"I did some crazy s**t, you know!" Remembering Ozzy Osbourne's bizarre '90s collaboration with Miss Piggy

The early to mid '90s were a confusing time for veteran hard rock and metal icons, with the rise of a new wave of 'alternative' rock bands - Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins among them - taking over radio airwaves and MTV, and changing the musical landscape.

It's a myth to say that grunge swept away the old guard, but certainly it led to a time of uncertainty, insecurity, and some 'interesting' creative left-turns. Metallica embraced country-rock. Metal God Rob Halford quit Judas Priest and went industrial with Fight. Def Leppard stopped sounding like Def Leppard on Slang. Oh, and Ozzy Osbourne recorded a duet of Steppenwolf’s classic biker anthem Born to be Wild with Muppets diva Miss Piggy.

Yes, you read that correctly.

To be fair, that 1994 collaboration wasn't born out of desperation on Osbourne's part. Released one week prior to Nirvana's Nevermind, Ozzy's sixth studio album, No More Tears, was already nudging towards four million sales in America, while gushing endorsements of his former band Black Sabbath by everyone from Pantera to Alice in Chains ensured that interest in his back catalogue had never been greater.

So how to explain this WTF creative union between the Prince Of Darkness and the Porcine Princess?

"Believe me, I’m not a big Miss fucking Piggy fan," Ozzy told Esquire. "I only do these things for a goof."

And presumably, dare we suggest, for money. Lots of lovely money.

The song featured on Kermit Unpigged, a comedy album, playing on the idea of MTV Unplugged, shared with the world on September 27, 1994. And Ozzy wasn't the only rock star to grace/disgrace the record, with Eagles legend Don Henley pairing up with Kermit the Frog on Bein' Green, country superstar Vince Gill partnering with K. Dawg (as he was never known) on Daydream, and Linda Ronstadt joining the squeaky-voiced amphibian for All I Have To Do Is Dream, made famous by the Everly Brothers in 1858 when it became the only single ever to sit at number one on all of the Billboard singles charts simultaneously.

But still.

The song opens with Miss Piggy theoretically seeking out Kermit in an unknown location, then exclaiming, "Ozzy Osbourne? Boy, did I open the wrong door! Sorry to bother you!"

"Oh, Miss Piggy, you're not bothering me at all," Ozzy replies. "Stick around, we're gonna rocccccccccck! Stick around babe, we're gonna rock the place down! Come on!"

"Oh, you're going to sing to me?" asks the interloper playfully.

"Yeah, me and you," says Ozzy, which actually makes little sense, but whatever.

After this, Ozzy launches into the 1968 freedom anthem, famously featured in classic counter-culture movie Easy Rider, with Miss Piggy largely confining her contributions to interjections such as "Oh, that's beautiful!", "Oh, that's so sweet!" and the disturbingly orgasmic "Oh Ozzy! Yes! Yes! Yes!"

In response, Ozzy roars, "I love ya Miss Piggy!" but frankly, he doesn't sound terribly sincere.

A Grammy nomination was not forthcoming for the song, but its notoriety has endured.

"You know, that one track has got more publicity than anything else I've ever done," Ozzy griped to US talk show host Jimmy Kimmel in 2005, when the subject of its inclusion on his box set Prince Of Darkness was raised.

"When I was fucked up all the time I did some crazy shit, you know?" he later admitted.

We know Ozzy, we know.