Unlike many artists from his generation, Paul McCartney has always been quite aware of what was happening in music throughout his career. Alongside George Harrison, John Lennon and Ringo Starr, he started a revolution that changed the course of music forever.
Rock and Roll would never have been the same without them and a huge number of new music genres would not have appeared, including Heavy Metal, for example. Over the decades, he has spoken about many artists and bands, giving his opinion on them, including Black Sabbath vocalist Ozzy Osbourne.
What is Paul McCartney’s opinion on Ozzy Osbourne
Paul likes Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne’s music and has already praised both the band and his solo work, saying he is great. They met each other for the first time only in 2001, when both of them recorded separate appearances on The Howard Stern Show on the same day back in 2001.
Ozzy went into the room where McCartney was giving another interview and when he saw him coming in, the Beatle said: “Oh God, no! You’re not letting him in! (laughs). Oh bloody hell, hello darling, finally we get to meet, f*cking hell. I was just saying to the guys why I didn’t the bass, because I didn’t want to blow your guy out” (Ozzy previously asked him to play on the song ‘Dreamer’). I only would have played what he played and because you were threatening to sing on mine (laughs).” After that, Ozzy told him that it was The Beatles who made him dream of becoming a musician. Paul replied: “After the burglary? (laughs) I love that story (about you) wearing gloves with no fingers,” he said.
After the meeting Paul went to talk to Howard Stern, who asked him about if he met Yoko Ono before John Lennon, he mentioned Ozzy: “I was just listening to the show as I was coming in, you know, Ozzy couldn’t remember yesterday.”
Paul McCartney continued:
“Yeah (I met him down the hall), we finally met. He is a cool guy”. Did you understand a word he said? “Oh, sure. I love the way he talks”. You like his music? “Yeah, he’s great. (I like) all of it,” Paul McCartney said.
Before Ozzy entered the room, McCartney was asked by the interviewer about “Dreamer”, and he said: “I was just saying about the ‘Dreamer’ track. Good track, but I said I didn’t want to do the bass line.” According to Ozzy, Paul explained that he felt he could not top Rob Trujillo’s bass playing on the track. That song was part of Osbourne’s 2001 album “Down to Earth”. It was recorded at the Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles, California from April, 2000 to August, 2001. It was the same location where McCartney recorded the album “Driving Rain” from February to June, 2001.
What Paul McCartney said about Black Sabbath
When Black Sabbath released their debut album in 1970, The Beatles were breaking up and releasing their final album, “Let It Be”. He was interviewed for the 2011 documentary “God Bless Ozzy Osbourne” (2011) and talked about their music. “I mean, listening to it now it doesn’t sound that crazy at all but then it was quite sort of off the wall. In life we know about the dark side and the light side, the good side and the bad side.”
“I think that’s probably the attraction is that it hadn’t been done until Black Sabbath started dealing with it. And people go ‘Oh yeah this is great, well cool’. It’s like the attraction of Dracula or vampires. It’s a rich source for exploration, I think,” Paul McCartney said (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). A couple of years before, in 2008, The Osbourne family introduced Paul at the BRIT Awards for his “Outstanding Contribution”.
Although Paul did not post any tribute on his social media when Ozzy Osbourne died at the age of 76 in 2025, he and Ozzy used to exchange emails from time to time, as the Sabbath frontman revealed in his 2010 autobiography “I Am Ozzy”. “We e-mail each other from time to time now, me and Paul. (Which means I speak and Tony taps what I’ve said into the computer, ’cos I don’t have the patience for all that internet bollocks)”.
He continued:
“It started when I heard a song called ‘Fine Line’ on a Lexus commercial. I thought, Fucking hell, that’s not a bad tune, I think I’ll nick it. So I mentioned it – just in passing – to a guy who used to work with me called John Roden, who also happened to work with Paul. John said, ‘Y’know who wrote that, don’t you?’ I told him I didn’t have a clue. ‘My other boss,’ he said. Obviously I left the song well alone after that.”
“Then, out of the blue, came this letter saying, ‘Thanks for not nicking ‘Fine Line’, Ozzy.’ You couldn’t get the smile off my face for days. And it just went on from there. We don’t e-mail very often, but if he’s got an album coming out, or if he’s getting some flak in the press, I’ll drop him a line. The last one I sent was to congratulate him on that Fireman album he did. If you haven’t heard it, you should, ’cos it’s fucking phenomenal,” Ozzy Osbourne said.
Ozzy wished Paul McCartney would marry his sister so he could meet The Beatles
Ozzy Osbourne made it clear throughout his career that The Beatles were his favorite band and main influence. It was after hearing “She Loves You” on the radio that he realized what he wanted to do in life. He was such a fan that, as a kid, he used to wish that, somehow, his sister could meet and marry Paul McCartney so he could meet him and the band.
“I was Beatles all the way, man. My bedroom wall was in fact, completly covered, the wall, ceilings, doors… any Beatles pictures were stuck on my wall. I used to have these fantasies of Paul McCartney marrying my sister, all these kind of crazy stuff and how wonderful (It would be),” he said in an interview for the 1995 documentary “History Of Rock and Roll” (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). The late musician had three older sisters called Jean, Iris and Gillian, and also two younger brothers.
In his biography “I Am Ozzy”, the “Prince of Darkness” said Paul was probably the most special person he had the chance to meet in his life. “Of all the people I got to meet, though, the most special was probably Paul McCartney. I mean, I’d looked up to that man since I was fourteen. But what the fuck are you supposed to talk to him about, eh? It’s like trying to strike up a conversation with God. Where’d you start? ‘Oh, I see you made the Earth in seven days. What was that like?’”
He continued:
“We were at Elton John’s birthday party: Paul on one side of me, Sting on the other, and Elton opposite. It was like I’d died and gone to rock star heaven. But I’m useless when it comes to making conversation with people I admire. I’m a big believer in just leaving them alone, generally. In that way, I’m very shy. There were some rumors going around in the press for a while that me and Paul were gonna do a duet. But I can honestly say I never heard a word about it from the man himself. And I’m glad I didn’t, ‘cos I would have shit my pants, big time,” Ozzy Osbourne said.
In 2005, when Ozzy released the album “Under Cover”, he recorded versions of The Beatles’ “In My Life” and John Lennon’s “Woman” and “Working Class Hero”. In 2010, he released a version of “How?”, another Lennon song.
I'm a Brazilian journalist who always loved Classic Rock and Heavy Metal music. That passion inspired me to create Rock and Roll Garage over 6 years ago.
Music has always been a part of my life, helping me through tough times and being a support to celebrate the good ones. When I became a journalist, I knew I wanted to write about my passions.
After graduating in journalism from the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, I pursued a postgraduate degree in digital communication at the same institution. The studies and experience in the field helped me improve the website and always bring the best of classic rock to the world!
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