feels like a night to remember where we came from, where Ozzy came from, where we all came from, and the music that lives through our souls. I know the audience is going to get pretty choked up when they hear “Close My Eyes.”
Ozzy has been such a huge part of my life in so many ways, starting from when I was just a little girl. I grew up listening to Black Sabbath. I used to walk through the house and play their riffs on guitar. My first concert ever was Black Sabbath in 1972 — I was just a teenager. My parents didn’t always like everybody, but they always tolerated Black Sabbath and supported me. My mother would always ask me, “Oh, Lita, play some Black Sabbath!” So I’d go off and play “War Pigs” or something, and she loved it. She was a big fan, and both my parents loved Ozzy and Sharon.
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One time they came over for Easter dinner. Picture this: a small middle-class neighborhood, and they pull up in a limousine. Of course, Ozzy gets out with Sharon, and the neighbors were losing their minds.
Sharon comes in and sits down in the middle of my bed — I still lived at home, had been there since before The Runaways days in 1975. She was tiny, had lost a bunch of weight, and she sat cross-legged and looked at me. “Do you like my belt?” she asked. I said, “Yeah, it’s awesome.” She smiled and said, “I haven’t worn this belt since I was 14.” She felt so good and was so happy.
Meanwhile, Ozzy sat in the corner of the living room and chugged a bottle of wine. We gave him a glass, but he put it down, grabbed the bottle, and started to sink slowly into the sofa. After he finished the wine, my father asked if he wanted to carve the Easter lamb — my mother had roasted a leg of lamb. “Yeah, I’ll cut it,” he said. My father handed him the knife, and he got up and started cutting. Somehow it slipped off the table, went off the plate, and ended up underneath the table. My father stood there and laughed his ass off at Ozzy. He thought Ozzy was so entertaining and amusing — and he was. Then Ozzy looks up at my mom and says, “I don’t eat meat.”
Ozzy was, by the way, always the best-dressed guy. He always had the best clothes, jewelry, and shoes. Sharon was a big part of that, but he just looked amazing all the time. Sometimes there’s money — a lot of money — and looking amazing, and sometimes there’s just getting yourself together without so much money. You’ve got to find those magic things and own them and wear them and be who you are.
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The night we wrote “Close My Eyes Forever” came not too long after that. Sharon had come over to the studio to see me with a housewarming gift: a life-size duplicate of Koko, this massive gorilla. After she left, Ozzy stayed at the studio. There was a little room off to the corner of the control room with a keyboard and guitar, so we went in there and started playing. Ozzy started singing, I started playing the guitar parts, and it all came together overnight. By the time we came out of that little room, the sun was up. We were a little high, I have to admit.
Sometimes that’s what you’ve got to do — you just have to lose yourself to be creative. I mean, I pick my poison every once in a while when I need an attitude adjustment. Mine is whiskey. I love my whiskey. Artists as creative as Ozzy, who grew up in Black Sabbath, need something to take the edge off. Ozzy enjoyed drinking and doing drugs — he enjoyed it. He also became more creative when he drank and did drugs, though he might pass out afterwards.
During the creative process, sometimes you just have to have a little bit of poison to write something like that. These songs are poisonous songs, and I think that’s what everybody loves about them. That’s why people can relate.
That morning, we came out with this great song. I drove home with Koko strapped to the front seat of my Jeep. Ozzy went the opposite direction over Laurel Canyon — we put him in a taxi because I couldn’t drive all the way over there and back. When he got home, Sharon was upset with us. She called and gave me a mouthful, and I’m sure Ozzy got one too. She was not happy. But hey, we got a Top Ten hit single out of it, so I’m going to be happy about that.
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“Close My Eyes Forever” is something a lot of people play at funerals. A lot of people have love for that song because it’s beautiful.
In Ozzy’s name, keep rocking. Great rock stars never truly die.
