This Paranormal Life - #175 The Musician Who Sold His Soul to Satan and Changed the World

Episode Date: August 18, 2020

In the 1920s a man named Robert Johnson invented a style of Blues Rock guitar-playing that would change the world forever. That was also the same year he sold his soul to the devil in a paranormal ritual. Rory and Kit investigate to separate paranormal fact from paranormal legend.Support us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! - thisparanormallife.com/storeFollow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityIntro music by www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did ancient humans have Wi-Fi and we've just rediscovered it? If rock is the devil's music, does that mean there are concerts in hell? Or do demons buy tickets for shows here on Earth? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Hey! Welcome back to This Paranormal Life, the comedy podcast where every Tuesday we investigate a different paranormal tale, case, or claim and get to the bottom of whether it's truly paranormal or not. As always, you are joined by myself, Mr. Kit Krimmelvena, this guy across from me, Mr. Rory Powers. How are you doing today, Rory?

I'm doing great. We are 15 seconds in and I am sweating already. Yeah. Usually I do end up sweating at some point in the podcast, but the UK is going through a bit of a heat wave right now yeah um yeah things are getting toasty right off the bat but this is the natural habitat of the paranormal investigator under pressure under scrutiny under investigation to be honest you know we talk about investigating stuff a lot we don't mention that usually we're pretty hot under the collar because we've got big government looking down they're going through our finances with a fine-tooth comb and they don't like what they see oh yeah and look a lifetime career as a paranormal investigator combined with our google search

histories you best bet we're both going to hell so we better get used to the heat brother so i'm doing laps of the local football pitch with hoodies scars and everything in the uk heat wave just to get ready for the bish like wrestlers before a weigh-in we've got those like aluminum hoodies we're running with weights on our shoulders people ask us if we're training for a marathon i just say no i've been a bad man. That's the scariest response. So you're already running in an aluminum hoodie. That's super weird. You're like, wow, is that like a fashion sense?

No, I've been a bad boy. As always, we've got a giant investigation to get stuck into today. So we're going to dive right in. So right off the bat, thank you to Tom Greater X for sending this one into us. Tom, you sound like a dinosaur with that last name. Love it. But I appreciate it. Today, Rory, our story brings us to Mississippi in the 1930s. We are in the Deep South, brother.

I know somewhere you're familiar with a little bit, but... Born and raised. This is apparently, you might want to fight them on this, but this is apparently the most southern place on earth. Ooh, okay. So, like, if you think of everything southern, they've cranked it up to 11. 11. So, they're eating, like, twice as much delicious fried food.

Exactly. The country music is twice as loud. It's almost deafening. It's paranormal. Turn down that banjo. Guy's playing a 20-foot long banjo. Takes like five guys. I've never been to Mississippi before, so I'm excited.

I don't know a lot about the paranormal side or just the normal side. Exactly. And on one hot night in Rosedale, Mississippi, people are drinking in a local bar. A guy called Robert walks into the bar holding his guitar case. He looks around but no one even registers him, so he walks over to the bar. He orders a whiskey and pulls up a seat as the sounds of the local Delta musicians surround him as he waits for his turn. Is this like an open mic night sort of thing? Kind of situation. Okay.

Different musicians all turning up. Very cool. The whiskey is working its magic, and some of his stage nerves are dissolving away, at least until the barman says, Hey Robert, looks like you're up. Good luck, kid. Realizing that, yes, the music has stopped,

this is his cue. He grabs his guitar, shuffles past the patrons and sits on stage he collects himself and then proceeds to play all his best material songs he's poured his heart and soul into stories from his life layered with transcendent melodies in his mind this is like expert mode on Guitar Hero as well, you know, he's just shredding the bish. And as he finishes his first song he waits for a little applause before launching into the next one. Smart.

You f***ing suck! My ears are bleeding! Robert did not sound as good as he thought he did. That's the whiskey, my friend. I don't think you think you're doing a lot of things better. Did I say one whiskey? He drank the blaze dry. The barman was like, wait, you're playing? As a guy that's, you know, stayed up late at night,

seven, eight whiskeys deep, writing out podcast notes, thinking I'm coming out with absolute gold. And then the next morning realized I was in f***ing wingdings for half the thing. You can't even read it. You can't translate it back. You can't change the font back to English either. I get it. You know, whiskey can give a man a lot of confidence.

