Paul is Dead, a review of incredible and wild rock legends

How would rock be without the belief Elvis is still alive, Paul McCartney died in 1966 and Led Zeppelin camouflaged the satanic rules in Stairway to Heaven? Probably less fun, says Hector Sanchez, who in Paul esta Muerto (Paul is Dead) explores the darkest, wildest and most amusing rock legends.

“I think one of the charms of rock is the world that builds up around it, the snowball it forms”, the debutant author tells Efe in a telephone interview.

The book makes the most of the mystery and rich mythology surrounding rock, full of fascinating characters and surprising facts that continue to dazzle the public, even if most of the stories are pure hoax.

Just to take an example, if you google Paul McCartney, the first result that appears on the screen before “The Beatles” or “songs” is “Paul McCartney dead”, in reference to the urban legend that the musician died in a road accident in the 60s and was replaced by a double.

“Rock has its own history, but this is a parallel history often more surprising than the real one”, Sanchez says about a world full of myths, fanaticisms and real facts which he describes with irony and sense of humor, even in the case of the most scabrous subjects.

The book includes shady legends of all colors, like the one that “resuscitates” Jim Morrisson of The Doors, the one that says the ghost of Janis Joplin is still cloistered in the hotel where she died or the one saying The Eagles hid a satanic message in Hotel California.

According to the author, the “wild character” of rock facilitates this kind of urban legend. “Adding the sex and drugs topics makes a combination which works”, he explains.

Led Zeppelin’s famous sexual episode with a shark or the night when The drummer of the Who, Keith Moon, parked a car in a swimming pool, are also fictions that nurture the image of rock as a world of excess and sometimes of daydreaming.

“I wanted to find out how much reality there was in these legends, to try to deny them but at the same time continue leaving a doubt. Each can keep what they want”, Sanchez adds.

He cannot say which he prefers, but admits a weakness for the legend that says Pink Floyd’s album The Dark Side of The Moon was made especially for the movie The Wizzard of Oz. The most cruel one in his view is the one affirming that Mama Cass, who was overweight, died while eating a sandwich.

There are countless legends on rock, and the Internet is a good platform to spread them, he says.

And if Hector Sanchez’s version does not convince the reader, he can always turn to the one of Keith Richards, a leading character in these stories.

“What is curious about these urban legends is that people do not forget them although they clearly see they are untrue, probably because the idea is so crazy, crude or lascivious that it seems impossible it is an invention”, Sanchez concludes.