“Maybe It’s not too late, to learn how to love, and forget how to hate…

Maybe it’s not too late, to learn how to love, and forget how to hate…”
These words, first screamed across the airwaves in 1990, have returned with chilling new weight. They’re from Ozzy Osbourne’s iconic hit “Crazy Train”, a song that helped define the post-Sabbath rebirth of the Prince of Darkness. But now, as the world mourns his death, those same lyrics are being seen in an entirely new light — not as a rebellious rock anthem, but as a haunting final plea for humanity.

In the days following Ozzy’s emotional funeral procession — which saw thousands line the streets of Birmingham and tributes pouring in from rock gods, royalty, and grieving fans — one phrase began surfacing again and again:
“Maybe it’s not too late.”

It started on social media. Fans shared clips of Ozzy performing “Crazy Train” live — his voice raw, unfiltered, erupting with pain and power — and zoomed in on that particular line. They weren’t quoting it for nostalgia. They were clinging to it like a lifeline.

“It’s not just a lyric anymore,” wrote one fan on X (formerly Twitter). “It’s a warning. It’s hope. It’s Ozzy trying to tell us something.”

And now, that lyric — once lost in the chaos of guitar solos and mosh pits — has become something else entirely: a viral, global message of redemption.

The Redemption of a Rock Legend

For decades, Ozzy Osbourne was the very image of excess. The drugs. The biting of a bat’s head. The incoherent interviews. The stints in rehab. The reality TV circus. His name was synonymous with wildness, recklessness — even danger.

But what many forgot was that Ozzy was also a man who battled demons far more terrifying than any stage persona. Depression. Addiction. Chronic pain. Tremors that shook his body even when the music stopped. And beneath it all, a man desperate to be understood — not just by the world, but by himself.

In recent years, that side of Ozzy began to break through the myth. In interviews, he spoke openly about his regrets. About how much he loved his family. About how he wished he could undo the hurt. About the friends he’d lost. The bridges he’d burned. The time he could never get back.

In one now-viral clip, Ozzy says to a reporter in 2022:

“I’ve done a lot of bad things, man. Hurt a lot of people. But maybe… maybe there’s still time to fix some of it. Maybe it’s not too late.”

The internet has since connected that candid moment to “Crazy Train’s” most emotional lyric — and it’s hitting people like a freight train of raw truth.

A Lyric That Became a Movement

As tributes continue to pour in, artists, politicians, and activists have begun to echo the line in their own statements — reframing Ozzy’s words as a rallying cry for a world increasingly torn apart by hatred and division.

On the day of his funeral, street artists in London painted murals with Ozzy’s face beside the phrase “Maybe it’s not too late.” A school in Birmingham held an assembly dedicated to the idea of “learning to love and forgetting how to hate,” using the line as its theme.

Even the Archbishop of Canterbury, in a rare moment of cultural reflection, referenced the lyric in a recent homily:

“In a world consumed by conflict, perhaps it takes the cry of a rock icon to remind us — it’s never too late to learn how to love, and to forget how to hate.”

The Final Tour… of the Heart

While many remember Ozzy’s larger-than-life presence, those closest to him have always insisted that behind the madness was a deeply emotional, intensely loving soul.

Kelly Osbourne, in her heartbreaking eulogy, said this about her father:

“He always worried he hadn’t done enough good. That he was more chaos than calm. But I wish he could see now — his music, his message, his fight to be better — that was the good. He told us in his songs, even when he didn’t know it.”

And “Crazy Train”, the very song that first launched his solo career and set him on a path of transformation, may have been his most important confession all along.

Revisit the lyrics and they read less like a rock anthem and more like a letter to humanity:

“I’m going off the rails on a crazy train…”
“Heirs of a cold war, that’s what we’ve become…”
“Maybe it’s not too late, to learn how to love and forget how to hate…”

It wasn’t rebellion. It was prophecy.

A Legacy Beyond the Stage

Now, fans are demanding more. Not just tributes. Not just playlists. But action. Petitions are already circulating to have the lyric engraved at the Black Sabbath Bridge in Birmingham, and there are calls for an annual “Ozzy Day” focused on peace, love, and mental health awareness.

Because maybe, in his own twisted, thunderous way, Ozzy Osbourne was trying to save us all.
Not with soft lullabies, but with screams from the soul.
Not with quiet wisdom, but with lyrics that still echo through stadiums and hearts alike.

He knew what it meant to fall. But he also knew what it meant to get up again. And in his death, he may have given us his most powerful message:

It’s not too late.
It’s never too late.

So now the world listens — not with roaring crowds, but with aching hearts — as one voice rings out louder than the chaos:

“Maybe it’s not too late to learn how to love… and forget how to hate.”

And maybe, just maybe, we finally understand what Ozzy was trying to tell us all along.