In part two, I said a few things about Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osborne. The album in the picture of the pile of naughty albums was…as noted earlier, …

…Bark at the Moon.

I am unaware of any complaints about this album. It was not hard to…

…parody. And it generated…

…some cool toys. Be careful, Ozzy…remember what merchandising did to Kiss!

However, the following two albums…

The two seminal albums by Ozzy Osbourne. The album cover to the left is quite good. The cover on the right is goofy. However, the back cover of Diary of a Madman…

…Evil Ozzy gives way to Rock Star Ozzy. And…

…that. A great song to object to, albeit mistakenly, is the highly controversial song titled…Suicide Solution. This was not included in the Filthy Fifteen but was a song that was briefly discussed amongst the records that didn’t make the list. However, there was a look-back. Def Leppard’s…High n’ Dry… was released in 1981, and Back in Black, the album that featured the song…Let Me Put my Love into You, was released in 1980. But if we go back to 1980, well…Ozzy Osbourne’s album featuring…Suicide Solution was also released that year. And this song has been widely criticized by Anti-Rockers as promoting suicide. In 1985, Ozzy Osbourne was charged with contributing to the suicide of John McCollum…

…by using hidden lyrics said to be found in Suicide Solution. Many claimed that it was the song itself that encouraged youths to commit suicide. It went to trial, but the case was eventually thrown out. McCollum was a high school dropout who had a history of alcohol abuse and emotional problems. He was, of course, an avid fan of Ozzy Osbourne. And there was considerable confusion on the part of the plaintiffs. The argument was made that John McCollum, listening to Suicide Solution, decided to kill himself, and so he went to his bedroom and shot himself in the head. There was, of course, a problem with this…

…this was the album that was found on John’s turntable. And what is on this album? Yes, Ozzy performing Black Sabbath songs. Suicide Solution is NOT on this album…

…John McCollum’s father shows us the record that was found on his son’s turntable. The accusation was that there was a hidden lyric in Suicide Solution that says…get the gun, shoot, shoot, shoot! If you listen to a cut of just the vocals and guitar, which is available on YouTube, you will hear another lyric and Ozzy’s characteristic maniacal laughter, along with a nonsense vocal noise that repeats itself, and does sort of sound like the word…shoot. However, this isn’t the case. When asked, Ozzy said that the lyric really says…you gotta, get the flaps out, a course sexual reference. Listening to the studio version of the song, it is very hard to hear this lyric. However, in April 1987, Ozzy released an album called…

…Tribute. It was a live album, recorded during the years 1980-1981. Tragically, guitarist Randy Rhodes died in plane crash in 1982. It seems that Ozzy didn’t just lose a good guitarist…he lost a good friend. Tribute was an album showcasing Ozzy and Randy’s live performances. Suicide Solution is on this album. What can be hidden in a studio album can’t be hidden live. If you listen to the song on the live album, you will clearly and unmistakably hear…

You gotta, get the flaps out.

The live album may be dated 1987, but the recordings took place in 1980-1981. This shows that what Ozzy said he sings in Suicide Solution is, in fact, what is really there. There is no…get the gun. At the same time, it can be said that it is very painful to try to help a son who seems to be clearly troubled, only to have him commit suicide…the ultimate act of rejection and betrayal. How cathartic it would be to find something…someone…to blame, rather than spend the rest of your life wondering if there was something else you could’ve done but didn’t. That issue was brought up in a another lawsuit against Ozzy, and it involved the same song. In April 1988, Walter Kulkusky got off the bus at school, walked into the woods behind the school, and shot himself with a .22 caliber handgun. All such cases are terrible tragedies. Kulkusky’s case had some oddities, i.e. his body was found 40 feet from a shed that had 666 painted on it. Police were able to determine that the graffiti had been there for at least 2 years. The number 666 is a rather common piece of graffiti. But, according to the Book of Revelation, it is said to be the number of the beast, and was originally the Emperor Nero. At any rate, an Ozzy cassette tape was found in Kulkusky’s pocket. His case was a sad one…he moved to Edison, New Jersey two years prior…momentarily bringing up the 666 painted on the shed. But two years later, he was still failing to make the adjustment, and was being mentally evaluated. He had been making frequent visits to a school counselor. He was described as a loner, depressed, and obsessed with someone who wasn’t interested in him. Keep this in mind, it will come up again in another accusation levelled at Ozzy. And it is strange how priorities get all out of whack. While the people of Edison were brooding over a cassette tape found in a kid’s pocket, the police were brooding over something different…

The continuing investigation by police into the suicide Monday morning of a 16-year-old Edison High School junior is focusing on two main points. The first, according to Captain Angelo Bekiarian, is where Walter J. Kulkusky of Roosevelt Boulevard obtained the 22-calibre magnum revolver whose barrel he placed under his chin and fired under an evergreen tree in a field at the rear of the school.

That is a more important question than what kind of music the kid liked. As a nation of gun enthusiasts, we don’t like this question. But! The answer to the police’s question was even more important…

Hernandez claimed that he heard another youth on the bus tell Kulkusky that he should give the gun back to his brother and he also reported that he had heard Kulkusky talking a week earlier about killing himself.

Ok, so how did Robert Kulkusky come to own a .22 caliber Magnum?

Robert found himself in a bit of trouble…

When the same County Prosecutor, Alan Rockoff, decided to blame heavy metal music in general, he was met with opposition by an unlikely source…

This case goes a long to show that critics don’t know what they’re talking about. In most of the articles, the name of the album is not specifically stated. But that’s not always the case…

So here, they got the right album, but it is the live album…Tribute, and not Blizzard of Ozz. Eventually, other songs were cited…

…Goodbye to Romance? Did they even read the lyrics? Ah, but the reason Kulkusky committed suicide was because his girlfriend broke up with him, suggesting to some that was what Goodbye to Romance was all about. This is nonsense, the song is about leaving your past behind you, and moving on to a happier life.

I say goodbye to romance,
Goodbye to friends,
Goodbye to all the past,
I guess that we'll meet, we'll meet in the end.

There is nothing suicidal or even negative in this song…it is a song of hope and optimism.

But, two songs…now…

Rockoff also revealed that Kulkusky had in his possession TWO tapes by the heavy metal rock performer Ozzy Osbourne in support of his contention that such music was a contributing factor. One was the song Suicide Solution and the other was Goodbye to Romance.

Doesn’t there seem to be a lot of stumbling around? First, it was Suicide Solution, album not specified. Then the album was said to be Tribute, which does have Goodbye to Romance on it. So two songs, and now, two tapes. I have been unable to find a copy of Kulkusky’s suicide note, which no doubt specified why he did what he did.

So, what failure happened here. A depressed teenager who displayed suicide ideation, had been, as was also true of the McCollum case, giving warnings about the tragedy that then played out. Depression…then suicidal ideation…then suicide. However, Kulkusky was being counseled at school. What was the school’s position on this case? I’m sure that the counselor knew more than anyone, although blaming Ozzy Osbourne for what happened would deflect any potential investigation into the real cause of Kulkusky’s suicide…the break-up with his girlfriend. Break-ups  and divorces are notorious for resulting in homicides, suicides, and homicide-suicide scenarios.

But we’re not done with blaming Ozzy and Suicide Solution. A third case involved another teen suicide. Michael Waller of Charleston, South Carolina, shot himself in the head on May 3, 1986. He had no stereo, so he listened to music at friends’ houses or in the cab of his pick-up truck. And he had talked about committing suicide for two weeks before he did it, so one wonders what was done about that. The cause of his suicide may be traced to a DUI he received in March1986, during which Michael got into a fight with the cop who pulled him over and maced him.

Michael Waller talked about committing suicide for weeks. He said he was going to be drunk when he did it.

Both his sister and his father noted that Michael was…preoccupied…about his fear of going to jail.

One afternoon we were talking about his problem, and I told him that he’d get through this DUI charge and things would work out. And he said to me…Pop, I believe ol’ Oz has the solution. I didn’t know what he meant at the time, and I said I didn’t know if he did but there was a solution, and he repeated it. He told me that 10 days before he killed himself. It wasn’t until I found the tape in his truck later that I knew what he was talking about.

When a teenager speaks about killing himself for two weeks, intervention is vital. And Michael Waller was apparently worried about the repercussions of his DUI arrest. His statement about ‘Ol Oz” led to the discovery of the cassette tape of Blizzard of Ozz in his truck. Other observations that can be made of Waller included nervous energy, trouble concentrating, and a dislike of school leading to poor performance.

He never sat around and watched television, his sister said. He always wanted to be outside on the porch. He would sit on our front porch for hours, even if it was 20 degrees.

He drank and smoked pot, had a violent temper, and got into fights. The more he drank, the more he seemed to fight. He also showed disassociate behavior. And things soon escalated:

It got worse…

Now for the cleric…

A few days later, a preacher to Northside Baptist Church, where Mr. Waller was a deacon, but had not attended service regularly for years, denounced the satanic evils of heavy metal music and talked about teenage suicides. Mr. Waller took most of his son’s tapes to the church and the congregation held a burning. A few days later, he approached Mr. Mills about filing a lawsuit against CBS and Mr. Osbourne.

A clergyman who took a radically different view of the matter was the Kulkusky’s family priest. Meet attorney Ben Mills…

Yes, the involvement of a lawyer and a cleric turned a tragic event into a circus. Mr. Waller stated that the lawsuit would…

Likely cost him his marriage.

Really? What a strange comment this is. Why should it cost him his marriage unless there were already problems?

There are other strange cases of suicide that lawyers decided to attribute to Ozzy, such as the case of Robert Beam, a 20-year-old warehouse worker who, on August 4, 1999, hooked up an exhaust pipe to flood the inside of his car, killing himself with carbon monoxide. The prosecutor stated that the tape-player was set to replay Suicide Solution over and over again. Like Kulkusky, the suicide took place behind a school, although in this case, Beam was found by cemetery workers. But as for music…

Police officers investigating the incident to Rusbarsky that the heavy metal song, “Suicide Solution” by Ozzy Osbourne was in the van’s cassette player. Other tapes by hard rock performers were found, Rusbarsky said, but he didn’t know their names.

Wow! It’s pretty convenient to not know the other tapes when discussing Suicide Solution, and, strangely, the cassette wasn’t named. In addition, a three-page suicide note was found on the dashboard, but I have been unable to locate a copy. Why?

Rockoff refused to reveal the contents of a note found in Beam’s van but said that friends mentioned in the note were being interviewed.

Ah! He had a beef with some of his friends.

It seems that County Prosecutor Alan Rockoff was also involved in the Beam suicide. But the PMRC weighed in on this case, with Jennifer Norwood, who brought up the nonsense from the McCollum case…

…which falls apart when the version on Tribute is brought into the picture. Though, that is a lot of…shoots.

