There are rock ’n’ roll stories.
There are ridiculous rock ’n’ roll stories.
And then there’s the story of Lemmy Kilmister writing four songs for Ozzy Osbourne and apparently making more money from them than he had during 15 years of Motörhead.
Yep.
FIFTEEN. YEARS. OF. MOTÖRHEAD.
Ace of Spades. ♠️
Overkill. 💥
Bomber. ✈️
Iron Fist. 👊
No Sleep ’til Hammersmith. 🔥
Years of deafening gigs, relentless touring and enough volume to loosen the fillings in your teeth…
…and then Sharon Osbourne rings Lemmy and asks whether he fancies writing some songs for Ozzy.
Rock ’n’ roll economics, mun. 😂🤘
📞 “CAN YOU WRITE FOUR SONGS FOR ME?”
The collaboration came as Ozzy was working on his sixth solo studio album, No More Tears, released in September 1991.
Lemmy later recalled that shortly after moving to America, Sharon Osbourne contacted him about writing material for Ozzy.
His wonderfully Lemmy-esque recollection was essentially that Sharon asked whether he could write four songs, offered him a deal he couldn’t refuse, and off he went.
The resulting collaboration produced four tracks on No More Tears:
- I Don’t Want to Change the World
- Mama, I’m Coming Home
- Desire
- Hellraiser
All four carried Lemmy Kilmister songwriting credits alongside Ozzy and members of his musical team.
And what a bloody collection that turned out to be.
💰 FOUR SONGS. ONE VERY HAPPY LEMMY.
Years later, Lemmy summed up the financial impact with the sort of wonderfully matter-of-fact comment only he could deliver.
He said:
“I made more money out of those four songs than I did in 15 years with Motörhead.”
Just let that sink in.
Motörhead formed in 1975.
By the time Lemmy was working with Ozzy, his band had already produced a colossal catalogue, toured relentlessly and become one of the most influential heavy bands ever to plug an amplifier into a wall.
Yet four songwriting collaborations with the Prince of Darkness reportedly put more money in Lemmy’s pocket than roughly a decade and a half fronting Motörhead.
That tells you quite a bit about the music industry.
It also tells you just how enormous Ozzy had become as a solo artist.
And Lemmy wasn’t complaining.
In another interview, he explained that when he moved to America he was broke and had virtually nothing in the bank. Sharon’s songwriting offer resulted in a lump sum that Lemmy described as more money than he’d previously seen from his career.
For a bloke who’d spent years travelling the world blasting audiences with some of the loudest rock ’n’ roll ever created, that must have been quite the afternoon at the bank.
“Where did this come from?”
Ozzy.
Fair enough. 😂
❤️ “MAMA, I’M COMING HOME” SHOWED ANOTHER SIDE OF LEMMY
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the collaboration remains Mama, I’m Coming Home.
Because when your mental image of Lemmy involves:
♠️ Rickenbacker basses
♠️ Marshall stacks
♠️ Jack Daniel’s
♠️ Cowboy boots
♠️ Motörhead playing at approximately the volume of an aircraft taking off inside your living room
…you might not immediately think:
massive emotional power ballad.
But Lemmy was a seriously underrated lyricist.
Mama, I’m Coming Home was written by Ozzy Osbourne, Zakk Wylde and Lemmy Kilmister, and became one of the defining songs of Ozzy’s solo career.
Behind the growl, leather and sheer Motörhead brutality was a songwriter capable of being funny, cynical, intelligent, emotional and surprisingly tender.
Lemmy wasn’t simply writing Motörhead lyrics.
He could write for somebody else.
And that is an entirely different skill.
😈 THEN THERE WAS “HELLRAISER”
If Mama, I’m Coming Home demonstrated Lemmy’s softer songwriting chops, Hellraiser was considerably closer to home.
Written by Ozzy, Zakk Wylde and Lemmy, Ozzy’s version appeared on No More Tears.
But Lemmy clearly wasn’t finished with it.
Motörhead recorded their own version for the 1992 album March ör Die, with the track also associated with the Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth soundtrack.
And hearing the two versions is fascinating.
Ozzy’s recording sounds like Ozzy.
Motörhead’s sounds like somebody has thrown the same song down a staircase, poured whisky over it and plugged it into a Marshall stack.
