At Last: Official Ozzy/Lemmy “Hellraiser” Duet Finally Released

The song “Hellraiser” has always been a stand out on Ozzy Osbourne’s No More Tears. In part that’s because it’s a great song, and in part that’s because it was co-written by Lemmy (the other credited songwriters are Ozzy and Zakk Wylde). In fact, Motörhead released their own take on the track as part of March or Die, which came out just eleven months after Tears (the Motörhead version was also included on the soundtrack for Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, which arrived a month later).

So here we have two excellent versions of this excellent song. Still, I’ve always wondered why Ozzy and Lemmy didn’t record it as a duet. That would have made fans go apeshit! And I know I’m not the only one who has fantasized about a “Hellraiser” recording with Ozzy and Lemmy together, because the Internet is lousy with attempts to meld the two versions together, usually with mixed results.

As of today, though, we don’t ever have to rely on a bootleg version again: Ozzy has released an official version of the song as a duet with Lemmy.

Clearly, they just ported over Lemmy’s vocal tracks from the Motörhead version of the song — listen to them side-by-side, the delivery is identical — but this is still rad. No longer need we suffer through we awkward edits and amateur attempts to remix music so it doesn’t sound like two completely separate recordings fused together. This is consistently the Ozzy version of the song, only now half the vocals are by Lemmy.

Listen to the new “Hellraiser” below. It will be included on digital editions of the No More Tears thirtieth anniversary reissue, which comes out this Friday, September 17. Interestingly, it was NOT initially announced as part of that release’s tracklist. Kinda makes me wonder/hope there are some other surprises in store for us.