Upon hearing Ozzy Osbourne's single "Degradation Rules," I had two thoughts; the first was "man, Tony Iommi can still write a killer riff," and the second was "is this song about jerking off?" The first thought has always been true and the second has now been confirmed by Osbourne himself.
In an interview with Kerrang!, Osbourne revealed the song is an ode to free porn sites like Red Tube and that the whole idea was suggested to him by the late and great Taylor Hawkins.
"You know what 'Degradation Rules' is about? Masturbation. Sticky little magazines. A toss-pot. There's a line in there, 'Red Tube rules!' which is an [ode to] the free porn website. And, do you know who suggested that? The drummer, Taylor Hawkins, who died recently. To be perfectly honest with you, I’d never heard of him before he played on my album. But he must be good to play with Dave Grohl's Foo Fighters.
"When I met him, and from what I saw of him, he was a really nice man, one whose soul will surely last. I should imagine that everyone in that band was fucking devastated when the poor guy passed away."
Osbourne also touched on the idea of doing more music with Iommi. Ultimately he's opposed to it considering it would just sound like Black Sabbath, which Osbourne states he's vehemently against doing ever again.
"If Ozzy Osbourne and Tony Iommi do an album together, it’s going to sound like a Sabbath album. Tony was the sound of Sabbath. There’s no getting away from the fact that, when he plays with me, it’ll be some kind of a reflection of that. Maybe the tracks he did on my album was like what Sabbath should have been had we stayed together, but I want to take it away from Sabbath. We put that band to bed. And if he wants to [make it another] Sabbath album, I’m not doing it!"
Now go listen to "Degradation Rules" knowing what you know.