Which is exactly what you’d want. 🤘😂
Decades later, the connection became even cooler when a special anniversary version combined Ozzy and Lemmy’s performances.
Two unmistakable voices.
One massive song.
Heavy-metal royalty reunited through the studio.
🏆 “I DON’T WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD” WON OZZY A GRAMMY
Another of Lemmy’s No More Tears collaborations would achieve something particularly significant.
I Don’t Want to Change the World was co-written by Ozzy, Zakk Wylde, Randy Castillo and Lemmy.
A live recording released on Ozzy’s Live & Loud album later earned Ozzy his first Grammy Award.
So Lemmy’s fingerprints weren’t merely on a few album tracks.
These songs became an important part of Ozzy’s solo legacy.
Not bad for a phone call from Sharon, eh?
🔥 AND LEMMY DIDN’T STOP THERE
The No More Tears sessions weren’t the end of Lemmy and Ozzy’s songwriting relationship either.
Lemmy later contributed material connected with Ozzy’s 1995 album Ozzmosis, including My Little Man.
He also revealed that he’d written something inspired by legendary Ozzy guitarist Randy Rhoads, but the subject apparently proved too emotionally difficult for Ozzy.
It shows the depth of trust between the pair.
Lemmy wasn’t simply some hired lyricist who’d wandered into the room.
He and Ozzy were friends.
Two survivors from the wildest generations British heavy music ever produced.
One came through Black Sabbath.
The other came through Hawkwind before creating Motörhead.
Together, they helped shape heavy metal and hard rock as we know it.
🎸 LEMMY WAS ONE HELL OF A SONGWRITER
It’s easy to reduce Lemmy to the image.
The moustache.
The hat.
The bass.
The whisky.
The cigarettes.
The legendary lifestyle.
The immortal opening declaration:
“We are Motörhead, and we play rock ’n’ roll.”
But underneath all of that was a bloody brilliant writer.
Lemmy understood language.
He understood humour.
He understood rhythm.
He understood how words needed to sit inside a song.
Most importantly, he could seemingly crawl inside another singer’s personality and write lyrics that sounded believable coming out of their mouth rather than his own.
That’s why something as emotionally exposed as Mama, I’m Coming Home doesn’t sound like Ozzy awkwardly singing a Motörhead lyric.
It sounds like an Ozzy Osbourne song.
That’s the craft.
💸 THE CRAZY REALITY OF MOTÖRHEAD
The money story also reminds us of something that’s sometimes forgotten when looking back at legendary bands.
Influence doesn’t necessarily equal wealth.
Motörhead were massively influential.
Metallica adored them.
Dave Grohl adored Lemmy.
Punk bands loved them.
Metal bands loved them.
Rock bands loved them.
Generations of musicians borrowed something from that filthy Motörhead roar.
But enormous cultural influence doesn’t automatically mean enormous record sales or giant royalty cheques.
Lemmy himself repeatedly spoke about how little money Motörhead had generated for him during certain periods.
Which makes the Ozzy story simultaneously hilarious and slightly depressing.
Imagine spending 15 years helping redefine heavy music…
…and then four songs arrive and go:
“Cheers, we’ll take it from here.”
😂💰
♠️ TWO LEGENDS, FOUR ABSOLUTE BELTERS
Ultimately, though, forget the money for a moment.
Look at those four songs again:
I Don’t Want to Change the World.
Mama, I’m Coming Home.
Desire.
Hellraiser.
That’s a ridiculous little songwriting run.
And it represents one of the coolest collaborations in heavy-metal history.
Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy Kilmister weren’t merely larger-than-life characters who survived decades of rock ’n’ roll madness.
They were songwriters.
Proper ones.
The kind who could make something powerful enough to still have people cranking the volume decades later.
Lemmy may have found the financial side of the whole situation absurd.
But there’s something beautifully fitting about it too.
After years of Motörhead grinding their way around the planet, Lemmy sat down, wrote some words for his mate Ozzy…
…and accidentally landed himself one of the biggest paydays of his career.
Only in rock ’n’ roll, butt. 🤘😂
And somewhere, we’d like to think Lemmy would’ve raised a glass to that.
♠️ Born to lose. Lived to win.
Proudly Welsh. Proudly Loud. 🤘🏴