Robert grabbed his guitar and fled the stage, bottles simply flying at his head. Ooh. As the door to the bar slammed behind him in the street, he thought, man, I just don't understand. I practice and I practice, but I can't get good. No one wants to hear my music. As Robert walked off into the night, nobody in that bar ever thought they would see him again but a few weeks or months later the bar doors swing open again but this time people take notice the place goes silent robert's back he walked over to the bar once again jesus buddy take the l all right look you

gotta understand brother you sucked shit last time I mean wow I had really never heard music that bad in my entire life I mean god in 30 years of bartending this is me being sweet here with you I mean that was the most trash performance

I had ever witnessed you got sausages for fingers you can't pick a string You got sausages for fingers. You can't pick a string. But Robert ignored the bartender. You got sausages for eyes. Because something was different. You sound like an eel that's made its way to earth and it is crying because it doesn't know where it is

or what it is. Robert had a dead look in his eyes, a focus. It was like he wasn't even listening. When he took to the stage, people were basically already booing, ready to roast him yet again. Until he started playing. It was like nothing anyone had ever heard before. Not only was his playing god tier, it was an entirely new genre wow when he finished the audience wouldn't stop cheering they couldn't get enough this isn't because he just didn't have a whiskey this time before the he was just sober when he played it's uh you know we can't conflate those

two things yes he did not take the whiskey this time. They would not serve him. But I think something else had happened. Before long, Robert was the talk of the town. The whole situation made absolutely no sense. Everyone remembered how garbage he was the first time. He could barely play guitar. How could he go from that to the greatest guitar player of all time? People were in a trance when they watched him. And it wasn't just that, he was getting mad girls too. They

couldn't stay away. People said it was like he had some kind of power over them. Now we're talking. Word started spreading that something was off about the whole thing, about Robert. How had this transformation taken place there were even rumors that people had seen him walking around the streets alone late at night where was he going that's kind of a cool musician thing to do though you know like contemplate your existence like walk around in the dark maybe like go to a bar by yourself and hear other people's life stories and write it down on a napkin yeah you know that's cool stuff that's very true as an artist you get a lot more like free passes to do weird shit than normal people do 100 yeah yeah because like if

you're an accountant yeah or you like work at tesco's you can't just be wandering alleyways at night yeah that makes you either weird or a superhero in your spare time that's very true because whereas like an artist you have like carte blanche access to the world in any way you see fit you can take it you can take a shit on the bonnet of a cop's car and he's like wow this is are you gonna write a song about this sir this is amazing no just having fun officer they applaud it's so true you could be breaking into someone's house and they'd be like excuse me what's going on here and you're like just inspiration for my next record yeah totally fine they're like oh i heard the last one it was great please have that they're like oh i heard the last one it was great please have that then finally the locals got the news they had been waiting for all along a local man started telling anyone who would listen what

he had seen yeah i've seen him walking around at night all right i saw him in the middle of the night all alone. He walked up to the crossroads He performed some kind of ritual to trade his soul to the devil So supposedly using some kind of ancient forbidden magic Robert had traded his soul to the devil for a new style of music and the ungodly Skills to be able to play it. Wow. Suddenly it all made sense. I mean it sounded impossible to the townspeople but just maybe. What if Robert had been hiding in plain sight all along? What if all this time the clues had been in his songs suddenly people were listening to his music with fresh ears the new

stuff's really devil and sacrifice heavy it went from kind of just like i love cold beer and i love football right before i sacrifice the goat whoa so the the record execs are listening to this and they're like we kind of we i think we lost you there in the last couple lines robert he's like uh he's in the booth like activating the mic just being like uh robert robert yeah yeah we love the song um football cold beers the audience love it yeah don't we all i think uh towards the end there you mentioned something about a goat sacrificing a goat god i don't i don't think i did chief all right well i mean we could check the recording but i think because we're pressed for time here let's push

on maybe try and get a couple takes of the second the second course if you're fine with that sure yeah yeah all right tape are we rolling all right when you're when you're ready robert gotta love to drive my truck with my baby. Beautiful. Drinking a little blood on the road. Drink blood. We stopped that there? Just pause that there for a second, Robert. Yeah, I mean, you're kind of cutting me off my flow here, Chief. Did you say bud or blood?

Because... You know, whatever you want, you know? Whichever one you think is better. I think bud, bud, budweiser. Although blood does rhyme better i just i just i'm aware of of a departure from the country uh music style to sort of a satanic really uh almost see i don't read that at all i don't read that at all actually i don't write this stuff down just comes off the off the top of my head so honestly that's just my art that's just what's gonna happen right well i feel like your art is um you know

it's entering some areas that um the locals really aren't gonna respond to uh well the satanists will love it so i don't want that i don't want that to be our primary uh our primary audience it's it's a big local audience to be honest let's just you know what know what? Let's push on. We'll just do a final course. Let's make sure that we can see if we can get this down. One quick thing. Let's just try

and do one course without any satanic mentions at all. Nothing creepy, no drinking blood. Just like the old days. Just like the old days, baby. You know it.

Just one man and his guitar strung on his back. F***ing Budweiser, bald eagle. Driving straight to hell. No, no, no, Robert. Jesus, no. You need to, look.

I'm not following any of this. You industry guys with your rules and your regulations. I'm not getting this. You almost had it. We were so close, all right? Think Budweiser, touchdown. Making out with the head cheerleader. We're almost home, Robert.

One final course. Let's go! I feel like you're from 50 years in the future, Chief. We're rolling, Robert. Final course. Me and the boys at the final touchdown. Me and the boys and we're singing out loud.

