Hah! Better late than never!
Not only is this one of my favorite songs ever, and one of the songs that introduced me to heavy metal some 25 years or so ago, but it’s a pretty good tune for such a crazy day. Heh. Some of y’all know what I’m talkin’ ’bout, doncha, Willis?
Ozzy Osbourne, “Crazy Train”
Ah, the immortal Randy Rhoads, the first of my many guitar heroes…
Filed under: Music
I’m late to this dance, but had to tell you about the time I met Randy Rhoads. I was working in a truck stop outside of Des Moines and Ozzy’s bus stopped for fuel after the famous bat-biting incident. Ozzy was wasted and obnoxious (I still love him, though), but Randy and the rest of the band sat in one of my booths and ate lousy truck stop food. They were polite and friendly. I got his autograph on a backstage pass and a guitar pick. A life too short lived, for sure.
Hell yeah–Crazy Train’s great!
I’ve got Pat Boone’s CD, “In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy” and he covers “Crazy Train” on it. This is that CD that got him in so much trouble with the Christian Broadcasting Network–they fired him from his “Old Time Gospel Hour” host position because of it (he’s now back on the same network–and just when I was beginning to respect him)!
This is the only Pat Boone album I have, of course, but it’s really pretty damned good! His take on “Crazy Train” sounds as good to me as Ozzie’s (all the songs on the CD are done in a big-band style–you have to hear it to believe it)! My favorite of all is his take on “Enter Sandman”–I like that one even better than Metallica’s!
And he doesn’t censor the language in any of the songs–with one exception: In his take on “Stairway to Heaven”, he changes the line, “When all are one and one is all,” to “When three-in-one is all in all” (an obvious reference to the Christian Trinity)–and that just ruins it!
Still a kickass CD though!