Diary Of A Madman Crazy Train Ozzy Osbourne

Diary Of A Madman Album: Diary of a Madman (1981)
Crazy Train Album: Blizzard of Ozz (1980)
by Ozzy Osbourne

Ozzy's bass player Bob Daisley wrote Diary Of A Madman. Said Daisley: "I really wrote that one about myself. When I was 16 I had my first nervous breakdown and it really f---ed me up. I was a sensitive kid and I have always been a sensitive person. I suppose you have to be sensitive being in the arts. I wrote the words about myself. Quite often we have problems and we are our own worst enemies and that is why 'Enemies fill up the pages one by one in the diary. Are they me?' I am my own worst enemy.

The other thing was that Randy [Rhoads] had the rough idea for the song 'Diary of a Madman' and I came up with title. I wrote all of the lyrics as well on the album. Ozzy would come and go from rehearsals. One day he came in and we played him 'Diary of a Madman' and because it had funny timing he couldn't get his head around. He said, 'Who the f--k do you think I am? Frank Zappa!' We said, 'You sing in this part but you don't sing here. This timing goes like this etc.' He started to like it when he got his head around but at first he was like, 'This is not for me'."

The title came from a 1963 movie of the same name starring Vincent Price.

Through a bit of revisionist history, Diary of a Madman became Ozzy Osbourne's second solo album. After leaving Black Sabbath in 1978, he formed a new band with Bob Daisley, Randy Rhoads and Lee Kerslake called the Blizzard of Ozz, which ended up being billed as an Ozzy solo project after the album was released showing just Osbourne on the cover and his name in big letters.

In an interview with Bob Daisley, he explained that this song was conceived before they had the title for the album, and it made a perfect fit. Said Daisley: "I thought it would be a good title for an Ozzy Osbourne album because he's got the reputation of being one of the madmen of rock and roll."

The little boy on the album cover is Ozzy's son Louis from his first marriage.

In Crazy Train, Ozzy asks when we can all learn to love in a world gone mad. Ozzy wrote the song with guitarist Randy Rhoads and bass player Bob Daisley. In an interview with Daisley, he explained how it came together:

"Randy had the basic riff, the signature riff. Then we worked on music together. He needed something to solo on so I came up with a chord pattern and the section for him to solo over.

Before it was called 'Crazy Train,' before we even had a title, Randy and I were working on the music. He had his effects pedals, and coming through his amp was a weird kind of chugging sound. It was a phase-y kind of psychedelic effect, this chugging sound that was coming through his amp from his effects pedal.

Randy was into trains - he used to collect model trains and so did I. I've always been a train buff and so was Randy. So I said, 'Randy, that sounds like a train. But it sounds nuts.' And I said, 'A crazy train.'