Founding myths have a very useful
purpose. Whether it is that of Romulus and Remus' bitter feud that
led to the founding of Rome, or the discovery of Hungary from the
pursuit of a magical stag, or even King Arthur and his ideas of
honour and chivalry, these myths act as a kind of signature watermark
of the societies they are linked to and tell us how they view
themselves. Societies born in struggle, nations founded on wandering
and travel, cities created in industry and competition – these are
the mirror-images that reflect how we wish to see ourselves. And they
don't have to be dramatic, or spectacular – even the absence of an
event can lead cultures and people to believe that they created
themselves by pluck and effort alone (after all, every time someone
refers to themselves as a 'self-made man' this is always a pure
giveaway that they have created their own myth of virtue and 'grit').
But most of all they are the beginning of a narrative, because
without an origin and without events, you don't have anything at all.
Rock music, being based as it is on
arcane energy and ritual, also has a founding myth: it is the myth
that roots rock music in the Delta, and the moment when Robert
Johnson met the devil at the crossroads. At this midnight rendezvous
a deal was reportedly struck between the unknown, young blues
guitarist and the fallen angel whereby the former sold his soul in
exchange for ungodly talent and fame. As a result Johnson went on a
blistering creative run, creating a repertoire of tracks that would
form the basis for the modern blues and rock; it also cursed him to a
tragic, and early, death.
As with other founding myths this is a
story that conflates truth and fallacy. Yes, there was a Robert
Johnson in the Delta at that time (and we have the recordings to
prove it), and there is a metaphorical or symbolic devil in popular
culture and in our personal imaginations, but there was no meeting at
the crossroads and there was no deal with the devil. Johnson himself
did not gain any particular success or notoriety during his lifetime
and to some extent remains as obscure and disregarded in the blues'
homelands in the south as he is revered elsewhere, to the extent that
when writer Elijah Wald went to the Delta to research his own book on
the man he was surprised to find that none of the blues-loving
inhabitants had heard of him. What was important about this myth is
not what it did for Johnson himself (in reality, very little) but
what it implanted in the consciousness of rock culture and its view
of itself – that there was an element of darkness, an edge of
devilry, at the heart of it.
This sense of insurgency is what
subsequently defined rock music at its best, just as much as its
absence defined rock at its worse; and it also provided a method by
which members of the general masses could gain fame and notoriety
beyond anything that was previously possible. Rock music created a
route for anyone to gain international fame on an unprecedented
scale. These are the trace elements that the deal at the crossroads
left in the collective unconsciousness of popular culture.
But there is something else essentially
liberating about the myth – for the crossroads is a place of
choice, opportunity, and possibility. At the centre of the crossroads
your position is purely neutral; you are free at that moment to go in
any direction. The roads are clear, straight, and pure. These roads
are the pathways of our own creativity; they represent the opening of
our own internal horizons. And it is this neutrality that represents
a calm centre, the eye of our own personal storm.
So, how do we get back to the
crossroads? To that moment of clarity and possibility? The answer is
simple – close your eyes, imagine the sun on your back and the sky
empty blue above you, and you're already there.