Rocco, possibly for the first time ever, I’m saying a hearty amen to one of your posts.
Ozzy, Alice Cooper, Arthur Brown* and many others, were simply drawing on a long history of Gothic melodrama. The whole satanic schtick was never taken seriously in the UK; we got the joke. But, add booze and drugs to the mix, and the musicians would end up playing to the persona 24/7 instead of switching it off.
The fans and the critics both taking the stage persona too literally isw what killed the career of the brilliant actor Warren Mitchell. He was subtly taking the piss out of bigotry with his Alf Garnett persona... But bigots loved that character and the anti racists thought he needed cancelling for promoting racism, sexism and jingoism!
That’s kinda what happened with Ozzy. He was never a Satanist; he just felt that playing the role of a hellbound clown suited his music better than pretending to be like Cliff Richard.
So, if anything, Ozzy was taking the piss out of Satanists. He never actually ate a bat either; sensible people know it’s just a whale of a tale that Ozzy thought funny enough to riff on.
* A heavy influence on Cooper, Iron Maiden and others, the self professed “god of hellfire” is a frugal former hippy philosopher who, since setting himself alight and parading naked six decades ago, has mastered yoga and came up with Healing Songs Therapy.
Actually, the bat thing was if anything an accident. A member of the audience threw it on stage and Ozzy thought it was a plastic joke bat and bit into it for a laugh.
The whole thing was then exaggerated, as if he’d set it up.
What’s less well known is, he did bite the head off a dove, after getting extremely annoyed with an executive (ironically, he’d brought the doves along as a peace offering!).
That nearly got him permanently cancelled by CBS.
Thanks, man. Lololol! Yep - you completely understand this art form. Been around forever. Ozzy was very good at it.