Maleficent dominoes. Maleficent dominoes. No! down me and the boys and we're singing out loud robert robert what honestly that that actually slaps yeah we could we could work with that right i think like domineos dos latinos it has a cool beat to it we'll put some banjo under that what's the new sound that's a rap boys that's it like i say people were suddenly listening with fresh ears to robert's music so to investigate this story i actually studied some of his lyrics for hidden messages so rory i'm gonna read you some of the lyrics and see if you can decode them. Okay, okay, this is good. So, here's one song called Crossroad Blues.

All right. This goes like so. I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees. I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees. So, right off the bat, kind of incriminating because he was seen at the crossroads yeah by the guy but you know we'll see what what else happens so because that could also be quite a metaphorical that you know the crossroads of life yeah i fell down on my knees in in prayer

or frustration you know there's a couple different ways of looking it's actually pretty beautiful thank you i'm gonna keep that off the camera ask the lord above have mercy now save poor bob lord of please lord above that's a great start this is good he's looking in the right direction at least absolutely yo standing at the crossroad tried to flag a ride ooh yeah tried to flag a ride didn't nobody seem to know me babe everybody passed me by's fair. So pretty cryptic stuff. Not a lot to go on, but things generally pointing the right direction. Another song, for example. This one is called Me and the Devil Blues.

Ooh, all right. That's already a bit of a red flag there. It is the title, but it could be a bit of a red herring. It could be him fighting those urges or something you know it could be sure you know him like fighting fighting those urges or something yeah christian urges it's like deviled eggs actually pretty good it's a good thing sometimes and pickled eggs yeah not anything not the devil but more devil more egg themed yeah just eggs actually scrambled eggs is amazing another good form eggs benedict florentine you can't go wrong

with a good egg can you omelet yeah what if there's an egg is there a bad egg that's what i was just thinking i mean the phrase exists egg salad i don't like yeah maybe not they should call that deviled eggs an egg salad because it sucks that's true so lyrics to me and the devil blues okay early this morning who when you knocked upon my door and i said hello satan oh boy and i believe it's time to go oh no oh uh second verse me and the devil was walking side by side. Me and the devil. Ooh.

Ooh, boy, I love him. So. I was kind of hoping the devil themes were going to be a bit more cryptic, a bit more poetic. Right. You know, like. So far, the devil has come to his house. He's just, this is a diary entry borderline and he said hello satan as if he's on first name first name terms as well yeah and i believe it's

time to get so he's like he's walking side by side with the devil doesn't seem like he put on much of a fight either he's pretty much bags packed ready to go no he seems excited excited about it that's a direct quote, folks. Yeah. You may bury my body down by the highway side. Baby, I don't care where you bury my body when I'm dead and gone. You may bury my body down by the highway side. So my old evil spirit can get a Greyhound bus and ride. Okay. If we were decoding some of the themes here yeah pulling apart some of

these cryptic lines this artistry are you seeing any any devilish intent uh well the devil for sure is pretty devilish turn up in that last song um burying my evil spirit yeah he called himself my old evil spirit yeah he's not even because bearing in mind at this point in time he was about 20 or so that's pretty early to have an evil spirit old evil spirit yeah it's almost like he himself is a reincarnated demon of some kind and look you know uh devil's advocate here um sure you know country music can be a little self-deprecating it can be like you know you can be kind of hard on yourself like oh my wife left me nobody loves me uh i'm a bad man i like whiskey at night i've done some bad things bad that's part of the part of the whole thing you know the

get up the cool kind of like country cowboy vibe but when you're edging into devil territory and saying you have an old evil spirit it goes from like less charming to just be like maybe we give this guy a bit of space yeah and some holy water what are some of your thoughts about this theory to begin with do you think it's possible to trade your soul for a skill in the first place um i think it's a really interesting concept i'd like to know more about how you get into the position where the devil offers you a contract yes because i've been bad at a lot of things in life and he's never shown up with like a contract made of fire like a little like microsoft word little clip and he's like hey i see you're trying at this yeah would you like to sell your soul for a bit of help um i've never had that and i've been pretty much bad at almost everything

i think i just get i mean when we even started the podcast the devil didn't show up and he was like how would you like to be the best podcaster in the world it's kind of unfortunate yeah i would have liked that i would have traded anything to be top 10 itunes i don't even need to be number one i would have given my a bit like death note i would have given my eyeballs my soul my heart and whatever it takes for a modicum of podcast industry clout to be top 10 in the comedy apple charts simply nominated another year running in the podcast awards i guess it's it's a real sad moment when the devil thinks your soul is not worth a deal yeah that's pretty dark i can't help you i'd love to take the soul but that would be unfair because that would suggest i can do anything about this yeah our version is like it's like we're at

the devil's door knocking and pleading being like you gotta help me brother i'm begging you i'm on my knees at the crossroads and he's like you are so bad at life that any ability i give you won't even make you it's a bad deal for you is what he's saying plus i there's no point in me taking a soul that's already coming to me you're for sure going to hell already as we already said you are my inheritance everything that's yours will be mine eventually um so it's interesting to uh to to you know for this to be something that's happened to someone i'd love to know the process like did the devil show up one late night and was like hey kid i can make you the best yeah or was it more like i've got nowhere left to turn the big guy upstairs isn't answering any prayers i gotta start looking down that's true you know this could be a guy who's tried every possible

