Rock Stars And Bizarre Events

Is there a supernatural (some would say preternatural, or paranormal) element behind musicians, specifically certain rock stars?

Certainly, some things make you wonder.

Ponder the two biggest rock bands of the past seventy years — the Beatles and Rolling Stones.

First the Stones.

How did the group’s mega-hit, I Can’t Get No (Satisfaction), come about?

“[Guitarist Keith] Richards awoke one morning to find the cassette tape he kept in a recorder by his bedside spooled to the end,” said a piece last week on Fox News. “He rewound the tape and pressed play, and ‘a three-note guitar riff came blasting out of the speakers, followed by some basic chords and a simple refrain,’ the website American Songwriter reports.

“‘I can’t get no satisfaction,’ went the melody, sung by Richards in a sleepy, half-conscious voice. After several repetitions, the music faded out and gave way to 40 minutes of snoring,’ the outlet adds.

“The guitarist had apparently woken in the middle of the night, unconsciously recorded one of the most famous licks in rock history on acoustic guitar, and then fell back asleep with no memory of the incident.”

Snoring. No memory. Dreams can be funny things. (One of Richards’ wives was a practicing witch.)

If that doesn’t cause one to wonder, there are elements of The Beatles. Ponder creation of the group’s name.

In the secular version, group leader John Lennon liked the word “beetles” because it echoed Buddy Holly and The Crickets, but, say such renditions, he also saw an opportunity for a pun. “By changing the spelling to “Beatles,” he introduced a reference to beat music, a popular genre of rock music in the U.K. during the late 1950s and early 1960s,” says a site.

Was he joking around (as he was prone to do) or was it something else? Did it occur, the name — as many believe — because Lennon likewise had a strange dream?

“Well, I had a vision when I was twelve. And I saw a man on a flaming pie, and he said, ‘You are the Beatles with an A.’ And so we are.”

Jesting or not, it’s a strange image — a man surrounded by flames.

“The quote was from John Lennon answering the already well-worn question of the origin of the Beatles name as part of a Capitol Records promotional interview for the Jan. 20, 1964, American release of ‘Meet the Beatles!'” reported CBS.

We have seen accounts of purgatory with people there wrapped in flames (as well as in flames elsewhere, of course, in the afterlife).

There certainly is a touch of spookiness to the cover for the group’s iconic album, Sergeant Pepper, and also how when they first started, Lennon and McCartney used to hang out (even take naps) in a church cemetery (where among other things they saw a tomb with the name “Eleanor Rigby”).

Who knows?

This we do know: many young musicians have considered it cool to dabble with the occult.

Taylor Swift recently had a video showing her dressed as a witch and dancing with others in similar attire.

And one of her tours was called Enchanted.

Need we even mention Beyonce and her alternate personality of “Sasha,” or the singer Madonna and how she surrounds herself with burning crosses and black candles?