Hattie Hamilton, also of Charleston, South Carolina, also experienced the pain that comes from a Loved One’s suicide. Her son, Harold Matthew Hamilton, on March 20, 1988, wrote a suicide note addressed to his sister. Then he stopped by his mother’s house for a final visit. He proceeded to park his car in a stranger’s driveway in Washington County, Georgia. A stranger found him slumped over the steering wheel of his car, pistol in hand, and a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Police rushed him to the hospital, where he soon died.  It was claimed that the album Tribute was in the tape deck of his car. But just who was Harold Hamilton?

There it is, John McCollum, Michael Waller, and the two adolescents whom I will discuss shortly, who were involved in the Judas Priest Fiasco. But clearly, Mom was wrong, although to sue Ozzy for a whopping 9 million dollars, Harold had to be a stable young man, though she honestly noted that her son was still abusing drugs and alcohol. Now, let see if this is familiar…

Yes, just like Walter KulKusky. And also, like another suicide supposedly associated with Ozzy which I will discuss shortly. It’s interesting that the suicide note was addressed to his sister, and not his mother. And once again we have one of the top causes of homicide and suicide…rejection.

So, we are getting bounced all over the place, with a strange pattern developing. The parents of McCollum got the wrong album. The parents of Michael Waller got the right album. The mother of Harold Hamilton cited the live album that proves, in the case of Suicide Solution, that the claims of hidden lyrics about suicide in this song are simply not true. The Hamilton suit came one week after the Waller suit was concluded when the judge ruled that the song did not contain subliminal messages, and the dismissal of the case came only a few weeks after Judas Priest was vindicated. So the only reason for an attorney to go forward with Hamilton’s case is money, since following in the wake of 3 defeats, how would one more lawsuit succeed? Ben Wills, prior to the chucking-out of the Waller case, attempted to distance himself from it, claiming there were no subliminal messages in the version of the song on the Tribute album. This is puzzling. The album blamed in the Waller case was not…Tribute, it was Blizzard of Ozz. It was the Hamilton case that cited Tribute, apparently without realizing that the version of Suicide Solution on that album vindicates Ozzy as far as hidden lyrics appearing in the song.

So what is Suicide Solution about?

When you want to know what a song is about…it seems that you would ask the guy who wrote it. Bon Scott? He’s talking about…

…the first lead singer of AC/DC. The band has always been known as a hard-drinking group of guys. Scott died of alcohol poisoning on February 19, 1980, being only 33 years old. The circumstances of his death are controversial, so it’s hardly surprising that alternative explanations are prevalent. It’s somewhat puzzling that Tipper went after the second singer, but not Bon Scott…

No stop signs,
Speed limit
Nobody's gonna slow me down.
Like a wheel,
Gonna spin it,
Nobody's gonna mess me around.
Hey Satan!
Payin' my dues,
Playin' in a rockin' band.
Hey mumma,
Look at me!
I'm on the way to the promised land.

I'm on the highway to hell,
Highway to hell.
I'm on the highway to hell,
Highway to hell…
Don't stop me.

Now that’s something you could sink your PMRC teeth into. But according to Ozzy, he wrote the song about the ever-controversial Bon Scott. However, bassist Bob Daisely, who wrote many of the lyrics for Ozzy’s early songs, stated the following…

Not only is Ozzy giving credit to the wrong songwriter, Daisley says, Ozzy is also sadly mistaken about which iconic rocker inspired the lyrics.

"He's dreaming," Daisley recently told The Metal Voice with a laugh. "I knew Bon Scott. Bon Scott died after I'd written the lyrics to 'Suicide Solution.'"

"It was my title and it was about Ozzy," Daisley continued. "It was inspired by Ozzy's drinking, because he was drinking himself into oblivion lots of days and it was affecting him. I even had a talk with him about it one day. He was getting drunk during the day."

Indeed, given Ozzy's alcohol abuse during that period of his life, he has an excuse as to why his memory might have failed him there.

Daisley has sued Ozzy in the past over unpaid royalties, so he wasn't amused by the singer's foggy memory.

"How he's got the audacity to say that he wrote the lyrics about Bon Scott when he didn't write any of the lyrics?" Daisley wondered.

While the songwriting credits might not specify who the lyricist was, Daisley says there's documentation that the words are his.

But Sharon said that I wrote it.

Ok, so it’s not hard to believe that Sharon and Ozzy took credit for what wasn’t theirs, and I’m more than inclined to believe Daisley than Ozzy, it doesn’t really matter. In both cases, the song is about a rock singer who drank, or was drinking, himself to death, warning others about the dangers of alcohol. I would quote some lyrics to another song on the same album…

People look to me and say
"Is the end near, when is the final day?"
What's the future of mankind?
How do I know, I got left behind.

Everyone goes through changes,
Looking to find the truth;
Don't look at me for answers,
Don't ask me, I don't know.

How am I supposed to know,
Hidden meanings that will never show?
Fools and prophets from the past
Life's a stage and we're all in the cast.

You gotta believe in someone,
Asking me who is right;
Asking me who to follow,
Don't ask me, I don't know.

Nobody ever told me, I found out for myself;
You gotta believe in foolish miracles.
It's not how you play the game, it's if you win or lose,
You can choose, don't confuse,
Win or lose, it's up to you.

 So it’s puzzling that someone is recommending suicide as a solution, when he specifically states that he doesn’t have any answers for anyone. Clearly Ozzy doesn’t have a solution for you, so you’ll have to find it on your own. In the end, who would know the real meaning, Ozzy and Bob, or…

…Rev. Strack who knew everything about nothing? And rather than go on the attack, perhaps we should do what Rev. Richard Anderson said he planned to do…

A Christian Youth Concert is also scheduled for tonight as an alternative to the Osbourne performance, according to the Rev. Richard Anderson, of the Community Baptist Church. The Laymen and the Chara Singers are to perform at the church on Briarcliff Road.

Finally, someone who is actually willing to compete!

Perhaps as an act of revenge, newspaper articles that printed stories about Ol’ Ossie Osborne tended to publish pretty bad pictures of him…

And some of the pictures remind me of the ever cringe-worthy…

…Don’t-I-Look-Good-In-Edgy-Aunt-Alice’s-Hairstyle…years. And it should be noted that Ozzy was the most unphotogenic rock star of all time…

I’ll assume that some of these pics are pre-Sharon. And it must be admitted that if you are a budding heavy metal singer…

…pink is very daring. And it must be admitted that Ozzy could be the biggest jerk in the world…

As reprehensible as these photos are, they do not change what has been discussed thus far. However, he did take a few pictures that are somewhat different…

And you got give a man his dues when he remains married to the same woman for 40 years…

It can be said that Ozzy seemed to have a genuine love for children, seeing that he had a total of five. He had two children with his first wife, Thelma Riley…

...son Louis and daughter Jessica. And Louis was a lucky boy who appeared on Dad’s first album…

I would mention, only in passing, that poor Ozzy seemed to never pay much attention to things. It was January 20, 1982, and Ozzy was performing at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines, Iowa. A teenager named Mark Neal was lucky enough to go to the show. Mark’s brother had found a live bat that he took home to raise as a pet. But it died. But Ozzy was coming, so they put the dead bat in the freezer. They smuggled it into the concert, and Mark got close enough to throw it up on stage. At the time, fans at concerts would throw dolls and rubber animals on stage for Ozzy to tear apart with his teeth.

"I thought it was a rubber bat," Osbourne said. "I picked it up, put it in my mouth, crunched down, bit into it, being the clown that I am."

So Ozzy got a lesson in zoology, one that he would never forget…

Bats are the biggest carriers of rabies in the world, and I had to go to the hospital afterwards and they started giving me rabies shots. I had one in each rear and I had to have that every night.

Ozzy became, for lack of a better word, a batologist of sorts. It’s a good thing he listened to medical advice and got the shots when he did. Rabies is deadly, and once the symptoms appear, it is too late… …Rabies becomes 100% lethal. Rabid dogs?

In the Americas, bat bites are the most common source of rabies infections in humans, and less than 5% of cases are from dogs. Rodents are very rarely infected with rabies. 

What a bizarre situation! If it’s close to impossible to get Rabies in the United States due to the very rare event of human-bat interaction, Ozzy managed to do it. He is lucky that he did not die in 1981. Of course, this event was one that would live in infamy…

He eventually made amends with the bat world…

Ozzy Osbourne wants bat boxes installed at his home in England to aid in the animal's conservation. The vocalist – who famously bit off the head of a bat forty years prior – has applied for planning permission to install the facilities for the winged creatures at his multi-million pound home in Buckinghamshire.

Nonetheless, the incident did make a lasting impression on bat-children…

I got rabies shots for biting the head off a bat, but that’s OK…the bat had to get Ozzy shots.

It’s worth noting one more Ozzy Osbourne song came under fire…Mr. Crowley. There was a famous, and goofy, occultist named…

…Aleister Crowley. He was a polymath, considering himself to be more than an occultist, but also a philosopher, poet, painter, novelist, alchemist, and mountain climber. Starting out as a member of a cult called the Outer Order of the Golden Dawn, and later member of the Ordis Templi Orientis, where he took on the name of Baphomet, he ended up creating his own religion…Thelema. But Crowley the satanist? He first encountered the number 666 as the number of an exhibit…the Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu, in an Egyptian museum. He held anti-Christian beliefs and made use of satanic imagery, particularly the number 666, adopting it in his title…the Beast 666. It is worth stating that 666 is not the number of Satan. In the Book of Revelation, the number 666 is applied to a mortal, world ruler who does Satan’s work on earth. He is later thrown alive into the Lake of Fire. That ruler was the emperor Nero. How can one be sure? The number 666 appears in some manuscripts of the Book of Revelation. The number 616 appears in others. The two versions of Nero’s name in Hebrew correspond to each number. How could it be since Nero is dead? The answer lies in the Nero Redivivus legend…

It claims that Nero did not really die but fled to Parthia, where he would amass a large army and would return to Rome to destroy it. Dio Chrysostom, a Greek philosopher and historian, wrote "seeing that even now everybody wishes [Nero] were still alive. And the great majority do believe that he still is, although in a certain sense he has died not once but often along with those who had been firmly convinced that he was still alive."  Augustine of Hippo wrote that some believed "he now lives in concealment in the vigor of that same age which he had reached when he was believed to have perished, and will live until he is revealed in his own time and restored to his kingdom.” In later forms of the legend, among many early Christians, this legend shifted to a belief that Nero was the Antichrist. Some Bible scholars see the description of the wounding and healing of the Beast in Revelation 13:3 and the mention of the eighth king who is also one of the earlier seven kings in Revelation 17:8-11 as allusions to the Nero Redivivus legend.