avenue and has been knocked back. And this is his last chance. You know, we know it's tough out there for musicians. There's a lot of, I'm not even joking at this point, there's a lot of musicians who would sell their souls tomorrow for those abilities. For sure. All right, so music fans might have worked out that we are, of course, talking about music icon Robert Johnson. worked out that we are of course talking about music icon robert johnson uh johnson is basically often credited with inventing the blues and rock as we know it wow he was only recorded twice in

his lifetime yet without him there is no and this is according to the bands themselves there is no rolling stones there's no led zeppelin no bob dylan no eric clapton even in a 2011 documentary slipknot said this dude set the template he's the the start of it all hopefully that's the template for rock and roll and not for soul selling contracts like he really paved the way he opened relations with the devil and that was pretty much an open door because slip not they feel like pretty pally with yeah those are their faces now those aren't masks that's what they love part of the deal they were hollister models before they got into the music industry just chris hamsworth looking dudes so all paranormal things, this is a real question. How did he create this new sound? But what we're most interested in is, of course, did he use the paranormal to get it?

Right. Which seems pretty cut and dry. Did he summon Satan to get guitar skills or is this all a mean rumor? But there is a third possibility. So mississippi delta at this time and probably today is one of the most diverse areas of america countless people live there from all over africa the caribbean south america and beyond so people believed all kinds of different religions it wasn't just christianity right a lot of different cultures coming together a lot of folklore history that's great that's fantastic we love to hear so this included you know there was A lot of different cultures coming together. A lot of folklore, history. That's great. That's fantastic. That's what we love to hear. So this included, you know, there was a lot of people genuinely practicing, believing Haitian voodoo,

Santeria. It's a kind of mashup of a couple of different religions. Vodan, voodoo. Voodoo? Yeah. You've got these religions that kind of predate, like, even voodoo as we know it. Wow. And in some of these religions, there are kind of gods or spirits that you can pray to or make offerings to and ask for things in return. Interestingly, there are at least two spirits, Elegua or Elegua, and Papalegba, who are gods of crossroads. Oh. So maybe this isn't a rumor at all. Robert Johnson very possibly believed in one of these religions

and genuinely tried to get supernatural musical powers. Very interesting. Just for reference, I've got to show you what papa legba looked like because because he 100 invented rock music like this isn't what you picture a normal god to be i'm very excited for starters he apparently smokes a pipe walks with a crutch and uh drinks sparkling water why does a god need a crutch that's already a bad sign so the image i'm going to show you is actually um an interpretation that showed up in american horror story the tv show but this is like a generally how he's depicted thing okay wow

okay oh my god that's pretty rock and roll i'm not gonna lie yeah uh he has um uh those dreadlocks yeah of course he's got dreadlocks he's got a big top hat with skulls on it glowing red eyes um and a pretty well-worn face like that's the face that face tells a story yeah and that story is a thousand years old and that face has drunk many bottles of jack daniels oh my god yeah it's probably that's what his blood is that's a strong look you could put him in like alice in chains in the 90s as a guitarist and no one would even bat an eye i'm digging it i think that's a very very strong look and even though he has glowing red eyes in this image sure um he's not like evil apparently he's that's what i was gonna say yeah is there like you know because you know when you get into different religions uh you've got your

good gods your bad gods not all of them are malicious yeah this man looks like he wants to fight does he necessarily want to fight or is he pretty chill i don't know enough about papa leg but but i have read that he is considered kind of like almost like a like a dad figure like a parental figure he's like papa for sure he like looks down on you know like looks down kindly on people gives him advice as an intermediary um between the spirit worlds and the human worlds. So like I said, we've really got a couple of hypotheses here, but as always, we have to decide if our story is truly paranormal or not. Rory, do you think Robert Johnson used the paranormal to change music forever? This is a really interesting story because, you know, we've investigated demons and the devil in uh in a lot

of different stories in the past but a lot of the times when it's the devil getting involved with a human or a human's life we're talking about um a very evil devil and a very unwilling human it's usually you know possession uh that's true hauntings we talked about like uh the gates to hell existing on earth the um that place in america that is basically hell where the ground is fire um a lot of different examples where basically humans are pretty much affected in a very negative way uh whereas this is a case where things are a lot more civil we're talking about what could possibly what could possibly be a contract between the man and the devil to actually i don't know it's beneficial to both of them did robert live a long time

no okay so robert is famously part of the 27 club. For anyone who doesn't know, there is a long list of rock stars throughout history who never made it past the age 27. It's kind of creepy when you look into it. I believe it involves Jimi Hendrix, I think is in there. Kurt Cobain, Robert Johnson. Yeah. And actors as well. A lot of famous actors as well. Are we saying they all had their contracts expire in 27 years? Possibly. We'll have to look into it. That's an interesting question right there because it is often someone who has seemingly talent and vision beyond their years. Someone like Jimi Hendrix who just flunks out of the military and just sets the world on fire and his guitar on fire, literally with this new style of music. Pretty interesting idea.

