• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 741 0

at it. If it’s a great album—which I hope it is—it’s a great album because it deals with great themes. It speaks in a noble language. It speaks of the issues or the ideals of an age in some nation, and hopefully, it would also speak across the ages. It’d be as good tomorrow as it is today and would’ve been as good yesterday. That’s what I was trying to make happen, because just to make another record at this point in my career . . . Career, by the way, isn’t how I look at what I do. “Career” is a French word. It means “carrier.” It’s something that takes you from one place to the other. I don’t feel like what I do qualifies to be called a career. It’s more of a calling.

There’s also a good deal of humor on this record—maybe more than on any record of yours since the 1960s.

Well . . .

C’mon, there are some pretty funny lines on this album—like the exchange between Romeo and Juliet in “Floater (Too Much to Ask),” and that knock-knock joke in “Po’ Boy.”

Yeah, funny . . . and dark. But still, in my own mind, not really poking fun at the principles that would guide a person’s life or anything. Basically, the songs deal with what many of my songs deal with—which is business, politics and war, and maybe love interest on the side. That would be the first level you would have to appreciate them on.

This record was released on September 11th—the same date as the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I’ve talked with several people in the time since then who have turned to ‘Love and Theft’ because they find something in it that matches the spirit of dread and uncertainty of our present conditions. For my part, I’ve kept circling around a line from “Mississippi”: “Sky full of fire, pain pourin’ down.” Is there anything you would like to say about your reaction to the events of that day?

One of those Rudyard Kipling poems, “Gentlemen-Rankers,” comes to my mind: “We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth/We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung/And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth/God help us, for we knew the worst too young!” If anything, my mind would go to young people at a time like this. That’s really the only way to put it.

You mean because of what’s at stake for them right now, as we apparently go to war?

Exactly. I mean, art imposes order on life, but how much more art will there be? We don’t really know. There’s a secret sanctity of nature. How much more of that will there be? At the moment, the rational mind’s way of thinking wouldn’t really explain what’s happened. You need something else, with a capital E, to explain it. It’s going to have to be dealt with sooner or later, of course.

Do you see any hope for the situation we find ourselves in?

I don’t really know what I could tell you. I don’t consider myself an educator or an explainer. You see what it is that I do, and that’s what I’ve always done. But it is time now for great men to come forward. With small men, no great thing can be accomplished at the moment. Those people in charge, I’m sure they’ve read Sun-Tzu, who wrote The Art of War in the sixth century. In there he says, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself and not your enemy, for every victory gained you will suffer a defeat.” And he goes on to say, “If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” Whoever’s in charge, I’m sure they would have read that.

Things will have to change. And one of these things that will have to change: People will have to change their internal world.

OZZY OSBOURNE

by David Fricke

July 25, 2002

Did you try hard not to say fuck when you met the queen?

That word was temporarily on hold in my head. My wife said to Camilla Parker Bowles [Prince Charles’ girlfriend], “I think you’re fucking great.” My eyeballs nearly flew out of my head. I said, “Sharon, watch your language.” And Camilla Parker Bowles says [affects posh accent], “Oh, it’s quite all right.