Both during his life and after it, Crowley has been widely described as a Satanist, usually by detractors. Crowley stated he did not consider himself a Satanist, nor did he worship Satan, as he did not accept the Christian world view in which Satan was believed to exist. He nevertheless used Satanic imagery, for instance by describing himself as "the Beast 666" and referring to the Whore of Babylon in his work, while in later life he sent "Antichristmas cards" to his friends. In his writings, Crowley occasionally identified Aiwass as Satan and designated him as "Our Lord God the Devil" at one occasion. The scholar of religion Gordan Djurdjevic stated that Crowley "was emphatically not" a Satanist, "if for no other reason than simply because he did not identify himself as such". Crowley nevertheless expressed strong anti-Christian sentiment.

Anti-Christmas cards? Wow, that’s a new one for me, and confirms the idea that Crowely was a nut. But as far as being…The Beast whose number is 666…

 Before I touched my teens, I was already aware that I was The Beast whose number is 666. I did not understand in the least what that implied; it was a passionately ecstatic sense of identity.

In other words, he thought the number looked cool.

In 1904, he married Rose Edith Kelly and they honeymooned in Cairo, Egypt, where Crowley wrote The Book of the Law, a sacred text that serves as the basis for Thelema. He said that the book had been dictated by a supernatural entity named Aiwass, who provided him with announcing the start of the Æon of Horus. The Book of the Law declared that its followers should "Do what thou wilt", which Crowley interpreted as an injunction to seek True Will through the practice of ceremonial magic.

So if Awaiss and Satan are the same, then Satan must have the character of Awaiss, and not the Satan of Christianity.  But he also equated Awaiss with Lucifer, who, contrary to the view of later Christianity, is not the same character as Satan. Without the Christian worldview, the character of Satan cannot be seen as the same as he is by people who accept the Christian worldview, or, as I would put it…the Great Dualism. According to Crowley…

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

This same view of satan was to be found in the Church of Satan…

Satan is viewed as a positive archetype embracing the Hebrew root of the word "Satan" as "adversary", who represents pride, carnality, and enlightenment, humanity's natural instincts which Abrahamic faiths have wrongly suppressed.

And the Church of Satan does not believe in a real Satan, or worship the Devil, who the organization does not believe exists, anymore than they believe in the God of Christianity and Judaism. Satan is a principal that allows one to do what one wishes to do, the word…carnality…is a clear touch point with Crowley.

Why did Ozzy write Mr Crowley? There have been accusations made against Ozzy claiming that the singer was simply one satanist appealing to another satanist. But that is not the truth, which is clear from the means by which Ozzy came to know who Crowley was, along with the clear meaning of the lyrics to the song itself. Ozzy? He simply had read a book about Crowley and found some tarot cards in a studio during recording sessions. But what does Ozzy say in the song?

Mr. Crowley,
What went on in your head?
Oh, Mr. Crowley,
Did you talk to the dead?

Your lifestyle to me seems so tragic,
With the thrill of it all.
You fooled all the people with magic,
Yeah, you waited on Satan's call.

Mr. Crowley,
Won't you ride my white horse?
Mr. Crowley,
It's symbolic, of course.

Was it polemically sent?
I wanna know what you meant.

So this is obviously not a glorification of Alester Crowley, it is quite the opposite. It does help to read the lyrics of a song before labelling it as satanic. Ozzy rejects the lifestyle of Crowley, who led a Libertine life. Ozzy is also puzzled as to what Crowley was thinking. He offers him a white horse, which is…symbolic, of course. The horse is white, and the image of the white horse is almost mythical…

The white stallion is believed to be a symbol of freedom, courage, strength, and purity - as well as a sign of hope in times of difficulty. This legend has been a part of human history for centuries and the white horse has been featured in mythology, folklore and literature around the world.

So Ozzy, who, in the song at least, has the moral high ground…rejected Aleister Crowley, including his lifestyle, along with any views about Satan held by him. He would even go so far as to offer Crowley a white horse and his own moral superiority in an effort to save him. And Ozzy clearly rejects…waiting on Satan’s call.

However, one critic made a very interesting comment, showing that he had done his homework…

You reported that one of Ozzy Osbourne's songs was called ‘Mr Crowley’ This man Alastair Crowley was an active Satanist he died as a result of dabbling in the occult but he once said " always try to read and listen to things backwards "

I would truly be amazed to hear that he obtained this knowledge by reading Crowley, rather than reading it in a secondary source.

The reference to Crowley is interesting in that he appears to represent one of the first references to what will be called…backmasking or, wrongly, backwards masking…

 Other methods of incantation are on record as efficacious. For instance, Frater I.A., when a child, was told that he could invoke the devil by repeating the Lord’s Prayer backwards. He went into the garden and did so. The Devil appeared, and almost scared him out of his life.

 And let him know that such rituals include the pronunciation of the appropriate names of God backwards.

However, the connection between…backwards…and satanic, is much older than Crowley. In 1632, in Loudon, France, there began a strange event known as…

…the Loudoun Possessions. This first surfaced in 1632, just months after a local plague was letting up. One of the Ursuline nuns claimed to have seen her former confessor, then deceased, in a vision. This was good stuff, and soon the other nuns were having the same kind of visions. A leading Catholic priest declared that exorcisms were needed, whereas the people living in Loudun quite rightly viewed the whole affair as nonsense.  When asked the name of the demonic entity, they first accused an unknown priest, then Peter, and Zabulon…the latter being one of the sons of the biblical Jacob. They also claimed that the demon…

...Asmodai, had sexual relations with them. Asmodeus was a demon in Judaism and was probably known to the Ursuline nuns because he appears as a troublemaker in the apocryphal Book of Tobit. He is also a key figure in the Solomonic Demons mythology, coming in at number 32…

Yes! Most Solomonic demons look goofy. Then all manner of demons supposedly got in on the action. But this changed suddenly, when the nuns claimed that father…

Cardinal Richelieu. He had also been accused of sexual activity with certain women in the town, and even that he had fathered a son by a woman named Phillippa Trincant. Grandier made it clear that he felt that celibacy for priests was unreasonable.

It is unclear why Father Grandier was suddenly declared the cause of the trouble. Cardinal Richelieu was absolutely the wrong person to spar with. Grandier sealed his fate when he wrote a satire about the cardinal. And it was clear that Richelieu knew about the situation in Loudon. The other issue that arises is that of…

 …Mother Superior Jeanne de Anges. Clearly, she was a nun who was not cut out for celibacy, and she had a deep sexual attraction to Father Grandier…

Jeanne tells the story of her inner battles concerning her sexual fascination with Grandier: “When I did not see him, I burned with love for him and when he presented himself to me, I lack the faith to combat the impure thoughts and movements that I felt…never had the demons created such disorder in me.” Articulated within the framework of demonic possession, the desire to avenge desire, whether conscious or unconscious, one cannot say, became a sharpened instrument in the pursuit of propriety.

Was Jeanne vengeful that Grandier did not experience the sexual obsession she did, or was she vengeful because it was the existence of Grandier that would not stop her from feeling forbidden sexual feelings? For Richelieu, it was power and revenge against a provocative priest who dared to publicly oppose him. For Jeanne de Anges, the motivations were clearly personal. To make the background even cloudier, a relative of Jeanne, Jean de Laubardemont, was sent to investigate the happenings in Loudoun, and went so far as to prevent letters proving that the possessions were a bunch of nonsense, from reaching Paris. Jeanne de Anges was a deeply disturbed person. She had hysterical attacks, a hysterical pregnancy, hysterical anesthiesias, hysterical vomiting, hysterical nosebleeds, hysterical expectoration, hysterical obsessions, hysterical fury, and hysterical delusions. In fact, Sister Jeanne’s hysteria is quite complete from the symptomatic perspective.

Jeanne des Anges had hysterical attacks, a hysterical pregnancy, hysterical anesthesia, hysterical vomiting, hysterical nosebleeds, hysterical expectoration, hysterical obsessions, hysterical fury, and hysterical delusions. In fact, Sister Jeanne’s hysteria is quite complete from the symptomatic perspective.

I’m beginning to get the idea that Jeanne was possibly…hysterical. The vomiting gimmick will occur again, being was a constant element in The Exorcist. And it was a very important element in the Emma Schmidt exorcisms. The role of Richelieu is clear…Grandier was originally acquitted, but the cardinal ordered a new trial, and how you can ignore the fact that Jeanne and her Naughty Nuns had actually recanted their accusations, is beyond me. I found not-so-flattering modern interpretations of Jeanne de Anges…

Ok, a little over the top, but I wonder what Grandier would say? However, proof of his guilt was a forged pact with the devil, and this was admitted into evidence. Yes! A signed pact with the devil…

We, the influential Lucifer, the young Satan, Beelzebub, Leviathan, Elimi,
and Astaroth, together with others, have today accepted the covenant pact
of Urbain Grandier, who is ours. And him do we promise
the love of women, the flower of virgins, the respect of monarchs, honours, lusts and powers.
He will go whoring three days long; the carousal will be dear to him. He offers us once
in the year a seal of blood, under the feet, he will trample the holy things of the church and
he will ask us many questions; with this pact, he will live twenty years happy
on the earth of men, and will later join us to sin against God.
Bound in Hell, in the council of demons.
Lucifer Beelzebub Satan,
Astaroth Leviathan Elimi,
The seals placed the Devil, the master, and the demons, princes of the lord.
Baalberith, writer.

Yes, a load nonsense, but the most important element here is the fact that this pact with Satan was written in backwards Latin. We readily recognize the names of the demons, except for…Elimi. This is the only known time that this demon-name ever appears, and assuming that Elimi was some obscure demon, the real writer of the pact was reading things he shouldn’t have been. But it’s also worth noting that the Hebrew term…Elohim Imi…means God is With Me. And the word Elohim, which is actually plural, is often abbreviated as…El. If so, then one might coin the phrase…Elimi, God is with me, or El is with me. At the same time, it may not be the case that Elohim is being shortened to El, but rather an original El was made into a plural Elohim. Why? To avoid confusion between El, the father-god and creator in Canaanite mythology, and the god found in the Old Testament. But if you looked like…

…this, an alchemical make-over would be well in order…

That’s better. But all of this backward nonsense also appears with the exorcisms involving the strange English tailor named…

…George Lukins, a disturbed individual who needed something to do. It was widely believed that he was a faker, but he did manage to attract the attention of the Reverend John Wesley. It was claimed that he could sing the Te Deum hymn backwards. And who can forget about Martha Brossier, who, in 1578, claimed to be possessed by some demon, and was said to be able to speak with her mouth shut.  Talk about not being able to shut up! Typically, the linguistic symptomology is usually either some kind of shrieking, speaking in the name of demonic entities, or, which is most compelling, the possessed person speaking languages they couldn’t possibly know. But speaking English backwards is a central element in The Exorcist movie. But, listening to records backwards was definitely a Crowley-type thing to do. But why do it?

And here we have the origin of the idea of listening to records backwards. It seems that the idea of playing records backwards can be traced back to Crowley, who wrote his book in 1913.