So yeah, it's a very different case. I honestly, personally, don't have a lot of experience with deals with the devil, as in research knowledge and also firsthand experience with my life. I did mean to ask uh were this true what skill would you accept that contract for that's a pretty good that's a pretty

good question because does everyone have that one thing they would they would trade it for yeah like was neil armstrong like i want to be the best I want to be the first man on the goddamn moon I'll sign the dotted line wherever you want um or is it pretty much like is it just everyone wants to be like a musician or an actor or somewhere like that because those are the most like I guess glitzy lifestyles you can have you know your face on the big screen or being up on the stage adored by thousands of people like does someone want to be the best damn civil engineer there's ever been yeah i just want to plan cities like no one's ever planned no one's ever done it all the buildings are just like upside down crosses it's very satanic

yeah um that's it that's an interesting point because I feel like even being at the, this is really stupid, but like being the best at something doesn't always guarantee success either. I mean, if you're the greatest ever astronaut, like there's a lot of other astronauts. How great can one guy be that they have to send him? Like what if they just give the contract to someone else who's like younger or for some other circumstances? to someone else who's like younger or for some other circumstances um i feel like people think so much of entertainment because it's like that's where we reward the most brilliant artist and everyone wants to buy his paintings it's like so clean cut you know like we can believe it if picasso sold his soul to the devil to be picasso yeah yeah it gets a little more squirrely if you're

yeah the best gardener to ever exist i don't know you know what i mean yeah yeah i know i totally know what you mean yeah it's a weird one for sure it's hard to believe that a musician comes out of obscurity and is actually bad to begin with but then somehow it changes the course of human history uh by becoming so great. It's very hard for us to wrap our heads around that. And I can definitely see the appeal of this paranormal leaning. But I think one thing we do need to look at, especially looking back through this historical lens,

is just how racist America was at this time. Right. And today. Let's be honest. Let's roll it all in there. Not much has changed. Maybe Robert did believe in one of these other, maybe Caribbean or African religions. Right, right.

He did believe in one of these gods like Papa Legba. But it seems like it's no coincidence that the overbearingly white community uh decided that that couldn't possibly be the case it had to be satan right when it's like why would robert trade his soul to be able to play the guitar wouldn't it make more sense if robert just asked the god of his religion pray to him like everyone does got it got it yeah for a skill i mean i don't straight to the devil as well like there's a whole nother side to that coin and it's the nice side uh to automatically assume right off the bat that it's granted he did have some heavy devil themes

in the songs he did he didn't help himself he did not help himself but it has to be said like you said that it's a incredibly common theme all throughout art and music and writing and history. Crossroads. Yeah. It's not, doesn't have to be a literal crossroads just because he sang about going to the crossroads. It's like, that's just art. Do you think the devil likes to barter? You can negotiate Don.

Like, could I trade my Xbox to be pretty good at the guitar? You know, like, he's like, you don't think I have enough Xboxes? You think everyone doesn't try to trade the Xbox? It's like, I'll trade you my iPhone 6S for, like, being able to backflip. Is that a fair trade? Like, not my soul. Yeah, because it's not a lot of work for him. And I don't want to be the best at backflip is that a fair trade like not my soul yeah it's not a lot of work for him and i don't want to be the best at backflips in the world i don't want to be able to do like 200 yeah and then slam dunk from half court like it's looney tunes i just want to be

able to like you need to give a lot more for that yeah that's that's obviously like an iphone 10 that's way more probably but i just wonder like how much time does he have yeah that's because he's probably looking for excuses to get out of hell or does he like it down there i guess he does i see what you're saying so he is hell hell for the devil or is that his heaven he's gonna like it surely yeah because otherwise he'd change it right but i like what you're saying he has he operates a kind of cex style exchange system right a game stop if the new animal crossing comes out like you could get a you could get a decent amount of skills for that yeah it just came out it's worth a bit to him or you know it's like here i'll give you the soul of my cat mittens what can what can i get me

you know and he's like cat soul you can do that thing where you flick a coin in between your fingers yeah that's all you get like really for mittens i'll take it cat soul i can let you roll your tongue you can roll your tongue now that's already roll my tongue it's like all right you can you can whistle but really that really loud one with two fingers yeah with two fingers oh yeah pretty good people sold a chunk of. Anyone that can do that is borderline paranormal. That freaks me out. All right, Roy, we could talk about this all day. At the end of the episode, we have to decide,

is this paranormal or not? Is this a yes or a no? I love this story. I think it comes from a place of real rich history, lore, and religion and culture, which I think is always exciting when you're looking into a case like this. Unfortunately, on the side of evidence, which is always what we've got to come down on we have uh claims that robert was shit and then he was great yeah um we have the stories and the songs

he wrote himself which do include some satanic imagery i'm not gonna lie um quite specific satanic imagery as well but uh but what we need is like we need a uh architect not an architect we need an archaeologist to dig up and discover the con the soul contract itself we need um multiple testimonies from people saying that he had fucking horns that if he looked in a mirror he had no reflection exactly that he played the guitar so well because he had hooves for hands it's true um which unfortunately we just don't have in this case i mean yes someone going from the worst musician of all time to one of the all-time greatest rock legends. That's a big difference.

