Zakk Wylde: Grammy-Winning Ozzy Hit Started as ‘a Joke’

After toiling away in the music business for 23 years, Ozzy Osbourne landed his first Grammy in 1992 for his song, “I Don’t Want to Change the World.”

Now, nearly 20 years after the self-proclaimed Prince of Darkness brought home his first statuette, his guitarist reveals the victory had absolutely nothing to do with the hard work that preceded it.

Instead, Zakk Wylde said the track – which appears on the album No More Tears – came about as the result of “a joke.” He says, “We were at Joe’s Garage, Frank Zappa’s old place, and we were jamming. I remember I was playing the main riff, and then I’d get through it and just stop. And then we’d say something into the mic, like, ‘How not to ever get a date,’ or, ‘I have no job and I live with my parents.’ And then we’d go back into the riff.”

Wilde says he and his bandmates were “crying-laughing” over the impromptu tune when Osbourne walked into the studio. “He goes, ‘What is that?,’” Wylde recalls. “I’m like, ‘What are you talkin’ about?’ And he says, ‘That thing you’re playing. That riff.’ I go, ‘Oh, it’s just a joke.’ And he goes, ‘We’re going to use that.'”

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