“Don’t Worry, I’m Coming” — McCartney and Starr Sing Ozzy Osbourne Home
It was a moment the world never expected — and one it will never forget.
Just after midnight, on July 22, 2025, Paul McCartney received the call. Ozzy Osbourne, his friend and fellow musical rebel, had passed away at 76. There were no grand plans, no media alerts, no carefully scripted tributes waiting in the wings. Just a quiet, urgent voice on the other end of the line. And McCartney, without pause, said, “Don’t worry. I’m coming.”
He didn’t ask who else knew. He didn’t ask what arrangements had been made. He simply hung up the phone, picked up his guitar case — the same battered black one he’s carried for decades — and drove through the soft Liverpool night to the little chapel near Penny Lane that Ozzy’s family had chosen for a private vigil.
By dawn, the word had spread like wildfire through text messages and whispers: Macca’s coming. Ringo’s coming too.
Inside the chapel, a handful of family members and closest friends sat in stunned silence. Sharon Osbourne, her eyes raw from hours of tears, looked up when the door creaked open. Paul McCartney stepped in, hair tucked under a wool cap, eyes red but steady. He walked straight to Ozzy’s coffin — a simple oak one with a small black cross — and laid his hand on it.
“Hello, mate,” McCartney murmured. “It’s me.”
Minutes later, another door opened. Ringo Starr, equally unannounced, strode in carrying a small snare drum under his arm. He gave Sharon a gentle hug, then placed his free hand on the coffin beside Paul’s. “We couldn’t let you go without a tune, could we?” he said softly.
There was no fanfare. No stage. No lighting rigs or soundchecks. Just two old friends, standing over a fallen comrade, preparing to do the only thing they’d ever truly known how to do in moments of unspeakable loss: play.
Paul took out his guitar, tuned a string or two, and began to hum. Not “Let It Be,” not “Yesterday,” not even “Hey Jude.” He strummed a haunting minor progression — something bluesy, something raw. Then his voice, weathered but warm, filled the chapel:
“Paranoid eyes in the midnight glow,
Brother, you carried more than we know.
The night is heavy, the morning’s near,
Don’t worry, I’m coming — I’m here.”
It was not a Beatles song. It was not a Black Sabbath riff. It was something born in that very moment, a melody that seemed to float up through the rafters and out into the sleeping city. Sharon buried her face in her hands. Ozzy’s eldest daughter reached out to hold her mother’s arm.
Ringo joined in on the snare, a heartbeat rhythm, soft and steady. His sticks whispered rather than struck, as though he feared to wake Ozzy from his rest.
Paul closed his eyes, and the second verse came as if it had been waiting all his life:
“The road was long, the nights were wild,
You sang to the darkness, the lost and the child.
But even the mad need somewhere to roam,
So sing one more chorus — we’re bringing you home.”
By now, tears streamed freely down the faces of everyone present. A phone in the corner, recording quietly at Sharon’s request, caught the sound of something impossible: Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, the last surviving Beatles, serenading Ozzy Osbourne on his final journey.
No one had planned it. No one had thought such a meeting could ever happen. The Beatles and Black Sabbath belonged to different corners of rock history — the sunny pop experimentalists and the dark lords of heavy metal. But here, in this quiet chapel, they were simply three old warriors of music, bound by love and loss.
When the song ended, Paul set his guitar down and rested both hands on the coffin. “You changed the world, Ozzy,” he whispered. “Not just with the noise, but with the heart in it.”
Ringo added, “Save us a seat up there, yeah?”
They didn’t stay long. Paul and Ringo left as quietly as they had arrived, slipping into the first light of morning, their breath visible in the cool air. Outside, a few early risers who had somehow caught wind of the vigil stood in silence, phones lowered, hats in their hands. Paul nodded to them, eyes glistening. Ringo gave a small wave. Then they climbed into Paul’s old car and drove away, no entourage, no cameras.
Later that day, Sharon Osbourne released a brief statement: “Last night, two dear friends came to sing Ozzy home. It was private, and it was perfect.”
Within hours, the recording of Paul’s improvised hymn leaked online. It spread across social media like wildfire, captioned with words like breathtaking and holy. Radio DJs interrupted their regular programming to play it. Rock musicians young and old shared memories of Ozzy, some confessing they had never cried over a song until now.
The world has lost many icons, but rarely do we get to witness such an intimate, unscripted farewell. Paul and Ringo reminded us that music, at its purest, is not about charts or sales or even legacy. It is about connection. About finding a way to say goodbye when words alone are not enough.
And so, in that quiet chapel in Liverpool, as dawn broke on July 22, 2025, Ozzy Osbourne was sung home by two of the only men who could understand what it meant to live a life loud enough to echo forever.
Don’t worry, Ozzy. They came.
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