I've always found it a bit strange that a person can grieve someone whom they have never met. Yet here I sit, grieving a man I had no physical connection to. Never been within a hundred feet of him, in fact. His name was Ozzy and though he didn't know me, in some inexplicable way I felt as though I knew him. He had a huge impact on my youth and, though the songs I write may belie the fact, my music. I actually have a cassette lying around somewhere with multiple versions of me playing crazy train with 

different bands that documents my progress from beginner guitarist who could barely play the riff through finding my footing on the instrument and trying to emulate my first guitar hero, Ozzy's guitarist Randy Rhoads. 

I just learned of Ozzy's death an hour or two ago and it's confounding to me that his passing could have the impact on me that it's having. It's like saying goodbye to an entire epoch of my life. That's the power of music. 

It occurred to me that this is part of what makes someone like me a songwriter and musician.  Music has a kind of je ne sais quoi that connects us in some indefinable way and i crave that connection, as a songwriter, as a performer, and as a listener. 

When it's done right music makes you feel something.  Whether you want to express joy, sadness, excitement, anger, compassion, or any other emotion, music can take you there. That's why we writers write: to share what we feel with whoever is listening and hopefully make that connection.  There's no greater compliment than when someone tells you that your music has touched them or made them feel something. For me and for countless others Ozzy's music did that. 

Rest well Mr. Osbourne