At some point, this idea was taken up by listeners of rock music, in particular the Beatles, and even more in particular…the White Album, and most importantly…Revolution 9, and someone listened to this song, played it backwards, heard what he thought was a message saying…turn me on dead man. From there, the accusation was made that ELO used backmasking, particularly on the album…Eldorado. Why? Because of all the vocal noise in Revolution 9, one suddenly hears…Eldorado. It is strange that the apparent beginning of the Beatles and backmasking was the White Album. There were no backwards lyrics on the album. However, in 1966, the Beatles released the songs Paperback Writer and Rain, both of which form the beginning of what would come to be called classic rock music. That said, there was a clear case of backward lyrics in the song Rain. Toward the end of the song, one will hear what sounds like gibberish. When played backwards, the song’s chorus will be heard. Lennon did this one morning after studio sessions for the song, thinking, basically, that it sounded cool. Jokingly, Lennon later claimed to have sung the chorus backwards, bringing George Lukin to mind. Still, it led the Beatles to play the songs on Revolver backwards and forwards, determining which sounded best. But the Beatles employed various sound effects on the album that were essentially groundbreaking. It is tempting to believe that someone, who realized that the chorus at the end of the song Rain was reversed, played it backwards, and learned that the Beatles made use of backward masking. This was in 1966. The White Album was released in 1968, when the Paul-Is-Dead myth was in full swing. So the song Revolution #9 was played backwards, and the position was taken that there was a backwards lyric in the song saying…turn me on dead man. Lennon believed that this was the first instance of backmasking in a pop song. He was right, and he was wrong.  In 1965, an Australian band called…

 …The Missing Links…released their self-titled album. One of the songs was…Mama Keep Your Big Mouth Shut. Track number 12 was titled…H’tuom thus. Obviously, this is Shut Mouth written backwards. On the album, this track was Mama Keep Your Big Mouth Shut played backwards. So they beat Lennon to it, but it was very different. In Rain, only one instance of the chorus is backwards in a song that is forwards. The Missing Links simply put a backwards version of the song on their album. It’s obvious that they did this, unlike the song Rain where the backmasking is hidden. Also in 1965, a novelty record was made by…

…Napoleon XIV. On the single, the B-side to…They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haa, is, as with the Missing Links, the song on the A-side reversed. In both of these instances, the backward lyrics were simply meant to be funny, which was very different from Lennon’s use of it.

The nonsense concerning backmasking in the White Album was not linked to satanic messages. Instead, it was linked to the Paul is Dead myth, and the continual search for clues indicating that Paul died and had been replaced by a Paul-alike, to coin a phrase. In the case of Crowley, listening to records backwards, and watching films backward, had nothing to do with finding secret messages. Crowley mandated reading, writing, speaking and walking backwards. The goal of all these abilities is to achieve the ability to think backwards.

ELO would be accused of backmasking with satanic intent…

He is the nasty one — Christ you're infernal. Though it is said we're dead men, everyone who has the mark will live.

That is, of course, gibberish, and the…mark…may be a reference to 666, which is wrong. The most famous such accusation was levelled at the song Stairway to Heaven. And although Stairway to Heaven was released in 1971, and Eldorado was released in 1974, the initial accusations levelled at Stairway to Heaven were in 1981-1982, the accusations levelled at ELO preceded the 1975 album…Face the Music, where clear backmasking, said to be a response to the band’s detractors, is present at the beginning of the song…Fire On High…

The music is reversible, but time is not, turn back! Turn back! Turn back!

On the same album, at the beginning of the song…Down Home Town, there is a reprise of a lyric from the song…Waterfall…

Face the mighty waterfall

Then in the song…Twilight (1981), ELO inserted a back-masked lyric…

Though you ride on the wheels of tomorrow, and you still wander the fields of your sorrow.

If what I’ve said about the White Album and Eldorado is true, then accusations were made against ELO before they were made against Led Zeppelin. However, in the song…Mr. Radio, which appears on the band’s debut album, there is a backwards lyric that says…hello, hello, Mr. Radio, which is hardly a satanic message. The intro to Fire on High is so clearly backmasking, there can be no doubt it is actually backwards. It taunts the backward masking accusers…it is obvious to tell when backward masking is present if it is significant. This is the case in my favorite Beatles’ song…Rain, which I have discussed many times. As an aside, when the song was released in Japan, which appeared on the album…Hey Jude, it was decided to print a lyrics sheet with the album. The Japanese people who worked on the lyrics mistook them as regular English, and sought, with great confusion, to figure out what Lennon was saying. But they took a shot at it…

When it rains it shines, can you hear me, stare it down and nourish, what comes near you, RA..in.

Wow, that’s messed up! In the case of Crowley, listening to records backwards, and watching films backward, had nothing to do with finding secret messages. Crowley mandated reading, writing, speaking and walking backwards. The goal of all these abilities is to obtain the ability to think backwards. And I suppose you can learn to walk backwards if you practiced long enough. I found a sooper-cool video by a cutting-edge rock group…

…who spent most of their video…Sucker, backwards walking. Or, you could film yourself walking forwards, play it backwards, then splice it into the video walking forwards.

Before moving on to one, last and bizarre attempt to blame Ozzy for teen suicides, I would briefly note a controversy that existed in the Black Sabbath world. In September 1970, Black Sabbath released the album…

…Paranoid, which would go on to certify 4x platinum. This was the album that contained War Pigs, Paranoid, and Iron Man. It was this album that put the band at the very top of the hard rock music industry. Certain claims were made about one of these songs…Paranoid, regarded as a pre–Suicide Solution call to self-destruction.

It was said that an American nurse committed suicide because of the album. “There was a girl found dead – a nurse she was: dead in her room with our album on the turntable going round. And it was taken to court saying that it was because of the album that she was depressed and killed herself, which was totally ridiculous, I think.” 

 An unnamed American nurse killed herself while listening to Paranoid.

More troubling were the misinterpretations of the album’s intentions, with critics accusing the band of Satanism, advocating drugs and driving listeners to suicide (a situation exacerbated when a nurse killed herself with Paranoid spinning on her record player, even though the band were cleared of blame at an inquest).

And…

Wrongly aligned with satanism throughout their career, Sabbath held a lot more depth than many critics at the time gave them credit; depth that was perfectly encompassed in this second release.

Openly despised by the Christian community and even accused of causing a young nurse to commit suicide, the chart-topping album unquestionably stood out from the masses of easy-listening that filled the music scene. 

Controversy is always present when new music emerges. For instance, a US nurse committed suicide and Paranoid was present on her turntable.

I found it is interesting that it seemed important to know that she was an American, US nurse. And she committed suicide while listening to Paranoid, with Black Sabbath being cleared of wrongdoing at an inquest. So what really happened? Well, on June 26, 1974…

A pretty student nurse in York, England. This article indicates that Hillary Pollard did not commit suicide…she had been abusing Tuinal, a barbiturate that combined secobarbital and amobarbital, creating a potentially lethal drug. It was widely abused and had a high risk of overdose…as we see here! So she didn’t commit suicide. And I love the implication, on the part of somebody, that it was The Exorcist movie that really did it! I wonder if Black Sabbath liked The Exorcist. And “morbid record” is worthy of Noebel himself. And the name of the album is Paranoid, not Paranoids. It’s pretty funny when people weigh in on things that they don’t know anything about…

…War Papers? Maybe he means…War Pigs. And I wasn’t aware that Ozzy sang in any key, much less the wrong one. And besides, War Papers and Paranoids are on the second album.

But what’s wrong with the song Paranoids?

 Make a joke and I will sigh
And you will laugh and I will cry.
Happiness I cannot feel,
And love to me is so unreal.

And so as you hear these words,
Telling you now of my state.
I tell you to enjoy life,
I wish I could, but it's too late.

Can you hear it? Certainly. When people not familiar with how difficult Ozzy’s vocals can be to make out try to anyway…

 And so as you hear these words,
Telling you now of my state.
I tell you to end your life,
I wish I could, but it's too late.

There it is! End your life? No! Enjoy your life! Mishearing the lyrics in a song is called Mondegreen. These are very common, with the most famous example of Jimi Hendrix in the song Purple Haze…

If you listen to the song, you’ll swear that this is what Hendrix is saying, but he’s not…
‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky.

But oh, how common is this!

Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)

Misheard lyric:

If there’s a bustle in your bread roll

Correct lyric:

If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (The Beatles)

Misheard lyric:

The girl with colitis goes by

Correct lyric:

The girl with kaleidoscope eyes

Strawberry Fields Forever

Misheard lyric:

I bury Paul

Correct lyric:

Cranberry sauce

 Middle of the Road (The Pretenders)

Misheard lyric:

I’m standing in the middle of life with my pants behind me.

Correct lyric:

I’m standing in the middle of life with my plans behind me.

 Bennie and Jets (Elton John)

Misheard lyric:

She’s got electric boobs

Correct lyric…

She’s got electric boots

Shoot to Thrill (AC/DC)

Misheard lyric:

Shoot to thrill, way to kill

Correct lyric:

Shoot to thrill, play to kill

Blinded by the Light (Manfred Mann)

Misheard lyric:

Racked up like a douche, another loner in the night.

Correct lyric:

Revv’d up like a deuce, another runner in the night.

Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)

Wrong lyric:

Hear we are now, in containers

Correct lyric

Here we are now, entertain us

Abba specialized in misheard lyrics, specifically, in the song Dancing Queen…

See that girl, watch her scream, kicking the dancing queen.

See that girl, watch her scream, dicking the dancing queen.

See that girl, watch that scene, dig in the dancing queen.

Correct lyric:

See that girl, watch that scene, diggin’ the dancing queen.

Misheard lyric…

You can dance, you can dine, having the time of your life.

You can dance, you can drive, having the time of your life.

You can dance, you can die high, having the time of your life.

You can dance, you can try having the time of your life.

You can dance, you can die, having the time of your life.

Correct lyric:

You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life.

Misheard lyric:

Dancing queen, feel the beat from the tangerine.

Correct lyric:

Dancing queen, feel the beat from the tambourine.

Misheard lyric:

Dancing queen, young and sweet, only seven teeth.

Correct lyric…

Dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen.

Misheard lyric:

Guiding lights and the lights are low.

Correct lyric:

Friday night and the lights are low.

Misheard lyric:

Looking for a place to go, where they play the rock music.

Correct lyric:

Looking for a place to go, where they play the right music.

However, to show Black Sabbath fans a lighter side of Paranoids, I offer…

The second accusation comes from my friends…the Peters brothers, whom I have discussed elsewhere on this site, and these fanatics will come up again. Fanatics?

"Sometimes," says Steve Peters, "I think I'm a fanatic. But Jesus was a fanatic, too. I love it."

The Peters specialized in burning records, and Jim Peters said…

The only thing we have in common with Hitler is that we both use fire.

Therein lies the problem, his response to what he perceives to be wrong is the same as Hitlers. Why would you want to have any thing in common with Hitler? And I am ever reminded of what the Peters’ mother said during an interview…

"Sometimes mothers complain to me about the burnings. They think they're too severe. Some people say it reminds them of burnings in Nazi Germany. I shouldn't say this, but when I was in high school we thought Mr. Hitler had some pretty good ideas. He was particularly good in the sciences. But look at what happens without God. If Hitler had accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior, he wouldn't have done anything wrong."

