This could be the weirdest rock’n’roll origin story ever

[This was my weekly column for GlobalNews.ca. – AC[

I promise that by the end of this story you will learn will shake your head–maybe at the history of it all or maybe at me for spinning the tale. I just ask that you stay with me.

It may not seem like it, but everything in this universe is connected in all kinds of unseen ways. Humans have always known that chaos is a capricious and fickle thing that can show up when you least expect it.

Remember that Treehouse of Horror episode from The Simpsons where Homer accidentally turns a toaster into a time machine? He travels into the past where he manages to screw up the future multiple times by making the tiniest mistake.

That episode is based on a 1952 short story by Ray Bradbury entitled A Sound of Thunder in which a man named Eckels goes back in time and kills a dinosaur. When it returns to the present, everything is different.

This story is something like that: how a small thing hundreds of years ago connects the term “rock ’n’ roll” with the firing of flaming rats out of small cannons.

Humans have been trying to blow stuff up for centuries. The Chinese came up with gunpowder sometime in the ninth century. They used it both for fireworks and as weaponry. This is where the rats come in.

An army would stuff live rats into long hollow tubes packed with gunpowder. The rats — now completely on fire — rained down on the opposite side. You can imagine the psychological freak-out factor that had.

Yes, we will get to rock music in a bit. You just have to keep reading.