Karaoke Host Told Ozzy Osbourne He Couldn’t Handle “No More Tears” — The Song He Wrote Himself D

September 20th, 2018. On a side street off Division Street in Nashville, on the karaoke stage of a 60 seat bar called Rubies, a 27-year-old host looked down at the small slip of paper in his hand, then up at the old man standing in front of him and smiled politely. Sir, he said, I think this one might be a little heavy for you.

It runs 7 minutes, and nobody in this bar has ever finished it. The song written on that slip was No More Tears. And the man who had filled it out in his own handwriting was the man who wrote that song 27 years earlier. But that is not what the people sitting in that bar would talk about years later. What they would talk about was the second man who walked onto that stage a few hours later.

And that man was no legend. Finding music in a Nashville bar is not hard. Finding someone who is actually listening to it is Ruby sat 20 minutes away from the tourist noise of Broadway. A small place with the letter R on its sign burned out for the past 2 years. On Thursday nights, it turned into a karaoke bar. The microphone on that stage belonged to Wyatt Lawson.

He had come to the city from Indiana 5 years earlier with $600 and a four song demo he recorded in his father’s garage. For two years, he played every open mic and left the same envelope at every record label in town, and nobody ever called. Now, he hosted karaoke four nights a week, and he had a rule of his own.

Every minute spent on that stage is a minute stolen from somebody else. Wyatt was not a bad man, and he genuinely loved music. But disappointment settles into a person’s voice over time, and once it is there, it turns into a small, polite kind of superiority. At the corner table sat a man who took the same chair every Thursday. His name was Earl Dobs.

He was 64 years old, and the only things in that bar that had been there longer than him were the posters on the wall. For 31 years, he had hauled cases through the concert halls of this city. He pulled the amps off the truck, built the stage, and when the show ended, and everyone else was applauding, he was in the dark coiling cables.

He had paid for that work with both knees and all 10 fingers. He held his glass with two hands now, and on cold nights his right hand never closed all the way. Every week he filled out the same slip and wrote down the same song, Simple Man by Leonard Skynard. And every week the same thing happened.

At 10 9 the door opened and an old man walked in. A dark gray hoodie, black jeans, worn black boots, a baseball cap, and a pair of thin framed round glasses. He walked as if he were thinking about each step separately, and just inside the door he stopped for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the dim light. Nobody turned to look. In Nashville, an old man walking into a bar is not news, and yet Oussie Osborne was on his farewell tour that summer.

No More Tours Two had opened on August 30th in Allentown, and would close in mid-occtober in Las Vegas, and he had the men he had played with for years beside him. Zack Wild on guitar, Blasco on bass, Tommy Clefitos on drums, Adam Wakeakeman on keys. He had played Ohio four nights earlier and would play Indiana three nights later.

And in between there was a day off. For a 69year-old man, a day off meant a hotel room. He texted Sharon, “I’m bored.” No answer came. So eventually he pulled his hood up and slipped out the back exit onto the street. He walked three blocks, heard the sound coming through a propped open door, stopped for a second, and went in.

He sat down at the bar and turned to the woman behind it. You got any iced tea? She raised an eyebrow. This is a bar, honey. I’m aware, the man said. Long story. She set the glass down in front of him and asked. Sweet. He thought about it for a second. If my wife were here, she’d say no, he said. But she isn’t here. Ozie sat on the stool and watched.

Nobody up on that stage was any good, but every one of them wanted to be there, and talent and wanting had never been the same thing. When the sixth name of the night was called, the old man at the corner table stood up, and Oussie set his glass down because the six young men at the front table had started laughing before Earl even reached the microphone.

Earl came in on the song and missed the first note. His voice cracked on the second line, and by the time the chorus started, he had dropped completely under the key. One of the young men raised his phone in the air. Another one laughed and slapped the table. And the laughter spread through the rest of the bar. Earl sang that song all the way to the end.

He never stopped. He never backed away. He never took his eyes off the screen and he finished it. Then he put the microphone back on its stand and returned to the same corner table. Wyatt picked up the mic, winked at the crowd, and said, “Thank you, Earl. Same as every week.” The bar laughed again, and that was the crulest sentence of the night, because there was not even any malice in it.

Nothing changed on Oussie’s face, but something very old stirred inside him. 50 years ago in Aston, Birmingham, there was a boy who had left school at 15 and could not read the letters properly. And the first time that boy stepped onto a stage, he was certain people were going to laugh at him. But that boy never left. For 50 years, every time Oussie Osborne walked off a stage, he thought the same thing.

One day, somebody is going to come along, find the kid from Aston, and show him the door. That summer, the thought was closer than it had ever been, because the tour was called No More Tours Too, which meant goodbye. He was 69 years old. His voice did not come out the way it used to, and every night in rooms that held 15,000 people, the lights, the explosions, the giant screens, and one of the best guitarists in the world were carrying him.

There was a question he had never asked anyone, not even Sharon. If you took all of it away, the lights, the band, the crowd, what would be left? A man, a microphone, and a song. That night at Rubies, that was exactly what there was. He turned to the bartender. Can I get one of those slips? He spread the slip out on the bar and started writing.

