Index finger up, middle fingers down, pinky up, thumb in: the standard rock 'n' roll salute.

It's a safe bet to say concert- goers will scream, raise their arms high and flash the sign while Ozzy Osbourne is on stage. He's playing along with Slash at the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Will his fans miss the irony?

Ozzy's a peace-sign kind of guy. It was his Black Sabbath replacement, the late Ronnie James Dio, who started making the hand-horns on stage circa 1979.

With that knowledge, only fans can decide whether to refrain from using the hand-horns at all at Ozzy's concert.

Dio sometimes gets credit for inventing the sign, but he repeatedly said publicly that he didn't. Other musicians did it before him; he just popularized it and linked it to heavy metal.

Three decades later, what some call "the devil's horns" or "sign of the horns" has morphed into a mainstream way of saying, "Rock on" or "Hell, yeah" or "Good times."

These days, even Britney Spears does it.

Surely the hordes of music fans, pop stars and actors seen making the gesture aren't all hailing Satan, are they? And they can't all be University of Texas fans signaling "Hook 'em Horns."

So are the sign's origins evil, or to ward off evil, or what?

With Ozzy coming to town, we decided to look into the history of the rock 'n' roll salute, and some accounts point to his indirectly fostering the phenomenon.

Ronnie James Dio

Heavy metal star Ronnie James Dio, who died last year of cancer, most often gets credit for making the hand sign synonymous with rock music.

When Ozzy Osbourne left (or was kicked out) of Black Sabbath in 1979, Dio took his place.

Ozzy's big gimmick on stage was flashing double peace signs. It had become such a Black Sabbath ritual that when Dio took over, he felt the band wouldn't be the same unless he used a symbol as well, a former publicity agent told The Wall Street Journal. But he didn't want to be an Ozzy copycat.

Setting himself apart from Ozzy, Dio adopted what has become the rock music salute.

Dio many times explained to the media that he took the hand sign from his Italian grandmother. In 2001, he told Metal-rules.com, "It's not the devil's sign like we're here with the devil. ... It's to ward off the Evil Eye or to give the Evil Eye, depending on which way you do it." So it's a bit like "knocking on wood."

John Lennon

In 1966, the Beatles released the single "Yellow Submarine" with "Eleanor Rigby." The cover features John Lennon making a hand sign similar to today's version of the devil's horns. His thumb is out, and rather than his palm, the back of his hand is facing forward.

In January 1969, The Beatles released the full-album "Yellow Submarine," a soundtrack to the 1968 animated film. The cartoon illustration of Lennon is making the sign of the horns as we know it today. Thumb in, palm out.

There is no definitive explanation for what Lennon meant by the sign. The most common speculation is that it signaled an interest in Aleister Crowley, an infamous, early 1900s, black magic practitioner who at one time called himself Baphomet, an occult figure idolized as a horned half-man, half-goat. In that light, the hand sign would represent a goat or ram's head.

Crowley appears on the cover of The Beatles' 1967 album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."


In 1969, the prog-rock/psychedelic band Coven released their debut LP, "Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls." The photo on the back cover shows two members with their fingers forming the sign now inextricably associated with rock music.

The first song on Side A is titled "Black Sabbath." That same year, the band Black Sabbath formed.

Coven's bassist (right) was Oz Osborne, not to be confused with Ozzy Osbourne. (Note: The latter was born John Michael Osbourne.)

Occult references are prominent on the album. The 13-minute last track is "Satanic Mass," a black mass they also performed on stage.

Sources: Metalrules.com, Allmusic.com, BBC.co.uk, Ultimate-guitar.com, WSJ.com's Speakeasy blog.