Listen to Ozzy Osbourne narrate a moving tale about Christmas during World War 1

Ozzy Osbourne wearing a Christmas jumper
(Image credit: The Cancer Platform)

A new charity single is being released this Friday, and Ozzy Osbourne provides almost three minutes of spoken word introduction. 

This Christmas Time by Evamore is being released to support The Cancer Platform, an initiative from The Cancer Awareness Trust that hopes to provide a "a one-stop shop for cancer," where patients and their families can find information, services and products. 

As well as Ozzy's introduction – which tells the story of opposing forces coming together in No Man's Land during WW1 in a brief respite from the fighting – This Christmas Time features drums from Pink Floyd's Nick Mason plus guitar from Duran Duran's Andy Taylor, and ends with a Christmas message from Slade's Noddy Holder. 

"I was delighted to join the many artists adding their voice to the album from Evamore," says Noddy. "I recorded a full narrative, telling the story of some incredibly brave World War 1 soldiers, to feature on the album in 2023 and a short Christmas message for This Christmas Time."

"The underlying sense of community & diversity that runs through the DNA of musicians, comes together here on the most beautiful of songs," says Taylor. "Music has always been my pleasure and sometimes it’s a privilege, a privilege to work with such an incredible group of people, to create a wonderful track and as a recipient of The Big C hopefully we can prick a tad of awareness towards the incredible work of The Evamore Project."

The single will be available on streaming platforms and to download from Friday, while an upcoming album will feature "over 50 of the world's top stars," including Glenn Close, Delta Goodrem, Orlando Bloom, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Martin Fry, Damien Dempsey, Toby Jones, Peter Kay, Michael Palin, Michael Sheen, Maxine Peake, Christopher Eccleston, Ronnie Wood, Nick Mason, Sinead O’Connor, Imelda May, Cillian Murphy, Brian Eno and Richard Armitage.

For more information about This Christmas Time, and to hear the song, visit the Cancer Platform website. 

Fraser Lewry

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 38 years in music industry, online for 25. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.