It took him a little while because letters had never come easily to him. In the name box, he wrote John because that was what it said on his birth certificate. In the song box, he wrote down the thing he knew better than anything else in the world. And that choice had nothing to do with showing off.

He had gone into the studio in 1991 at 42. It started with a riff Mike Inz was messing around with on the bass and Zack Wild put that guitar on top of it. 7 minutes and 23 seconds, the longest solo song Aussie ever recorded for a studio album, and years later he would call it a gift from God. Wyatt was collecting the slips, and when he glanced at the next one, the pen in his hand stopped in midair.

He looked up, saw the old man in the hood at the end of the bar, then stepped down off the stage and walked over. “Are you John?” he asked, lifting the slip slightly. The man nodded. Wyatt leaned against the empty stool beside him and softened his voice. “That tone people use when they are giving somebody bad news.

“Sir, I think this one might be a little heavy for you,” he said. The opening sits really low and then it jumps straight up and you need the breath to carry that part. How about we find you something steadier, a Johnny Cash, maybe? Everybody knows it. Everybody sings along and you get a nice round of applause. It was a polite sentence, but the message underneath it was perfectly clear.

You cannot handle this. The man set his glass down and turned to Wyatt for the first time. His voice was low and rough, and a Birmingham accent ran through every word of it. I don’t want applause, son, he said. I just want to sing that song. Wyatt smiled, still polite, still sure of himself. I hear you, but I don’t want to put you in a tough spot.

This is an Oussie Osborne song, my friend. Ozie Osborne. The old man was quiet for a second. Then he slowly swirled the ice in his glass and said, “Yeah, I’ve heard of him.” Wyatt took that answer for a joke and laughed, and the two tables nearby laughed with him. One of the young men at the front table turned around. “Let him sing,” he shouted.

“Let’s all hear some Aussie.” The laughter grew, and in that moment the bar was laughing exactly the way it had laughed at Earl Dobs half an hour earlier. “Wyatt raised a hand in an all right, all right” kind of gesture, but there was a look in his eye, the look of a man who thinks he already knows how this is going to end.

Look, he said, lowering his voice. I’ve got 11 people waiting behind me. Change the song and I’ll get you up right away. And right at that moment, a voice came from the corner table. Let the man sing, Wyatt. Everyone turned. Earl Dobs had straightened up a little in his chair, his glass still held between both hands, and there was neither anger nor heroism on his face, just a tired kind of resolve.

“All of you laughed at me a little while ago,” he said. “I finished anyway. Let this man finish, too. For the first time that night, nobody in the bar said a word. Wyatt looked at Earl for a moment, then at the old man. Backing down would have looked like giving in to an old-timer in front of everybody, so he did not back down. He did something worse instead.

He stepped up onto the stage, took the microphone, and put that showman’s cheer into his voice. “All right, Nashville,” he said. “We’ve got something special for you tonight. Uncle John over at the bar is going to sing us some Aussie Osborne. 7 minutes and we are all going to be right here for it.

The bar erupted, whistles went up, and one by one the phones rose into the air because every single person was getting ready to record the same thing. A disaster. When the old man got up on the stage, he pulled the microphone off its stand, measured out the length of the cable with his hand out of pure habit, and looked at the room instead of the screen.

He did not take off his cap, and he did not take off his glasses. He just brought the microphone a little closer to his mouth and closed his eyes. Wyatt Lawson hit the start button. Not one of the 60 people sitting in that bar knew that the next seven minutes would become a story they would tell for the rest of their lives.

The song opens with a bass riff, slow repeating, the kind that pulls you in a little at a time. When it started coming out of Ruby’s cheap speakers, the bar was still laughing. The phones were still up, and the young men at the front table were still slapping each other on the shoulder. The old man waited with his eyes closed.

8 seconds, 10 seconds, exactly as long as he was supposed to. And then he sang the first line. The laughter did not fade out. It was cut straight through the middle, the way something is cut with a knife. Because there is no way to describe that voice, high, slightly nasal, worn at the edges, trembling a little, and belonging to no other human being on earth.

People have been trying to imitate it for 50 years and they always fail because that voice is not a technique. It is a fingerprint. The 60 people inside Rubies had heard it thousands of times in their lives on the radio, in the car, through the speaker in a bar bathroom. They had just never heard it from this close.

The kid who was filming lowered his phone. 50 minutes earlier he had raised it to make fun of an old man, and now he had brought it down without even looking at the screen. The friend beside him whispered, “What is going on?” He got no answer. Behind the counter stood Diner Cole. She was 53 and back in the years when she got those faded tattoos on her arms.

She used to listen to this voice in a friend’s car on a cassette player. She set her glass down, came out from behind the bar, and took two steps toward the stage. “Who is that?” somebody asked. Dinina waited a second before she answered. I’ve known that man’s voice for 40 years,” she said. Then came the part Wyatt Lawson had warned him about.