Steve interrupts:

"Don't misunderstand Mom. The only thing we have in common with Hitler is that we both use fire."

Of course he interrupted, he knew that further embarrassing statements were about to be made.

Burn, baby, burn! I thought that when albums are burned by people on the Goofy Right, it’s rock albums that go up in flames. But someone brought a rather strange record to a Peters Brothers Burning…

…Lesbian Concentrate, a selection of Lesbian songs. Concentrate?

What a strange album to bring to a Peters Brothers record burning event. In what will prove to be the case, the issue of comic book censorship is a clear parallel to the PMRC’s ultimate prize. Like rock albums would be burnt in fascist ceremonies, so too were…

Comic books. Oh, sorry for the third image…I don’t know how it got in there. What did the Comics-Haters get?

…a sticker. Being desperate to fight a war that couldn’t be won, comic books were held out to be a cause of youth delinquency during the 1940s and 1950s.

The strange thing I found in looking at the Peters’ books is the following…

In 1975, 16-year-old John Tanner, listening to acid rock and smoking marijuana, drew deeper and deeper into a depressed state. On January 13, he loaded his 12-gauge shotgun with a slug and set it against the chimney in his room, his mind filled with thoughts of suicide. On January 15, he skipped school and listened to rock music all day, especially Black Sabbath’s Paranoid album. At 5:15 p.m. he put his shotgun to his chin and pulled the trigger. Though much of his face was blasted away, he lived through the horrible ordeal, and his face was painfully reconstructed in 20 surgeries over 10 years at a cost of $300,000. By his own testimony, his involvement in heavy metal music quickly led to drug abuse, rebellion against his elders, depression, and thoughts of self-destruction. He could quote the nihilistic lyrics to Black Sabbath’s “Killing Yourself to Live” by heart. “The execution of your mind, you really have to learn/ You’re wishing that the hands of doom could take your mind away/ And you don’t care if you don’t see again the light of day.” Happily, after Tanner shot himself, he received Jesus Christ as his Savior (Why Knock Rock?, pp. 161, 162)

I would touch on two things. Reference is made to the Sabbath Bloody Sabbath album released in 1973…

The front cover (left) has a rather intense, disturbing, and satanic image. That said, the back cover (right) presents a flip-side view of the same scene, and one should react to the front cover in conjunction with the back cover. One of the songs on that album is called…Killing Yourself to Live. However, Ozzy didn’t write the lyrics. They were written by bassist Geezer Butler…

"Killing Yourself to Live" was a Butler composition written while he was in hospital for kidney problems caused by heavy drinking. Ward was also drinking heavily, and the song reflects the problems caused by their "extreme" lifestyles. 

However, there is another dimension that focuses on the insanity and futility of the music industry...

With their Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage albums, Black Sabbath’s songs moved away from topical issues to reflect the brutal realities of the music business. “Killing Yourself to Live” was about the grind of life on the road.”

And…

As they learned over the summer of 1974, the reality was that they had no control whatsoever over what happened next. “It was like the more you found out, the less you wanted to know,” said Geezer. “It was horrible.” Sabbath had been snared the same way countless other acts had in the music business of the ‘60s. The band spent a fortune in legal fees only to discover that, in effect, they had no real money of their own. The cars they drove, the houses they lived in, all were owned on paper by Patrick Meehan and their management company. Most excruciating of all and potentially career-damaging, they didn’t even own their music.

“That was why we called the next album…Sabotage.”

”To offer my own opinion, I see all these observations as indicating a song about how a way of life that should be a real thrill becomes something altogether different when drinking and drugs are needed to cope with an industry where all that ends up mattering is money. And if one kills oneself to live, isn’t that indicative of a life in the hereafter?

The second thing I would point out is just how similar this story is to that of James Vance and the lawsuit against Judas Priest…amazingly similar. In both, a disturbed young man abuses drugs. Both are suicidal. Both resort to a shotgun. Both place the barrel of the shotgun under their chin. Both fire, both flinch, blowing off most of their faces. Then both undergo a long series of facial reconstruction. And, speaking of James Vance…

Though apparently after many surgeries and recoveries he became a born again Christian and blamed the music for his actions, on camera he speaks of his love for Judas Priest and how much their music meant to him and his friend. His life, captured at the time, must have been horrific: terribly disfigured, his best friend gone, surrounded by family who have little grasp of his inner life.

Yes, both become born again Christians, and both blame the music they listened to for what happened. I think there can be no doubt that this is the same, exact story, with a few differences. Obviously, there was a John Tanner, and we know that there was a James Vance. John Tanner is featured on…

Yes, the Peters brothers enlisted John Tanner and the parents of Steve Boucher to make their tape. The tape was made in 1985, and although the lawsuit filed against Judas Priest occurred in 1990, the suicide crisis that affected Vance and Bellknap played out in 1985, the same year the Peters brothers made their tape. So the unusually similar stories about two different botched suicides, and virtually the same backstory, and both events occurring in 1985, leaves one puzzled. The main difference between the two is the name of the band involved…Judas Priest, who then morphs into Black Sabbath. But who is Steve Boucher? According to the Peter brothers, Steve Boucher of Elk River, Minnesota, liked hard rock. This included Kiss and AC/DC.  It’s virtually impossible to point a finger at a song by KISS and associate it with suicide. But you can with AC/DC, along as you don’t pay any attention to what the songs actually mean. In this case, the offending song was…Shoot to Thrill, which appeared on the album Back in Black. Apparently, this was one of his favorite songs…along with multitudes of young fans of AC/DC. But the story…apparently, he took his father’s 30-30 caliber hunting rifle, and shot himself in the head with it. Other elements are equally as hazy. One account adds the claim, perhaps to heighten people’s fears of AC/DC, that he committed his act while lying under an AC/DC poster, or in other sources…an AC/DC calendar. I didn’t know they made those. And what was playing on the cassette player? This is one of the points that sources for the suicides attributed to Ozzy Osbourne couldn’t get straight. In one version, no one commented on what tape that was playing, but do claim that his parents were digging around in Steve’s music collection and came across the album that included…Shoot to Thrill. Others made the story more dramatic by having the song actually playing at the moment when he killed himself.  Apparently, though I can’t confirm it, the Peters…and here’s a shock…wanted a donation, and reference a $150 donation made by Boucher’s sister to make a film called…wait for it…Shoot to Thrill, which or so they said, would cost $120k. I can find no trace of this movie.  However, as just noted, they did make the cassette shown above. This is typical of them. It could never be that, but if it could be that, the song would have to be about…what’s it about?

All you women who want a man of the street,
But don't know which way you wanna turn.
Just keep a-comin', and put your hand out to me,
'Cause I'm the one who's gonna make you burn.

I'm gonna take you down,
Oh, down, down, down,
So, don't you fool around,
I'm gonna pull it, pull it, pull the trigger.

Yes, it’s about sex. And the tongue-in-cheek comparison between the male member waiting to shoot off its bullets with a loud bang is, though not subtle, very common. A less common view of the meaning of the song is that it’s about getting a thrill from intravenous drug use. However, I will note my dismay that this view did not have better transaction, given claims made about Simon & Garfunkel’s song…Bridge Over Troubled Waters…

And…

And I even heard one rock critic say the strawberry fields in Strawberry Fields Forever, are really a reference to track-marks found on the arm as the result of intravenous drug use. For some reason, the Beatles thought they wrote the song about the Salvation Army children’s home close to where John Lennon lived.

Ok, so I’ll give all those who see suicide, or murder, in the song Shoot to Thrill, a little credit. Particularly the Peters brothers. And as if it couldn’t weirder than real life! The drummer for AC/DC was…

Phil Rudd. Now it was the Peters who named their cassette tape…AC/DC, Wanted for Murder. It’s a cool name. However…

A New Zealand judge has sentenced AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd to eight months of home detention after the musician pleaded guilty to threatening to kill a man who used to work for him, along with possession of methamphetamine and marijuana.

The 61-year-old drummer was sentenced in Tauranga District Court on New Zealand’s North Island on Thursday. He had faced up to seven years in prison on the threatening to kill charge.

Rudd pleaded guilty to the charges in April, acknowledging in a court summary of facts that he’d offered large amounts of cash, vehicles and a house to an associate after asking him to have the victim “taken out.” He also acknowledged that he’d directly said to the victim he was going to kill him.

Perhaps the Peters Boys put a jinx on AC/DC.

I would present one last instance of Suicide Solution being attributed to a teen suicide. Tipper Gore included a letter from a sad mother…

Now, I cite this only because of a very strange parallel…not making any implications that this applies to the parents mentioned in the letter…but does, yet again, suggest a connection between rock music, Ozzy Osbourne, and suicide. The letter is strange in that the name of the victim isn’t provided. However, I did find an Elmer and Jean Fish of San Pablo…namely, Elmer’s obituary…

Elmer R. Fisk San Pablo Resident Elmer R. Fisk, 73, died at home in San Pablo, California on Wednesday, May 28th. He was born on August 2, 1934, in Holcombe, Wisconsin. He was a Navy veteran of the Korean War. He was owner of Fisk Termite Control, Inc. for 39 years and was currently serving as president of the board. Elmer is survived by his wife, Jean; children Julie Fisk, Greg Fisk, and Marilyn Romero; four grandchildren: Anthony Fisk, Angela Romero, Tristan Romero, and Katelyn Fisk; one great-grandchild, Jacqueline Fisk; and his sister, Mary Wallace. He was preceded in death by his son, Barry.

Barry Fisk died on April 15, 1983. He was just 17 years old.

However, in the case of Barry Fisk I would point out that there was a…

…goofy death-core heavy metal band that was founded in 1983 by a San Pablo guitarist named Mike Torraro. The band’s first singer was named Barry Jay Fisk.  And after finding out that his girlfriend was leaving him, he showed up at her house, then put a gun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. Apparently, Barry was a bright kid, and one of his former bandmates said the following…

His old lady broke up with him. I guess that he was really in love with her. It really didn’t make much sense; he had a scholarship to Stanford and seemed to have his life totally together. His death came as a real shock to everybody. Just as a footnote I was dating the younger sister of Barry’s girlfriend (strange coincidence). I guess what Barry did was he went up to his old lady’s house and stood in the front yard, when she came out he said, “This is for you!" and put a small caliber pistol in his mouth then pulled the fucking trigger. The worst part about it was that the bullet missed his brain and blew out his windpipe, so it took him hours to die.

As truly tragic as it is, people do commit suicide when faced with a break-up or divorce. So, in the case of Barry Jay Fisk, the cause of his committing suicide is clear.

