It was a match made in heaven. Or, if you buy into the whole Prince of Darkness thing, hell.
During an appearance on step brother Jack Osbourne’s Trying Not to Die podcast this week, metal legend Ozzy Osbourne‘s eldest son, Louis Osbourne, sat down to have a familial chat about their late dad and one of the topics that came up was an obscure song that Osbourne tracked during the height of his early 1980s fame that also featured a just-about-to-be-famous Madonna.
The sons were talking about the bands that Ozzy loved and Jack noted that the metal godfather “really loved female vocalists,” adding that in the final years of his life wife/manager Sharon Osbourne really wanted Ozzy to do a duets albums with all-female singers. That prompted Louis to note that he has a rare 12″ vinyl at home that will blow Ozzy fans’ minds.
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“Was (Not Was) did a duet with Madonna and my dad,” he said of the truly bizarre song “Shake Your Head” from the Detroit duo’s 1983 album Born to Laugh at Tornadoes. When Jack interrupted to remind him that the song actually featured Ozzy and actress Kim Basinger, Louis corrected him and said it “was Madonna originally… It was written for Madonna and Was (Not Was) and it was when dad was poppin’ in the early ’80s and so was she, but then she kind of like really f–kin’ popped and then didn’t give approval on the record.”
Louis said after Madonna, or her team, allegedly blocked approvals, Basinger — then just at the beginning of a decade-long big screen hot streak — hopped on the song as her team were trying to “make her a pop star as well.” Louis said the track, a banger with a perfectly perfect early 1980s Madonna dance floor vibe overlaid with Ozzy’s yearning vocals (“You can’t feed the hungry/ Can’t talk Shakespeare to a monkey”) is “somewhere out there.”
Last month, Don Was told Rolling Stone that Madonna “did a great job” on the song, but it didn’t “sound like Was (Not Was) to me anymore,” so they brought in Ozzy to pseudo rap over the electro pop tune. “We realized about eight years later that we had Ozzy and Madonna on parallel tracks,” Was said. “So we gave it to a remixer… and he turned it into a Ozzy/Madonna duet.” The remix by Steve “Silk” Hurley ended up on the Now Dance ’92 compilation after Was accidentally on purpose sent him the original Madonna vocal track along with Ozzy’s, with Louis noting that the original, never-released version, went top 10 on the U.K. dance charts, topping out at No. 4 in 1992.
Watch the conversation below.