But as you said, I mean, this is the South of America a long time ago. We have to assume that there was definitely some racism at play. It could have possibly been that he came into this country music bar, whatever it was. And I mean, he could have been the best at that point and they wouldn't have and they wouldn't have given him like the time of day that's so true um and then possibly it just got to a point later on where he was too big and too popular and too good to ignore yeah like it gets to a point where you just can't say he's not that good anymore uh because he's like selling out bars he's selling out shows to convince people that he used to be bad yeah or that he's demonic that's

the only way yeah so um you know you have to look at it through that lens if you're definitely going to be going back at that period in history but um unfortunately without that evidence and without more first-hand information i think this week even though it's an interesting case, and I would definitely be interested in doing more of these, I think it's going to be a no from me this week. I think you put it perfectly. We just don't have enough to go on. And I think there's a clear explanation there for historically why this happened. Yeah. But an incredible story.

But an incredible story. If anyone does want to check out these crossroads and see if they can make a bargain of their own, head on over to Clarksdale, Mississippi, where Highway 61 and Highway 49 meet. That's the spot where rock music was born. That's it? That's the spot? Whether the story is paranormal or not, that's the spot. That's pretty cool.

Pretty cool you can go there. Yeah, it's like a big music pilgrimage spot. Wow. So thank you so much to Tom Greater X for sending that one in to us. Had a blast investigating it. If you have any of your own

ideas about this one or any of your own investigations you want us to take a look at, send them in to thisparanormallifepodcast at gmail.com. You know, for three goddamn years

we've been shouting out all the links to this podcast and i'm happy to say they're not all in the description of this episode it's true whatever app you're in flick up check out the description and all the links to our social media to uh where you can email us to the patreon it's all there We sold our souls for a series of smart URLs. Yeah, if I had known that was a free service, I would have a soul. Yeah, which we kind of cashed out, I think.

We're not very good at bartering. No, we actually had to... We started low and we had to argue up to get the smart URLs. He was just going to give us like... He was ready to play hardball for like 45 minutes, an hour max. And as soon as we saw him face to face, I was like, both of our souls.

Bro. 200 listeners a month. I'm like, we already have that. He's like, done. We lose half our listeners. His gavel is a flaming axe. Done. We cut our audience massively i'm like how many people did you think were listening our moms jesus their souls too soul of my mom and kids and whilst you can check the podcast out on all of those social media platforms the numero

uno place to catch this paranormal life is on patreon.com this is the crossroads where for his small amount of money you can appease the gods of this podcast that is us oh yeah and in return for your soul as well as the cash amount you get a bonus episodes in return worth it i we think it's a dope trade granted we are on this side of the trade yeah but uh we think it's a good bargain because there is a paranormal backlog of bonus episodes we got how many we talking already like almost 30 right exactly of full-length bonus episodes um that you can check out right now on patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life the link is in the description below from five bucks a month you get access to the bonus episodes from 20 bucks a month you can get this paranormal life commune

t-shirt oh and i almost forgot a first in this paranormal life history you can now watch clips of this paranormal life podcast on youtube we're talking we're filming in the studio right now we're exposing our faces for the first time please be kind oh my god people are like wow you guys talk like you're with the confidence of a 10, but you have a voice for podcasts. You have the posture of a night goblin. Look, I'll be honest with you guys, right? YouTubers, they get all the fame, the glitz and the glory. Sure.

You know, podcasters, they're pushed into the shadows. We live in the sewers. We hide in your AirPods. You know, we never see the light of day. So we're swapping now. We're going to be full-blown YouTubers. We're going to get a house in the Hollywood Hills. I didn't say that, actually.

We're going to go to crazy sex parties and vlog the whole thing. Interesting, I guess. So you're definitely going to want to head over to... What the f*** is our YouTube channel? Well, it doesn't exist yet but it's gonna exist don't worry bro like it's gonna be a big thing all right by the time the video goes up listen i don't know a lot about how youtube works but i honestly think we're gonna be trending you think so day one i think day one i think the nation is gonna come through i think the nation is going to come through. I think the nation is going to grow in size by a hundred times in order to get us trending.

Should we come up with a hashtag for the official launch on Tuesday that everyone can tweet? Yeah, like... What can we do? Make these ugly goblins famous? What's a good hashtag? What do you think of a good hashtag? Yeah, a little snappy hashtag. Oh, what about hashtag TPL takeover?

