![]() Like most of you, I have every album, every Sabbath album, every Rainbow album…I’ve known “Die Young” for 25 years. If you felt like crap because you were the only kid in school with a Black Sabbath T-shirt, Dio’s lyrics and message always said “It’s OK, because you’re onto something that they can’t see.” He wore his metal on his (wizard’s) sleeves and he made it OK for you to do the same. You knew he’d never sell out and he never did. If there was one constant in rock, it’s been Ronnie James Dio. Wherever you were rocking out to “Holy Diver” or “Rock and Roll Children” or “Neon Knights”, if you’re a Dio fan then you know what I’m talking about. Dio’s been at wedddings, funerals, on roadtrips, in basements and bedrooms all over the world. Nobody else can claim that they’ve done what Dio’s done.īut more than that, Dio has been there with us. Google the video, you’ll understand completely. There is a common denominator in the sounds of those albums and it is intrinsically Dio.Īnd who else can claim such a hardcore resume? Elf, Rainbow, Black frickin’ Sabbath, and Dio itself! Not to mention some of the totally unsung stuff he’s done, not least of which was Hear N’ Aid. Dio had his own sound, and he brought that sound to both Rainbow and Black Sabbath. Dio had a freakin’ dragon on his album cover in the year 2002! Who else did that? Not many and certainly nobody who got front racked a the local record stores like Dio did. None of these songs had any characters who ever took any bullshit.ĭio was like that. In a way that’s all Dio’s songs were ever about, from “The Last In Line” to “I” to “Stargazer”. I mean, killing dragons, stopping robots from taking over the earth, fools sailing away…but underneath it all, they had this hidden theme: Don’t take bullshit. When it came down it, his lyrics were pretty simple thematically. You only have to play it once, its impact was immediate, and suddenly you could have it playing non-stop in your head while bored to tears in class. Dio did it again, this time with Black Sabbath. I sit here listening to the live version of “I” from The Devil You Know album. As much as I hated my grade 8 teacher and classes, it was always OK because I constantly has this kick-ass song playing on repeat in my head. ![]() It was the only thing that made some days tolerable. I remember having it my head for an entire day in 8th grade. (See: “Queen of the Reich” by Queensryche and “Can U Deliver” by Armored Saint for two more videos of this genre from the exact same time period). They played the video for “Holy Diver”, and I was quite frankly into ANY metal video where the band and/or singer had a sword and was on some kind of mission. My exposure to Dio was initially due to MuchMusic. Reposted here for the first time unaltered. All others were.Written and posted on Facebook in 2010 after Ronnie’s death. ***This is the most complete video version that has been found. Yet to completely uncover the final key to solving this mystery of meaning, a comma needs to be placed after the word “merry.” Therefore, in modern English, the first line of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” should read “God make you mighty, gentlemen.” Using this translation, the old carol suddenly makes perfect sense, as does the most common saying of the holidays, “Merry Christmas.” The word rest in “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” simply means keep or make. This is due to another word that has a much different meaning in today’s world and a lost punctuation mark. Ye means you, but even when translated to “God rest you mighty gentlemen,” the song still makes very little sense. So when the English carolers of the Victorian era sang, “merry gentlemen,” they meant great or mighty men. Thus, in the Middle Ages, a strong army was a merry army, a great singer was a merry singer, and a mighty ruler was a merry ruler. Robin Hood’s “Merry Men” might have been happy, but the merry that described them meant great and mighty. When “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” was written, merry had a very different meaning. When modern people say “Merry” Christmas, the word merry means happy.
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