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I was searching the internet for something for Caturday and found this.

I immediately thought, “Well, sure. Every Ozzy Osbourne fan knows that.” That in turn led me down the mental rabbit hole of one of the dumbest consequences of the Satanic Panic. I’ve mentioned the Satanic Panic several times, including a brief post hinting at my experiences with it in the context of gaming. This is a different angle, and one that’s more mainstream.

Ozzy Osbourne wrote a song called Suicide Solution. Here are the opening lyrics.

Wine is fine by whiskey’s quicker.
Suicide is slow with liquor.
Take a bottle and drown your sorrows.
Then it floods away tomorrows

So, what do those lyrics mean to you? What is this song about? If you answered, “Putting a gun to your head and shooting yourself,” then you’re an idiot. I get that not all of you are chemists. I understand that “solution” meaning “a liquid mixture in which the minor component (the solute) is uniformly distributed within the major component (the solvent)” isn’t the first thing you think of when you hear that word, but when analyzing the lyrics to this particular song, it’s clear that’s what Osbourne meant. Moreover, any fan of Osbourne would have known that even if you didn’t.

His parents insisted that young, impressionable adults were particularly susceptible to being influenced by Osbourne’s music . . . .

Yeah, so they understand the meaning of the words, which warned of the effects of alcohol and drug abuse.

To say that this song caused someone to kill themselves not only flies in the face of logic (supported by the fact that this lawsuit was dismissed), but it also diminishes the importance of factors that actually cause suicide. If you can’t identify the cause of a problem, it’s probably going to be difficult to solve it, and yes, sometimes that means admitting that you, the parent, have far more control over your child’s mental health than a public figure and stranger who has deeper pockets.

Censorship is stupid, and this case is yet another piece of evidence as to why that’s so. Not only was it an attempt to run from responsibility by scapegoating Ozzy, but if it had succeeded, it would have silenced a positive message about avoiding alcohol abuse based solely on ignorance and prejudgment. Let’s not relive the past in this regard.

But hey, it’s Caturday, so . . .

Censorship is bad in whatever form it takes.

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