Suicide Solution


"Suicide Solution" is a song performed by heavy metal vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, which appears on his 1980 album Blizzard of Ozz.

Overview

Osbourne said in 1991 that the song was about the alcohol-related death of AC/DC's Bon Scott in 1980, but Bob Daisley revealed in 2002 that he had Osbourne himself in mind when he wrote the lyrics.

Controversy

On 1 November 1985, a lawsuit against Osbourne and CBS Records was filed by the parents of John McCollum, a teenager who committed suicide allegedly after listening to this song. The plaintiffs, however, failed to prove that Osbourne had any responsibility for the teenager's death. The plaintiffs' attorneys alleged that a line in the song stated, "Why try? Get the gun and shoot!" Lyricist Daisley and Osbourne himself both claimed that the line actually says, "Get the flaps out". "Flaps", they insisted, was an English vulgar slang term for "vagina". Don Arden, Black Sabbath's former manager and the father of Sharon Osbourne, is on record as having said of the song's controversial lyrics: "To be perfectly honest, I would be doubtful as to whether Mr. Osbourne knew the meaning of the lyrics, if there was any meaning, because his command of the English language is minimal."

Personnel