Ozzy Osbourne Recalls His Accidental Hit With Lita Ford

We tend to focus on the wild extracurricular shenanigans Ozzy Osbourne got up to during his drinking and drugging days, but he occasionally got wacky in the studio, too -- and he shared the memories of some of his more unexpected collaborations during a recent Esquire interview.

"Sometimes it works out OK, but I only do these things for a goof," Osbourne admitted after being reminded that he'd once covered 'Stayin' Alive' with Dweezil Zappa and cut a duet with Miss Piggy. Explaining that he likes "to do different things to keep my head going," he added, "I mean, believe me: I'm not a big Miss F---ing Piggy fan! You know, you gotta be careful about what you do."

One example of an off-the-cuff recording that ended up working out extremely well: 'Close My Eyes Forever,' the duet he recorded with Lita Ford for her 1988 'Lita' LP. "She was being managed by my wife. I went to the studio and it kinda half got written. So I went back to England the following week, and my wife phones me and says, 'You know that song you were writing?' And I go, 'What song?' She said, 'That song, Lita wants to come down and work it out with you,'" he recalled. "So I fly back to L.A. and I do the song and I said, 'You know what, Lita? You can have it. I don't want nothing from it. You can have the song.'"

Others weren't quite so cavalier about the co-write, however. "I get on a plane, I go back to England, and then I get another phone call. It's my wife and she said, 'Can you come back out? She wants to do it with you.' I go, 'Do what?' And she goes, 'That f---in' song!' I go 'OK,' and I record the song, go back to England again, and a couple weeks later they want to do a video," Osbourne continued. "I'm going, 'This is getting f---in' ridiculous now!' So I must have done like five million masters, but it turned out OK and I was pretty happy with the end result and she was."

The moral of the story, concluded Osbourne, is that for a guy in his position, "Whatever you put on a track, somebody somewhere will put it out someday" -- which is why he's sure the fans will eventually get officially released versions of every odd decision he ever made in a recording studio. "It will turn up someday. I don't remember everything I recorded, but if I recorded it, you'll hear it," he predicted. "I don't know when or where. When I was f---ed up all the time I did some crazy s---, you know?"

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