All these suicides involved guns…ready access to firearms, when they shouldn’t have them. If you keep guns in your home, make sure they are secured. This is far more important than the record on the turntable or a cassette tape in the pocket. The easy availability of guns for young people who end up using them to commit terrible crimes, against themselves or others, also came up in a famous case, though not the first, but one of the first to absorb the minds of Americans…

…Brenda Ann Spencer who lived across the street from the Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, California. On January 29, 1979, sixteen-year-old Brenda opened fire on those standing in front of the school with a Ruger semi-automatic rifle. Although I will state that for myself, there are a lot of problems with the canonical story that holds that Brenda killed two people and wounded nine. And something famous came out of this event. I have a hard time with the origin of this famous thing. Supposedly, a reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune was calling, while the shooting was going on, various phone numbers of people in the neighborhood hoping to get more details. He accidentally managed to call Brenda’s number and had a conversation with her. Please! He accidentally managed to call the shooter’s home? Nonetheless, it was during this apocryphal phone call that Brenda, when asked why she was doing what she was doing, stated…I don’t like Mondays. A lot of us don’t like Mondays. Was this event foreseeable? She was deeply troubled and was arrested the previous year for shooting out the windows of the same school. Her probation officer, after reading a psychiatric evaluation of her, stated that she should be admitted to a mental hospital. She was living with her father at the time, and he refused. At Christmas, Brenda asked her father for a radio. She didn’t get a radio, her father bought her a Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic rifle, with a telescopic sight, and topped it off with 500 rounds of ammunition. So, some young people don’t have to find out where their dad or brother hides the gun. It is, of course, extremely important that she was essentially given everything to carry out the act attributed to her. Wallace Spencer? He somehow ended up marrying Brenda’s 17-year-old cellmate, and Brenda brought up allegations of sexual abuse against her father. My biggest point of unease about the overall story is whether Brenda was really alone in the house. Nonetheless, when your kid asks for a radio…give her one, don’t arm her for combat.

All cases discussed involve dangerously ill adolescents. But the Judas Priest case was dramatically more so…

James Vance and Ray Belknap had made a suicide pact. Following hours of drinking and drugging, the two marched off with a sawed-off shotgun to the neighboring churchyard. Belknap shot and killed himself. Vance put the gun under his chin and pulled the trigger. But he flinched and ended up blowing off half of his face. And both had been disturbed for years prior to the event. They were heavily into drugs, had dropped out of school in the 10th grade, were on the police’s radar, and meandered from one meaningless job to another, which doesn’t bode well for your future. When Vance was in fifth grade, the school counselor visited his mother to warn her that her son may end up responding violently to stressful situations. Both guys talked about being mercenaries. And it is known that there had been abuse suffered in their homes. What can one say about Mrs. Vance? Noted in the Dream Deceivers documentary…

Mrs. Vance is seen talking with her minister, who says, "The thing I appreciate about you, Phyllis, is that you don't deceive yourself." Evidence to the contrary is provided in court, where Mrs. Vance endures some difficult moments. Dressed with girlish propriety in a flowered dress with a middy-blouse collar, she listens to stories of her husband's drinking and gambling, to the news that James's longest period of sobriety in five years lasted only two weeks. She tells of her son's inability to hold any job, however menial, for more than a few days. She acknowledges uneasily that she characterized James as "obnoxious" and "a punk" in her deposition. She seems not to have any idea of the depths of her son's unhappiness. "Doesn't 'antisocial' mean you have no friends?" she asks at one point.

The case of Vance’s stepfather…

Mrs. Vance admits to her lawyer that Mr. Vance was not James’s biological father but refuses to say who was. Mr. Vance proudly looks into the camera and states that he believes that using physical violence is an effective deterrent for scaring kids away from marijuana. He also relates using a combination of psychological intimidation and belt whipping to enforce his discipline. 

Mrs. Vance had also been a drinker…and was pregnant at the age of 17…

As for Vance, the LA Times wrote, “According to court documents, Vance’s biological father abandoned his 17-year-old mother while she was still pregnant with his boy. Vance was held back to repeat the first and second grades. At the age of 7, he was sent to a therapist for tying a belt around his forehead and ripping out handfuls of his own hair during class.”

When James filled out a questionnaire for the school counselor, he listed…doing drugs as his favorite pastime…pot, hallucinogens, barbiturates, and amphetamines. 

Suicide was a problem in Belknap’s home before Raymond. His sister, who did not listen to Judas Priest, made two attempts to kill herself. Ray’s stepfather also admitted to beating him, adding that he would make him go and get the belt. That is cruel, and the action of someone with a sadistic mind. And Ray even told Mrs. Vance that his desire in life was to be a hitman, a paid murderer. In Dream Deceivers, Mrs. Belknap denies ever knowing this, and I must say…I don’t believe her. The documentary seemed to clearly show two mothers who wanted to blame anything else to keep from having to face the fact that two young men grew up in broken, highly dysfunctional families. Ray and James were headed for suicide or prison. Not only did they have access to a gun, they had access to a sawed-off shotgun. Why? A sawed-off shotgun gives a much broader scatter than a regular shotgun…you can kill more people with it.

The main claim made by the plaintiffs was that Rob Halford had placed subliminal urgings in the lyrics that amounted to…do it…

The case against Judas Priest was, as with the cases against Ozzy Osbourne, was dismissed…obviously…rightfully so. All other arguments aside, it was pointed out that…do it… means nothing without indicating what the…it…is. This was answered by the plaintiffs by claiming backwards masking in three other songs…

Try suicide
Suicide is in
Sing my evil spirit
Fuck the Lord, fuck all of you

These messages weren’t there, and they are ridiculously stupid. The first two messages would be, presumably, the answer to the question about…do it.

However, two elements of the case were disturbing as far as Judas Priest was concerned. The first is that although he vehemently denied any subliminal messages were present in the song at the heart of the case, singer Rob Halford acknowledged that he had used backward masking. In particular, the song that ended up being a Filthy Fifteener…Eat Me Alive, has a backward message, consisting of a verse from the chorus. If you listen to it, you’ll hear what is clearly vocal nonsense which, like in the Beatle’s song Rain, sounds like gibberish. Listening to the song backwards, the words…eat me…are audible. Hah-hah-hah. And it seems to me that there are guitar riffs that appear to have been recorded backwards, then spliced into the forward-version…but I could be wrong.

At the same time, singer Rob Halford, with a great deal of ingenuity, dealt a great blow to the idea of backwards masking in the song at the heart of the case. He brought a tape player with him. He had recorded the song Exciter, a song on the same album, backwards. He then played it in court, telling those present that they would hear…

I asked for a peppermint, I asked for her to get one.

He also played the song Invader backwards, which said…

Look Ma, my chair is broken!

It’s at this point that the case against Judas Priest floundered.

The second troubling thing from the case that I consider to be very important was the deliberate stonewalling on the part of Judas Priest and CBS records when it came to turning over the master tapes. They made the claim that they couldn’t find them…poof…they were gone! This created a considerable delay…for three years and was clearly suspicious. When rock songs are made, the band does not record themselves playing the song. Different tracks are made. Drum parts are recorded, then bass, then the guitars, and usually the vocals are last. Then the different tracks are overlaid…overdubbed…to get the studio version. If you listen to the song…The Song Remains the Same…by Led Zeppelin, you will hear different guitar parts. But there is only one guitarist. Different guitar parts are recorded, then overdubbed, which makes it sound great, but can’t be reproduced in concert. The interest in this case was the master vocal track. But the masters couldn’t be found. Convenient, isn’t it? But then…good luck! They were able to find the masters for one of the songs on the Stained Class album, and it just happened to be…Better By You, Better Than Me. At least at first. Yes, the song at the heart of the case and which had no subliminal messaging or backward masking. And to think, the judge threatened to order that the master tapes of all the band’s albums be submitted to the court if it isn’t found. I find myself believing that they knew exactly where all the masters were. But they didn’t want the vocal tracks on other songs on the album being analyzed, suggesting that electronic wizardry had been used in at least one, if not more, songs. Originally, the plaintiffs were intending to base their lawsuit on alleged suicidal lyrics in two songs on the Stained Class album…Hero’s End…and…Beyond the Realms of Death, the latter song being the readiest selection. This failed when the judge clearly stated that anything you can hear, or see, is protected as Free Speech…subliminal messages are not. Clearly the plaintiffs were in it for the money. Mrs. Vance wanted $5 million dollars…so do I! The Belknaps wanted $1.2 million dollars…so do I. Darla’s recording a new heavy metal song and is putting a subliminal message in it…give my stepmother 5 million dollars.

Do it! Do it! Do it! Do what? Buy our next album!

Playing songs backward and thinking that you hear something, which proves to not be there, is an example of a phenomenon known as…Pareidolia. The minds attempts to make sense of something within the chaos. I would add that included here is the inclusion of subliminal images, whereby you can perceive “hidden” things in images that are ordered stimuli, such as focusing on a part of the image…

I am going to buy Ritz crackers next time I’m at the store. But this is all fun and games…isn’t it? Not according to James Bryan Key who believed advertising put these subliminal images in the larger images to sell products using…of course…sex. This one speaks for itself…

I dedicate the following to Wilson Bryan Key…

And he would find this one just as troubling as I do…

Fortunately, I don’t need to worry…Darla took a hatchet and beheaded all her dolls. But I got her new ones…

It looks like she already got to the one on the far left.

The point? One common thread is clear…these were very troubled adolescents who were not getting the intervention that they needed. One is tempted to believe that these kids were heading for suicide, some of whom declared it openly, with or without rock music. In the wake of this, parents and families can be tempted to find anything to blame it on.

Sadly, James Vance died on November 29, 1988. He had been in a coma and was said to be basically braindead. It’s interesting that he lapsed in the comma on Thanksgiving Day. There was controversy as to how he ended up in a comma.

Reno police have confirmed that an investigation has been launched into what brought on the coma of a man who sued the heavy-metal rock group Judas Priest for allegedly prompting his 1985 suicide attempt Police Lt Phillip Galeoto said the department received information that prompted it to begin gathering information on the circumstances surrounding James Vance's condition Phyllis Vance said doctors have told her that an initial test shows her son is 99.9 percent brain dead. Vance said doctors were uncertain what caused her son to go into a coma early Thursday the day he was to leave Washoe Medical Center In a related development an attorney said Monday that he believes a drug overdose sent his client into a coma 'It's a strong, strong hunch" attorney Timothy Post told the Sparks Tribune "It is just shrouded in mystery we're not getting answers" Post did not explain how an overdose might have occurred.

More details…

James Vance, the Sparks man who sued the rock group Judas Priest, claiming its music prompted his 1985 suicide attempt, has lapsed into a coma, his mother says. Vance, 23, was in serious condition in Washoe Medical Center's intensive care unit Saturday night. He was admitted Thursday morning, four hours after taking the pain-killing drug Methadone. He had been in the hospital's psychiatric ward for several days before slipping into the coma. His mother, Phyllis Vance, says doctors have told her he is 99.9 percent brain-dead, although they can't explain what happened. She says it would have been impossible for her son to take an overdose. 

