Cultural Butterflies

Editor’s Note: Originally published at The Roots of Liberty February 2015.

I caught a documentary about the late great rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix last night. I knew parts of his story, and of course am familiar with his music and on the effect it had on the British and American music scene in the late 1960s. I was also reminded that he was a paratrooper in the US Army. What I didn’t know was that, at least according to some versions of the story, Jimi injured his ankle during a training jump, and thus got out of the Army on an honorable discharge. While some sources dispute the veracity of this injury, and suggest that it was merely an excuse to discharge an “unsuitable” young man out from the service, it does raise the question what might not have been were it not for that ankle injury?

Tony Iommi, guitarist for the band Black Sabbath, started his career out with an injury, one that shaped his style of music and changed the world of rock and roll forever. At age 18, on his last afternoon of work at a factory before going out on tour with a band, Tony lost the tips of two fingers on his right hand in an industrial accident. Tony played left handed, which meant that his right hand was his fretting hand, and that accident could have ended his musical career there and then. Instead, (and after the urging and guidance of his factory manager) he persevered, fashioned plastic thimbles for those fingers, changed out the heavy strings of his guitar for lighter gauge banjo strings, down-tuned his guitar to reduce the string tension, and developed a sound that gave birth to the entire heavy metal genre.

I have no doubt that both Jimi and Tony would have become fine, possibly legendary musicians if their life paths hadn’t hit those detours. Jimi was destined to be a musician. He got his first guitar at age 15, played non-stop, learned by ear, played every chance he got even in the Army, and to his dying day always seemed to have a guitar in his hand. Tony’s commitment to music carried him through an injury that could easily have ended all his hopes and dreams.

But, as they say, timing is everything. What might have happened if Jimi had served out his full enlistment term? Would his career have started later? Would he have missed the Monterey Pop Festival and the Summer of Love? Would so many who were inspired by what he was doing with the guitar have taken different paths with their own music? What would rock music be today had Jimi not received that early discharge?

What might have happened if Tony went out on tour with The Birds and Bees that day, instead of suffering that terrible injury? Would he have ever formed a band with Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward? Would he have found his way to that heavy sound that spawned a genre? Even if he had, would that sound have emerged years later and thus not offered inspiration to countless guitarists?

It’s easy to figure out that history is altered by singular moments and occurrences. What if Gavrilo Princip not stopped for a sandwich? What if John F. Kennedy opted for a closed limousine? What if Alexander Fleming had thrown out that petri dish? What if Fanny Kaplan was a better shot? What if Ogedei Khan wasn’t a heavy drinker? There are countless what-ifs and counterfactual speculations out there for those who enjoy such things.

Not all history, though, is political or scientific. While government, politics and science are overarching governors of our lives, popular culture infuses them far more every day. Of course, we’d be living in a very different world should any of thousands of inflection points have happened differently, and those are easy to spot in hindsight. How much of that which has shaped our lives, though, is due to individual accidents or chance occurrences? How would the world and our outlook on it be different had Mick Jagger and Keith Richards not struck up a conversation at the Dartford train station in 1961? Bon Scott, the original singer of AC/DC, supposedly ended up with his unique voice after a motorcycle accident – would the band, and by extension the world of music, been the same had the accident not occurred?

This phenomenon of minor, chance occurrences that produce large macroscopic changes has been dubbed the “butterfly effect,” and is studied in chaos theory. It is undoubtedly misunderstood by most people, at least from a rigorous perspective, but that doesn’t really matter. The basic notion that a seemingly random occurrence can have profound effect is easy and obvious. Mel Gibson’s film career began when he gave a friend a lift to the Mad Max auditions. Mel had been in a bar fight the night before, and his face was bruised up. Based on that, he got a call back for a minor role, but once his face healed, he was given the lead. Johnny Depp gave a friend a ride to an audition for A Nightmare on Elm Street. Wes Craven spotted him, cast him, and years later he channels Keith Richards as a pirate to the tune of 3.7 billion dollars in box office receipts.

Our world is what it is due to innumerable random occurrences. No one foresaw that Jimi Hendrix’s early exit from the Army would alter music history forever, no one predicted that Tony Iommi’s industrial accident would spawn an entire school of music. Moreso, no one could foresee those outcomes.

Therein lies the lesson.

The future cannot be predicted, it cannot be managed with certainty. It can follow a million different paths, and a seemingly insignificant event can change everything. Not only for an individual, but for us all.