The low, rough body of the song ended, and the melody jumped straight up. The part that needs breath, that needs chest, the part a 69-year-old man had been told he could not carry. The old man put a hand on the microphone stand, shifted his weight slightly forward, and took that note. He took it, and he held it.

Over at the console, Wyatt’s hand had frozen above the keyboard, and in that moment, something changed in his eyes. It was no longer the look of a man watching a disaster. It was the look of a man who had gotten something very badly wrong. The karaoke version left the guitar solo exactly where it was. The old man lowered the microphone, took a step back, and waited.

60 people listened to a backing track solo coming out of a cheap speaker as if they were sitting in a church. Nobody spoke. Nobody lifted a glass. Nobody turned to a friend to say anything. The six young men at the bachelor party table sat without moving. And one of them, as he would tell it later, noticed right then that the hair on his arms was standing up.

When the song ended, the bar stayed silent for 3 seconds. Then on the fourth second, one voice went up, and after it all of them went up at once. Chairs were pushed back. 60 people got to their feet. The young men at the front table were shouting. Somebody was pounding the counter with both hands. Tears were running down diner’s cheeks, and nobody found that strange.

The old man put the microphone back on its stand, reached up, took off his round glasses, and slipped them into his shirt pocket. Then he leaned into the mic. “By the way,” he said, “Is that Johnny Cash offer still good? I know that one, too.” It brought the house down. Somebody finally shouted the name and the name spread through the room in waves.

This time the phones came up not to record but to search. The same face opened on screen after screen and people looked at the screen first and then at the stage. Wyatt Lorson stood at the console without moving. As the crowd flowed toward the old man, Wyatt walked toward the stage. He took three steps, stopped, and opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

Ozie Osborne looked at him and did not smile, but there was no anger in his eyes either. “Do you play?” he asked. Wyatt swallowed. “I used to.” Ozie went on. Why did you stop? Wyatt opened his mouth to answer and could not. 5 years, countless envelopes, a phone that never rang. All of it had gathered in his throat at once. Ozie nodded.

“Somebody told you that you couldn’t handle it?” He said, “It was not a question.” Wyatt lowered his head. Let me tell you something, son. Oussie’s voice had dropped. Only the two of them could hear it now. I grew up in Birmingham in a place called Aston. I left school at 15. I can’t read letters properly, and I still don’t like saying that out loud.

I’ve been walking onto stages for 50 years, and for 50 years, every time I walk off one, I think the same thing. One day, somebody is going to come along, find me, and tell me this isn’t my place. He paused. tonight that somebody was you.” Wyatt’s eyes filled. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t know.

” “That’s not the problem,” Ozie said. “The problem is you weren’t saying that to me. You were saying it to yourself. You’ve been saying it for 5 years. I just walked in on the wrong night.” Then he put a hand on Wyatt’s shoulder and squeezed it gently. “That stage is yours, and you’ve turned it into a door. Write a song this week. Next Thursday, sing it yourself.

Don’t ask anybody’s permission. Don’t ask mine either. The story could have ended right there. But Oussie did not hand the microphone to Wyatt. He walked to the edge of the stage, looked over at the corner table, and raised his voice. “You,” he said. “What was your name?” Earl Dobs did not get up. He only lifted his head. “Earl,” he answered.

Oussie nodded toward the stage. “Come up here, Earl.” The old man set his glass on the table, but stayed where he was. I’m not a singer,” he said. Oussie shrugged. “Neither am I.” He shot back. I’ve been shouting for 40 years, and nobody’s ever cared about the difference. Earl stood up, and it took him 15 seconds to get onto the stage because his knees did not care for those steps.

Ozie put out his hand, and they shook. And as they did, he felt that Earl’s hand would not close all the way. “What happened to your hands?” he asked. Earl shrugged. “31 years of carrying amps,” he said. every hall in this city. Oussie nodded and he still had not let go. Then this stage is already yours, he said. You built it.

Then he pointed at the screen. Why the same song every time? Earl did not answer for a moment. For 31 years I carried everybody else’s songs, he said finally. I just wanted to sing one myself. Ozie said nothing for a few seconds. Then he turned to Wyatt. Simple man, he said. And turn it up a bit. Earl missed the first note again.

His voice cracked on the second line again, and again he fell under the key on the high part, but this time he was not up there alone. Oussie Osborne shared the microphone with him, stood one step behind, and deliberately kept his own voice underneath. He left the melody to Earl and simply carried it. For a man who had spent 31 years carrying other people’s weight, it was the most graceful thing anyone could have done.

Earl really did sing it badly, and not one person in that bar laughed. A few weeks later, Oussie Osborne would be taken to the hospital with an infection in his hand, and some of the tour dates would be postponed. The years that followed were not easy for him, but in the recording from that night, even through a cheap phone microphone, you can hear exactly what that voice was.

Two years later, Wyatt started singing his own songs at writer nights. He never became a star. He still hosts karaoke on Thursday nights at Rubies, but he threw out his old rule. His new rule is one sentence. On this stage, nobody gets told what they can sing.