So, he overdosed on Methadone.

Last November, after almost 150 hours of reconstructive surgery, the 23-year-old died while in a hospital apparently from an overdose of painkilling prescription drugs. Authorities have not determined who administered the drugs.

Really? Some doctor or nurse gave him an overdose of Methadone? Sure…and that does dull Occam’s Razor. And his mother was still denying everything.

And Sharon’s father…

…Dan Arden, who managed Black Sabbath but did not think very highly of Ozzy. He said…

"To be perfectly honest, I would be doubtful as to whether Mr. Osbourne knew the meaning of the lyrics, if there was any meaning, because his command of the English language is minimal."

Take that, Ozzy! You’re a bit of a dope.

Dr. Joe Stuessy, in his testimony before the PMRC, presented…

…Blue Oyster Cult’s 1976 album…Agents of Fortune, which was inevitable. Why? Well first, the band has always used a strange symbol…

The Satanic Cross in an insignia that appears on every album by New York rockers Blue Oyster Cult.

A major satanic symbol used by famous rockers Blue Oyster Cult among others. The upside down question mark asks mockingly…Did Jesus really die for our sins? Satan’s ploy to deceive Eve in the garden was one of questioning what God said. This symbol does the thing in an opposite parallel to what Christ did for us. His atoning sacrifice was and is a reality.

However, that is clearly not the case. It would seem obvious to everyone that the symbol used by Blue Oyster Cult (above left) is a modified version of the planet Saturn in alchemy (above, center and far right). It is equivalent to the element…lead.

From a symbolic point of view, lead was associated with heavy, density and impurity and was also associated with the 7 planets and was also associated with Saturn. The alchemists also associated lead with spiritual development as well as metamorphosis and it was also often associated with the thoughtful.

That is particularly given the fact that band member Eric Bloom described Blue Oyster Cult as…the thinking man’s rock band. The symbol can be described as…heavy metal. It is also the astrological symbol for Saturn, along with the sickle, due to his identification as the god who is associated with agriculture.

But the main reason for accusations levelled at the band, and remember that this band produced, of 16 total albums, only 3 certified gold and 1 certified platinum, as opposed to lead I suppose, because the hit song from this album, one that is still played regularly on rock music radio stations today, was Don’t Fear the Reaper. So Stuessy was thinking suicide, while the PMRC was thinking…sex.

All our times have come,
Here but now they're gone.
Seasons don't fear the reaper,
nor do the wind, the sun or the rain.
We can be like they are…

Should we be like the seasons, wind, sun, and rain and not fear death? Or should we fear death?

A common element in classical portrait painting was the inclusion of a skull. Mary Magdalene, the True Apostle and Mother of Alchemy, was routinely painted with a very prominent skull…

If Blue Oyster Cult is being morbid, then so too are the classical painters. Of course that’s not the case. The skull is a symbol of death, yes…but here it is being used as a memento mori.

…remember you will die. What is the #1 cause of death? Time. And there is no cure. This was so important in the Middle Ages that it spawned numerous works on the subject of Christians being ready for their death every day of his or her life. The most famous of these is…

…don’t you hate when people tell you what you already know? Still, this is the Ars Moriendi…The Art of Dying, which appeared between 1415-1450 AD. It consists of illustrations and Latin text. It was widely printed, and demand was high. There are different versions, with changes to the illustrations, including extra images…

…adding the blood of Christ (left); using blue to identify the Virgin Mary (center); and an extra illustration (right). The book would have you be ever mindful of your eventual death and prepare for it each day, taking the path that leads to forgiveness and salvation. This idea became very popular…

…the Mighty Erasmus wrote one. So too did…

…Jean Gerson, who included a treatise on the proper way to die in… Opus triparitum de arte moriendi. And the idea of always being ready to die, which, obviously, takes a lot of work is still of interest today…

So, it is clear that one may be thinking about death all the time, without being morbid or suicidal.

The idea is that a person should be mindful that their life is fleeting, and it’s gone before you know it. So, memento mori is a source of enlightenment, encouraging one to not waste the time life has given them. But it also includes a warning…someday after we die, we may be called to account for things we did in our lives. The element not present is…fear. We are to remember we will die, but not fear it. And the theme has appeared frequently as an element on…

…headstones. As we walk through the cemetery, and look at the stones, we are reminded by the deceased that they too had lived, but now have passed on. You’ll end up here too, so enjoy the time you’ve been given.

Valentine is done,
 here but now they're gone.
Romeo and Juliet,
 are together in eternity (Romeo and Juliet)
 40, 000 men and women everyday (like Romeo and Juliet)
 40, 000 men and women everyday (redefine happiness)
 Another 40, 000 coming everyday (we can be like they are)

Ah, yes…the reference to Romeo and Juliet indicates that the song is urging suicide. However, you’re picking a fight with the Great Bard Himself…Shakespeare.  Romeo commits suicide because he believes that Juliet is dead. Waking up, she finds the dead body of Romeo and…commits suicide. So, Shakespeare is a far more dangerous advocate of suicide than Blue Oyster Cult. No, I doubt anybody would interpret it that way. It’s a tragic story of not being able to go on after losing someone so important. In Don’t Fear the Reaper, there is a rather moving continuation…it’s sad they’re gone, but they live together in eternity. And that’s an amazing promise to all people who hope…well I can’t say it any better than Ozzy Osbourne, from a song I quoted before…

I say goodbye to romance,
Goodbye to friends,
Goodbye to all the past
I guess that we'll meet, we'll meet in the end.

 It’s a hope to be reunited with those they love. The reference to 40,000 is both puzzling, and yet fascinating. 40,000 people commit suicide every day? In 1976, the world-wide death rate was about 140,000 deaths every day. Sure, you lost 100,000 of them, but it was 1976 when the song was written, so there was no internet. So, the 40,000 was not simply made up.

Love of two is one,
Here but now they're gone.
Came the last night of sadness,
And it was clear she couldn't go on.

Then the door was open and the wind appeared,
The candles blew and then disappeared.
The curtains flew and then he appeared,
Saying don't be afraid.

The reference to Romeo and Juliet, along with the Reaper, as the staring characters is the story found one of the greatest plays in human history…

I see that poison has been his untimely end. Oh you’re so selfish! You drank it all, and didn’t leave any to help me follow you? I’ll kiss your lips. Perhaps there’s still some poison that remains on them which will cure me by killing me. 

Oh, how lucky to have this dagger! Let my body be your sheath. Rust there forever, and let me die.  

And so Romeo and Juliet are together in eternity. I have yet to find someone taking the position that Shakespeare was promoting suicide. Of course, on the other side of death they are united and, unlike in this life, there is nothing to fear. The song reminds us of the better life we will have on the other side. That doesn’t mean that we need to be in a rush to get there, so to speak. But it is so easy to be afraid of death…

But that fear of something after death,
the undiscovered place from where
no one returns, remains a mystery,
one that makes us chose what we suffer now,
rather than to face others that we do not know,
and so conscience makes cowards of us all.

Yes, to be or not to be…that is the question. To fear the reaper is to be a coward. Tipper made a strange statement in her spellbinding book…

So there is Don’t Fear the Reaper, which she and her minions misunderstood. The reference to Blessed Death, which has nothing to do with Blue Oyster Cult, is probably…

…the band named Blessed Death, who had a song called…Blessed Death. However, that song is on the album…Kill or Be Killed. At any rate, this was a thrash metal band, and were not in the hard rock-heavy metal mainstream, and I confess that I never heard of them until I read Tipper’s book. I would use a term I used before…bottom fishing. And! If we want to bottom fish, then the ultimate band would be…

The Jack Chickish writer Rick Jones, however, did cite the band’s “satanic” lyrics, in Chapter 12 of his book. Chapter 12 is titled “Suicide’s Not The Solution.” Presumably, this is an allusion to Suicide Solution by Ozzy Osbourne, and presented a rather comical, if not downright disturbing and mocking, something that is not funny, illustration…

Oh, yes…he sure takes his subject matter seriously. We’ve all heard of the New Testament person who claimed to be possessed by Legion…because they were many…5,200 if we take the reference to a Roman legion seriously. I have argued elsewhere on this website that this isn’t the case. But that would be a lot of demons. Ranking the unnamed who lived in the tombs at number one, Ozzy, or so Rick Jones claims about Ozzy…a few thousand demons already live inside his body. I wonder how he got this numerical range.

As for Suicidal Tendencies, Tipper could make a good point. But they were a hardcore punk band, and the whole genre is bottom fishing. However, I did find something she might like…

Bottom-fish this guy…

…Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols…and while you’re at it, please teach him to play bass so we don’t have to keep unplugging him when playing live. Well, it’s too late now…he is permanently unplugged. No wonder he had problems…he drank Lone Star beer.

Cause of death…Acute Intravenous Narcotism, although it’s fair to say…there’s nothing cute about it. But when mommy dearest is a drug addict and drug trafficker, and she gave him heroin, his fate was sealed early on. And it would appear that she gave him a shot of 98% pure heroin, known in the heroin culture as a…hot shot, that killed him.

Tipper Gore and her band of Fuddy-duddies found themselves facing an unforeseen foe…

…John Denver, who had been accused in the 1970s of promoting drug abuse…

While I’m sure that what he says about his songs is right, and they are not about drugs, Denver nonetheless brought criticism upon himself in an unfortunate interview in Australia…

It’s hard to believe that he didn’t know better than to make such an admission…

And his attempt to back-down turned out to be a misfire…

And…

And there were unintended consequences…

And so we have…

…ah, yes…the Big Three…Frank Zappa, Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, and…John Denver. Frank Zappa, with the Mothers of Invention and otherwise, released a plethora of albums, with only two certified gold in the US. Frank Zappa, most memorable in my mind for the lyrics…

 And she said, with a tear in her eye,
Watch out where the huskies go,
And don't you eat that yellow snow,
Watch out where the huskies go,
And don't you eat that yellow snow.

 Still, when Tipper bragged to Zappa that she had 10,000 supporters, he made the comment that Michael Jackson’s album…Thriller…sold 30 million copies. As for Tipper’s number…

This isn’t even the tail wagging the dog. This is a flea on the tail wagging the tail wagging the dog.

 None of Denver’s songs made the Filthy Fifteen, nor did any of the mind-boggeling number of songs that Frank Zappa released.  Denver wasn’t called into question by the PMRC, and I doubt he was a fan of Twisted Sister, or ever heard of Frank Zappa. But he felt a call to arms. Why? Because he found, after releasing his song…Rocky Mountain High, excluding the pot and hash smoke, that it was being banned from radio stations.

 But the Colorado Rocky Mountain high
I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky
The shadow from the starlight is softer than a lullaby
Rocky Mountain high (Colorado)
Rocky Mountain high (high in Colorado).

And the Colorado Rocky Mountain high,
I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky
I know he'd be a poorer man if he never saw an eagle fly
Rocky Mountain high.