That sounds cool. Okay. Okay. Boom, here we come. Starting on Tuesday, the TPL takeover. Hashtag TPL takeover hashtag tpl takeover what about boom no i don't have more ideas i do like that one quick one all right sure bear with me okay hashtag tpl versus ksi because listen people like a good feud that's good and you know that's good you know

jake it worked for jake paul he feuded with ksi i think he actually got beat up in a fight as well but we don't have to get in a fight we just gotta start the online feud yeah we can actually cut a bunch of the the bullshit out which is like you know um creating a youtube channel with all this content you know uh you know making and organizing video shoots supporting your audience for years we can just cut all that out and just start picking fights with people man that's the exciting shit that's where it's at you know what logan paul i'll investigate you because if you aren't a ghost now you're about to be one when i dislocate your head from your body he's a pretty big guy really shit i thought he was like training actually

oh for that that fight shit what about doesn't he have like a brother like a scrawny little brother i think he's pretty jacked also really is do they have like a i don't know like a don't say like a cousin a tiny little cousin that like isn't even they don't even have to be on youtube it could just be like a child like a child a borderline child right and you just like vlog behind me while i walk preferably just from get him in the back of the head because i don't want i don't want him to get a swing this is just like incriminating right now it's a four second video of me running up punching a child in the back of the head and then it just flashes up tpl takeover welcome to youtube anyone who tweeted that hashtag is being investigated by the police

that's right we have video clips from um episodes from now on they're going to be going up on youtube you can find the link to our YouTube in the description of this podcast. Please click through, subscribe, and don't miss the highlights of this paranormal life. And at the end of every episode, we like to take the time to shout out those who have supported us on Patreon. So let's go. Thank you to Lucy Bennett. Lucy Bennett is from another planet. lucy bennett lucy bennett is from another planet pretty clever though too because listen aliens that end up on earth don't have they don't last long the government shows up they take them away they're never seen again call your call yourself lucy start walking around wearing you know put on some jeans and a t-shirt call yourself lucy start listening to podcasts smart move lucy so you know hiding in plain sight thank you to chem terry chem terry

is very scary except halloween that's when they like to just chill out take it take the day off and then the next day coming to work dressed as a freaking demon really screaming in people's ears like a hipster kind of ghoul like there's flips you dress up for halloween that's lame that's that's pretty normie i dress up on christmas and they're coming down the chimney like a goblin and it's great that's pretty bad if on christmas day you see someone coming down the chimney and they dropped on it's a goblin yeah there's only one man that should be coming down at christmas it's true there is only a window of a couple hours in the year where it's okay for anything to come down your chimney very true thank you to michael

granados they call him michael granados because similar to um woody in toy story uh he has like a little bit of string on his back but if you pull it you start the grenade is that just where he he goes into a fury and just starts swinging wildly that is how you start the grenade interesting he is a bomb of a man. Thank you to Simon Crow. Kaka! Simon Crow. I would like to officially welcome you to the podcast. And look, before anyone starts saying we're oversubscribed, there's nowhere for him to go,

you need to understand how many eggs this crow is going to bring in on a daily basis. That's true. They're basically dropping out of him. So I think we can all agree he's a much needed member of the commune right now we need a lot more egg line members i'll tell you how much thank you to ivan yotsov ivan we're sending you yotsov love from this paranormal life commune much like the deities of 1930s mississippi we do need something in return, my friend. We do. This love is a two-way street, for sure.

Do you have any kind of egg-laying man or beasts at all that you could spare to the commune? We're not picky. Any type of bird, lizard, dinosaur even. Preferably lizard. Very cheap and very delicious. They're cold-blooded, so they don't need heat heat which there's not a lot of here at the commune thank you to maria sardican maria are you from korea specifically the north side because uh we have a little nuclear issue that um requires some assistance it's been ongoing it has been so um just flash your badge

the commune guards will let you straight in and urge you to the um to the to the problem which you can't miss really because it's lighting up the night sky yeah thank you to andy aguirre andy's a handy mandy and that doesn't necessarily mean he's good at fixing stuff, but he has a lot. He owns a lot of hands, like, like monkey paws and, uh, severed hands,

withered hands, pickled hands, a bunch of things like that. So that's awful. Actually not that handy to have that many hands. Cause you don't really, I got to work right. Fine right here.

Um, but just someone good to, you know, be on their good side for sure if you want to keep your hands yeah it sounds like thank you to jeremy smith jeremy smith lives on a cliff kind of an unusual place you would think to make your home dangerous that is until you realize jeremy is in fact a puffin. He is a bird. Oh, okay. So Jeremy, I've said before, listen, we don't have any cliffs in the commune,

but we would love you to make your home here and maybe leave a couple eggs lying around from time to time. You know, we can build a wall that looks a bit like a cliff. We'll make it work if you bring the eggs. Thank you to Kelly Hobbs. Kelly Hobbs has a couple of smelly dogs doesn't know what to do with them they they reek frankly and you can wash them you know to a certain point but if they just smell that bad what do you even take them that's a yeah that's a problem right there

what do you do with what do you do with permanently smelly dogs kelly i'm sorry we don't have the answers but i guess we could investigate them on the pod thank you to arisa arisa this might be a little bit forward but can i kiss you i think that is a little bit forward well i don't know just i feel like because i have to know arista what i'm getting arrested? Because I'm in the policia. Oh, my God. For just a kiss? I go to jail for that? Well, you didn't ask for it.

