Former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee recently shared one of the most unforgettable live moments from his time in the Prince of Darkness’s band: the night Ozzy completely forgot the lyrics to Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” and improvised the entire verse with “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.”
Appearing on Chris Jericho’s Talk Is Jericho podcast, Lee described the chaotic scene during a European tour in the Bark at the Moon era:
“We’re playing ‘War Pigs,’ it gets to the first verse, and Ozzy looks at me whispering, ‘What are the words!?’ I froze. I knew them in my head — ‘Generals gathered in their masses…’ — but in that split second on stage, nothing came out. So Ozzy just starts singing ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm.’ And somehow, it fit the melody perfectly. He did the whole verse — ‘Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O’ — while the band kept playing like nothing happened.
I lost it. I was cracking up on stage. I looked at Ozzy, he looked at me and started laughing too. He could barely get through the second verse because we were both dying. The front row looked totally confused, but it’s one of my favorite memories ever. Absolute genius move — whether it was planned or not.”
In the same interview, Lee revealed which song from his Ozzy tenure he’s most proud of — and surprisingly, it’s not the title track “Bark at the Moon.”
“My favorite is ‘Killer of Giants,’” Lee said. “I grew up playing classical piano from age six to fourteen, and my mom always had classical music on in the house. That background really came through on that song. It’s structured almost like a classical piece — it keeps moving forward with new sections, never repeating the first part. It felt orchestral to me.
The melody itself, I’ll admit I borrowed and straightened out from the ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ theme, but it worked. ‘Bark at the Moon’ is the big iconic one, the catchy hit everyone knows, but ‘Killer of Giants’ is the most musical thing I did with Ozzy.”
Jake E. Lee played with Ozzy Osbourne from 1982 to 1987, co-writing and recording the platinum-selling albums Bark at the Moon (1983) and The Ultimate Sin (1986) before being replaced by Zakk Wylde. Despite his significant contributions, Lee has often spoken about feeling overlooked in Ozzy’s history — though stories like the “Old MacDonald/War Pigs” incident prove his time in the band was anything but forgettable.
