Brandon Denker

Music 1020
Writing Assignment 2
Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne
Produced by Max Norman
https://open.spotify.com/track/61nSbxyL6VRPp32AMscxiF
Crazy Train, by Ozzy Osbourn. This song was produced by Max
Norman and is a great example for a listening guide. As a kid I can
remember this song being my warm up for hockey games. It would
give me all these crazy feelings of excitement, rush and adrenaline. I
feel like this is the first song that I really ever listened to. Ozzy
Osbourne, Randy Rhodes and Bob Daisley wrote crazy Train. It was
recorded on March 22, 1980 and released on September 20,1980. In
our book this song would fall into chapter 19 in our textbook, it falls
into a label of gothic rock and metal .
The genre of Crazy Train is heavy metal. Crazy Train was Ozzy
Osbournes first release after leaving his former band Black Sabbath,
the song is about the Cold War.
Tempo: There are multiple versions of this song. The version
provided within the link is 140 BPM. The duration of the song is 4:51 .
When we really listen to this song we are able to identify the true
resemblance that Ozzy is trying to express.
The song identifies itself in the form of .
Intro 8 + 8
Song riff 4
Verse - 8+8
Pre Chorus 4
Chorus 4 + 2 following by the transition by next verse 4.
The transition set up for next verse .The feel of the song is fast paced
with amazing guitar solo from 2:46-3:12, by none other than the Randy
Rhodes, this shows hard this band can really rock.
Form: I am having trouble identifying the overall the musical
form of the song I need a little more understanding of what form
exactly entails in this song .After and 8+8 Intro the song has hard
hitting rifts, and guitar solos with strong lyrics to support the overall
strength and power of the song.
The chorus is Im going of the rails on a crazy train. The bass at the
beginning of the song repeats itself in what I would consider AAB form
and then is overtaken by a thrashing guitar that loops behind Ozzys
vocals as he tells the story of Crazy Train. As mentioned before the
guitar in this song is really what makes this song so great. Randy

Rhodes puts together an amazing riffs throughout this song. His

amazing solo is found at 2:46-3:12.
Crazy train is a very upbeat and fast paced song song with a
series of riffs from guitarist Randy Rhodes and a strong background
bass affect from Bob Daisly. Ozzy Osbourne is the sole vocalist in the
song and tells a story of making references to the world after the cold
war. There is evidence directly from the lyrics, Millions of people living
as foes. (songfact.com) . The vocals match the guitar and bass with
breaks between the vocals this song really lets you hear all of the
components of the band that is playing. You can hear bass, guitar,
drums, even at the very beginning the band uses a great usage of
rattle at 10-13 seconds to draw you into silence before breaking out
into the first guitar riff at 17 seconds then everything comes together
at 31 seconds to really start letting the song unfold.
The lyrics of this song are equally as good as all of the other
components . That is why I like this song so much. Every piece of it is
great. Mental wounds, not healing, driving me insane. Such a great
verse to provide imagery of what war can do to you . Ultimately it
drives you to going off the rails on a crazy train. The music and lyrics
is definite match in this song. Fast paced guitar, strong bass and hardhitting lyrics . Everything a great song needs.
It is no wonder that crazy train is one of Ozzy Osbournes best
songs as a solo artist. It was rated 9th greatest guitar solo ever by
readers of Guitar World magazine. The song was also ranked 9th
by VH1 on the list of the 40 Greatest Metal Songs and in 2009 it was
named the 23rd greatest hard rock song of all time also by VH1, the
highest placement by a solo artist on the list.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Train). My personal connection to
this song comes from playing sports as a kid. This song gets me going,
it gets me fired up. I can actually feel the power of this song and I like
that. I think that this song deserves to go down as one of the best. It
has been used in other forms of hard-hitting rap songs that have the
same appeal. If your looking to get intense and need a song to get the
blood pumping look no further than Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne.

Work Cited
1. http://www.songfacts.com
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Train