Thank you to Jamie Webb. Jamie, proud discoverer of the macadamia nut. I'm not sure that's what it's called. Are you sure about that? It's not a macadamia. This is a very specific type of it's called are you sure about that it's not a macadamia this is a very specific type of nut oh it's not the famous hawaiian delicacy no this nut is ice cold found in the belly of a spider okay that's definitely not right it's pretty hard to get your hands on but it is spider how small does nut have to be it's a pretty big spider actually uh the mac is fucking aragog from lord

of the rings you gotta fell this thing with a two-handed plus three broadsword it's worth it for the nut the macajamia nut thank you to kyle rowley well if it isn't kyle rowdy rowley little too rowdy actually he's been in prison in juvenile detention since he was 13 years old. He's now checking my notes. 65. Why didn't they why is he still in juvie at 65?

Well, it turns out you actually gotta finish all your school years in juvie or else you're legally still a child. Okay. He kind of refused so he was a little too rowdy to be put with the other person he's still in there listening to blink 182 skateboard he thinks he's 13 that's pretty don't we all my friend thank you to jessica kaufman jessica kaufman from kaufman's coffins uh look we might be requiring your your services uh not to say that there is a high mortality rate

in the paranormal commune a completely normal mortality rate i would say absolutely normal um but you look you know i have been saying this for years you can use coffins for a lot of things right it doesn't it doesn't you know you do put your clothes outside the box think outside the coffin exactly that's what I'm saying. Make sure they are human sized. Right. Because. Just in case.

Just in case. I've got a lot of stuff to put away. So, yeah. They're like, well, I mean, we can make them bigger. We actually do storage containers. If you want something bigger. Like, no, no, the coffins will do. The coffins, please.

Do you do gravestones and flowers? Because that's what I've been saying. Gravestones could be used for any number of things signage thank you to peter sugart peter sugart inventor of the sugart cookie not to be confused of course with the sugar cookie oh but um you know you get some flour some eggs preferably reptilian mix in a couple of macadamia nuts and you got yourself a sugared cookie and they are honestly so it's like an enormous amount of effort to create a reptile eggs and macadamia nuts which come from spiders but the cookie itself is good it's so so honestly it's really fine so this is is this any any way better than going to tesco's and getting five cookies for like 50p it's pretty much only cooked to kill your enemies okay the the chemical combination between lizard eggs

and macadamia nuts it's border't be good. It's borderline explosive. Two poisonous animals. It's 100% explosive. So, you know, you cook up a dish. You've got a sugar cookie. They've got a sugared cookie. You give that bad boy to your enemy and boom. And like you offer it to them and you're not technically lying.

You're just kind of, you know, you're kind of, it's kind of a silent tea. Yeah. Would you like a sugar cookie? Would you a shot of a cookie oh yeah sounds delicious why is mine covered in cobwebs and yours is from a tesco meal deal is that a coffin delivery guy in the driveway thank you to baxter de maro baxter from baxter's wax and fur if you if you need wax if you need fur he's got you covered he's like some kind of like gold rush era fur trapper exactly wax and fur how is that your business it's not a good business but he has an abundance of both um i don't know why you'd ever want a furry candle but if you do he's your man he's the guy um i imagine he owns a couple guns at least yeah very waxy fluffy guns

thank you to secret corgi you know i like the idea of a secret corgi you know corgi's pretty cute yeah pretty pretty innocent Who are they secret from? Yeah, what are they hiding? I want to know what this secret Corgi is up to. Yeah. Because a Corgi, like a husky, is a suspicious looking dog. Yeah. What's that dog doing here?

It looks like it belongs in Antarctica. Devilish good looks. Yeah, those steel blue eyes. Oh, Corgi? What's he planning? A fart? They're so cute and adorable. That's why the royal family of corgis yeah like i'm just saying they're all enlisted like these spies bro i hear you okay thank you to alex hardy and harley dean come on darn the hardys harle's where alex or dean will be more than happy to sell you a harley or f**k

it a hardy a harley is granted a bike you don't want to know what a hardy is are they working hardy or harley working hey no seriously they're going on a business we they because no one knows what the f**k they sell so they got you got to get down there it's a weird shop thank you to chris thompson chris thompson you are the bomb son have you ever seen this guy cannonball into a swimming pool hey that's not allowed there's signs everywhere chris you should know better than to get what what swimming pool have you ever been to you're allowed to cannonball into chris doesn't give a flying bomb he's fully clothed in a four-piece suit that's right he's out of the lair and that lair is a swimsuit did i mention he's an arms dealer he's also selling bombs thank you lastly but not

leastly to melanie pringle they call her mel Melanie Pringle because once she pops, she just can't stop. Sweet. What is popping, though? Sadly, it's a new street drug. It has landed her in rehab. Oh. Sadly. Very sadly.

It's not a kind nickname. She's addicted to pop. Addicted to pop. We're not talking about soda here, are we? No, I wish. I really wish it was coke you know the soda i wish it was cocaine it's that pop pop is you don't want to know oh my god i wish it was heroin between you and me i wish it was heroin uh so melanie get out soon

it's like pop isn't coke it's root beer she's hooked on root beer it's bad thank you to everyone we've shouted out today and everyone we are yet to shout out on this paranormal life thank you for tuning in we will be back next tuesday as always with a brand new paranormal tale bye bye