 And he recounts his dismay with this patently false interpretation of his classic song…

I've had in my experience two encounters with this sort of censorship. My song “Rocky Mountain High was banned from many radio stations as a drug-related song.

This was obviously done by people who had never seen or been to the Rocky Mountains and also had never experienced the elation, the celebration of life, or the joy in living that one feels when he observes something as wondrous as the Perseides meteor shower, on a moonless and cloudless night, when there are so many stars that you have a shadow from the starlight, and you're out camping with your friends, your best friends, and introducing them to one of nature's most spectacular light shows for the very first time.

In a matured and incredibly diverse society such as ours, the access to all perspectives of an issue becomes more and more important. Those things which in our experience are undesirable generally prove to be unfurthering and sooner or later become boring. That process cannot and should not be stifled.

We can end hunger. We can rid the world of nuclear weapons. We can learn to live together as human beings on a planet that travels through the universe, living the example of peace and harmony among all people.

Pretty cool. Rather than argue about rock song lyrics, maybe we should be focused on the far more important things that we can do…but don’t. And as for me, I trust John Denver far more than I trust Tipper Gore.

So what happened to all things on the PRMC’s Christmas list? Well, they did get…

A sticker! Wait, that’s the wrong sticker. How ‘bout…

…this sticker! With all the time and money spent in Senate hearings, they walked away with a sticker. So musicians are forced by law to put the sticker on their albums and CDs? No, it is voluntary. Talk about getting nothing. And what would this sticker do? Parents will root through their kid’s record collection, find the albums with the silly sticker on them, and then…what? Listen to the songs on it, find the songs on it with “explicit lyrics” write them down, ponder them, getting the meaning as wrong as the PRMC did, decide that they don’t approve, confiscate the album, and then explain why to their kids? Good luck, there’s a new battle line in the war. A product of the times! There are no more albums, no cassettes, no 8-track tapes, and now, a decreasing number of CDs. Musicians are distributing their music via the Internet. Try slapping a sticker on that.

I would, however, question the real motive for it all. I suspect it was society’s abject fear of sexuality, not that of the males, but that of the females. It was a song about masturbation in an album that sold well with girls, where it all began. Views of female sexuality are different than those of males. Sure, but there has always been a much stronger element of repression in female sexuality than that of male sexuality. You can repress until you’re married, but things don’t turn on a dime. One of the greatest fears of males in our society is sexually empowered females. So make sure that your daughter isn’t bopping in the danger zone, though with your sons…you don’t care.

So they got their sticker. But! It left rock musicians doing whatever it took to get one of these on their albums, cassettes, and CDs. It was excellent advertising, and a great way for the youth to find something even more to upset their parents. So what did Tipper really get? Nothing. What do all the seminars and speeches get? Nothing. These paperback books…even less than nothing. But one must feel for the more realistic parents. This movement didn’t just target their kids music…when you lump John Denver, Simon & Garfunkel, Captain & Tenille in with AC/DC, Judas Priest, and others, you’ve lost the parents as well…who could readily see that their sons and daughters weren’t adopting Soviet ideologies. So Knoebel is fighting a war with no one in the opposing trenches.

There is yet one final suicide-oriented song worth noting. I have argued that the rock songs discussed are not about suicide. But here is one that clearly is…

Through early morning fog I see,
Visions of the things to be,
The pains that are withheld for me,
I realize and I can see.

That suicide is painless,
It brings on many changes,
And I can take or leave it if I please.

The game of life is hard to play,
I'm gonna lose it anyway,
The losing card I'll someday lay,
So this is all I have to say…

Suicide is painless,
It brings on many changes,
And I can take or leave it if I please.

The sword of time will pierce our skins,
It doesn't hurt when it begins,
But as it works its way on in,
The pain grows stronger, watch it grin.

Suicide is painless,
It brings on many changes,
And I can take or leave it if I please.

A brave man once requested me,
To answer questions that are key,
"Is it to be or not to be?"
And I replied, "Oh, why ask me?"

Suicide is painless,
It brings on many changes,
And I can take or leave it if I please.

And you can do the same thing
If you please.

The name of the song is…Suicide is Painless. Do these lyrics encourage suicide? It clearly isn’t an optimistic song.  Judas Priest? Blue Oyster Cult? Ozzy Osbourne? Black Sabbath?

No…M*A*S*H, which aired for eleven series during the years 1972-1981. It was one of the most successful tv shows of all time. It went through several character changes that succeeded one after the other and never lost its popularity. The show is known for, among other things, the ability to transcend beyond a simple comedy show, to deal with the sadder, more depressing, aspects of life, as represented by the horror of war. Suicide is Painless is the entrance song for both the movie as well as the TV show. In the case of the movie, the version of the song with the vocals was used. The instrumental version was used for the show. I would speculate that those who saw the movie also watched the tv show and knew the song when they hear it.

But did songs like Suicide Solution and Don’t Fear the Reaper figure in the tragic deaths of young people who committed suicide? The answer is…yes. There’s no doubt about it.

Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals,
I get my back into my living.
I don't need to fight to prove I'm right.
I don't need to be forgiven.
Don't cry, don't raise your eye, it's only teenage wasteland.
Sally, take my hand, we'll travel south 'cross land,
Put out the fire and don't look past my shoulder.
The exodus is here, the happy ones are near,
Let's get together before we get much older.

Teenage wasteland, it's only teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland, oh yeah
Teenage wasteland,
They're all wasted.

When I was young, the lyric…they’re all wasted…was understood as relating to youths being high on pot, and there was an almost dramatic statement being made about getting high without any intervention from adults. And no, the title is not Teenage Wasteland, it’s…Baba O’Reilly.

According to Townshend, after the band played their 1969 concert, the field was covered in trash from fans, which inspired the line: teenage wasteland. In an interview, the singer also said the song was inspired by “the absolute desolation of teenagers at Woodstock, where audience members were strung out on acid and 20 people had brain damage. The irony was that some listeners took the song to be a teenage celebration.”

So what young people thought the song was about was manifestly incorrect. If suicidal young people latch onto songs that do not advocate suicide, which in several highly-publicized examples take an opposing view on it, that has no bearing on integrity of the songs. Suicidal people can find mistaken support for their plans from many things, especially those that operate on emotions…songs, poetry, literature, movies, TV shows, etc. But they are finding what isn’t there.

Certainly, there are a number of rock singers who have committed suicide…

Philip Taylor Kramer (Iron Buttery); Lynn Randell; and Screaming Lord Sutch.

Kenny Hiller (Quiet Riot); Keith Emerson (Emerson, Lake & Palmer); Joe Walsh (Eagles)

Butch Trucks (Allman Brothers); Pete Hamm (Badfinger); Tom Evans (Badfinger); Brian Delp (Boston)

Wendy O William; Keith Flint (Prodigy); Chris Cornell (Soundgarden); Chester Bennington (Linkin Park)             

Brad Hutchence (INXS); Kurt Cobain (Nirvana); and Cliff Davies (drummer for Ted Nugent)

Ronny Montrose (Montrose); Richard Manuel (The Band); Vince Welnick (Grateful Dead); and Vince Crane (Crazy World of Arthur Brown; Atomic Rooser).

And that’s a lot, and certainly, not exhaustive. However, some have discussed the correlation between suicide and Country music…

Studies show that country music is the top genre that can lead to depression and suicides.

And…

There's a short and sweet paper from the early nineties that has played with the problematic link between country music and suicide rates (The Effect of Country Music on Suicide by S. Stack and J. Gundlach; 1992), and it tells you exactly what you'd expect to hear — repetitively being told that life is misery, your woman has left you, and only your bottle of liquor is ever going to be there for you tends to have a negative effect on your mood. The authors of this study analyzed the suicide rates of white males in 49 large metropolitan areas of the USA and bid them against the proportion of radio airtime devoted to country music, as opposed to any other genre. What they found is that there exists a significant correlation between these proportions. 

And…

Country music is hypothesized to nurture a suicidal mood through its concerns with problems common in the suicidal population, such as marital discord, alcohol abuse, and alienation from work. The results of a multiple regression analysis of 49 metropolitan areas show that the greater the airtime devoted to country music, the greater the white suicide rate. The effect is independent of divorce, southernness, poverty, and gun availability. The existence of a country music subculture is thought to reinforce the link between country music and suicide. Our model explains 51% of the variance in urban white suicide rates."

Faron Young; Judy Martin; Tom T Hall; and Mel Street

Naomi Judd; Mindy McCready; Gary Stewart; and Steve Sanders (Oak Ridge Boys).

The tragedies do not stop with Rock and Country…

…Danny Rapp (Danny & the Juniors); Paul Williams; Del Shannon; and Ray Smith.

Yes, the early days of rock and roll. And…

…Larry Williams; Donnie Hathaway; Phyllis Hyman; and Don Cornelius (creator of Soul Train). So, R&B and Soul stars are affected too. Moving on to…

…Nick Drake; Peter Bellamy; Phil Ochs; and Paul Clayton.

Folk music too. And the very sad case of…

…Sister Luc Gabrielle, also known as Soeur Sourire (Smiling Sister). Known more popularly as…the Singing Nun.

And…

…Libby Holman; Jeanette Loff; Allyn King; Yun Sim-deok.

…Mark Sheridan; Marie Wilt; Bernardine Hamaekers; and Christian Ferras.

…Evelyn Hoey; Violeta Parra; Sumako Matsui; and Lucha Reyes.

…Zdenka Rubinstein; Arma Senkrah; Adam Darr; Anny Ahlers.

…Zdenka Rubinstein; Arma Senkrah; Adam Darr; Anny Ahlers.

…U’Nee; Kai Chiemi; Okada Yukiko; Park Young Ha.

…Keiko Fuji; Sulli; and Goo Hara.

…Miura Haruma; Ryuchell; Kim Kwang Seok; and Sayaka Kanda.

So suicide is a problem not just in the Rock music world, it effects people across the musical genres. The individual reasons are complex, and some of the cases noted above involve people who suffered from painful medical conditions that would only get worse over time. Nor does it solely reflect the modern era. Adolphe Nourrit, noted above, ended his life on March 7, 1839. In this overall context, it seems rather petty and overly simplistic to point fingers at a couple songs by Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, and Blue Oyster Cult…songs that were, and are, fundamentally misunderstood. I would also note that Ozzy, and the members of the bands Judas Priest and Blue Oyster Cult, did not end their own lives. The search for causation will bring no results unless an individual’s situation is viewed as relevant to only one thing…personal perspective. The search for explanations, be they music in all genres, or even comic books, treats personal tragedies as a group phenomenon. It’s tempting…get rid of the music, the problem goes away. For many, the conclusion that nothing can be done on a cultural or societal basis is a conclusion they won’t accept. In the end, this approach treats an overarching problem without treating it all. A good starting point is to the ask the question that so vexed Wendy O. Williams…do things make sense?