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Hidden Messages In Recordings ('Backwards' / 'Reversed')

spikess

Gone But Not Forgotten
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i remember watching a documentary that was along the same line as this..

it was about a band that was taken to court because it was believed that when their music was played backwards it had subliminal messages..

however, it was shown that people assume they are going to hear the words/phrase that they have been told are in the recording and so hear it..

and he demonstrated this by saying he was being to play a section back and they would hear this word..and they did, including me..

so i think it has kinda based on the idea of you try to make sense out of nonsense, or just hear what u think you should be hearing...
 
It's good to smoke marijuana!

There was lots of fuss about this in 80s when various rock groups were believed to insert subversive or devil-worshipping messages in their lyrics which could only be heard clearly when played backwards.
Judas Priest were 'guilty' of this and I believe Ozzy Osbourne got so fed up of being accused of it that he deliberately stuck some backwards words in a song to see if it worked.

I've heard Queen's 'Another One Bites The Dust' backwards. The title line is claimed to say 'It's good to smoke marijuana!'

Wow, there's subversive for you.
 
Heavy Metal records are full of backwards messages, they are classic too, no-nonsense 'evil' that kids used to love to hear when they were about fourteen-years old in their dark little rooms and denim jackets. At least the messages seemed sinister, i.e. Fastway's 'Trick Or Treat' album had the message, "You are the bait, the bait is you", Slayer's opening of 'Hell Awaits' gurgled "Join Us" when you pulled it backwards and other bands from Judas Priest to far more obscure acts got on the band-wagon, and Motley Crue's 'Shout At The Devil' had the warning on the sleeve that, "...this album may contain backwards messages", but it didn't...but it sold more because of it.
 
NEIL said:
Heavy Metal records are full of backwards messages, they are classic too, no-nonsense 'evil' that kids used to love to hear when they were about fourteen-years old in their dark little rooms and denim jackets. At least the messages seemed sinister, i.e. Fastway's 'Trick Or Treat' album had the message, "You are the bait, the bait is you", Slayer's opening of 'Hell Awaits' gurgled "Join Us" when you pulled it backwards and other bands from Judas Priest to far more obscure acts got on the band-wagon, and Motley Crue's 'Shout At The Devil' had the warning on the sleeve that, "...this album may contain backwards messages", but it didn't...but it sold more because of it.

Judas Priest's warning label simply said:

"Warning....Shite Band":D
:devil:
 
Does anybody happen to have a transcript of Hotel California played backwards? IU remember someone in my class did backtracking as a school project in RE (religious studies) class. No idea what relevance it was to RE but it was fun. this was at least 10 years ago and Ive forgotten the wording but he had a tapefull of excerpts from songs he'd put together. I can't remember the words except for something about rivers running through hell but I remember that it was bloody scary. He also had "Another one bited the dust" by Queen which repeats "everyone smoke marijuna" over and over again.
 
Just checked out DD's link there, and was surprised to hear that you can play Usama bin Laden (speaking in Arabic) backwards and get 'I will buy you the palace of evil' - in English!

Never say never, I guess, but my money is on them being remarkable audio simulacra for the most part.

But then you never know ;)
 
Little pop culture reference here but the Kinks song 'Autumn Almanac' is so called because when playing the original song backwards during mixing Ray davies clearly heard these words. The ex having all the right equipment once played the song on a four track and crikey! it's really errily, you sit there for a few minutes with all that wierd sucking type backward noise and then the words 'Autumn Almanac' appear crystal clear...a nice touch in the song is that towards the end he sings the same words backwards, i've never been enough of a geek to see what that comes out like.
 
Ahhhhh, so that explains those sudden urges I've been having, maybe i should cut out the British whimsy pop music and get back to Marilyn Manson.
 
Here is a site which shows if you play Stairway to Heaven backwards you can hear Satan... :eek:
 
From _Paul McCartney In His Own Words_ (interviews with Paul Gambaccini) ISBN 0-8256-3910-7, page 29.

Paul McCartney: "Then the this-little-bit-if-you-play-it-backwards stuff. As I say, nine times out of ten it's really nothing. Take the end of 'Sergeant Pepper', that backwards thing. "We'll fuck you like Supermen." Some fans came round to my door giggling. I said, "Hello, what do you want?" They said, "Is it true, that bit at the end? Is it true? It says "We'll fuck you like Supermen." I said, "No, you're kidding. I haven't heard it, but I'll play it." It was just some piece of conversation that was recorded and turned backwards. But I went inside after I'd seen them and played it seriously, turned it backwards with my thumb against the motor, turned the motor off and did it backwards. And there it was, sure as anything, plain as anything. "We'll fuck you like Supermen." I thought, Jesus, what can you do?"
 
jima said:
Judas Priest's warning label simply said:

"Warning....Shite Band":D
:devil:


How rude!!! They were accused of having evil messages in a certain song that lead to two American youths shooting themselves. Rob Halfords main defense in court was a tape of said song backwards, which of course was completely devoid of anything sinister, case over!

Obla de, obla da, (however it is spelt? Beatles song?) Sounds a bit like 'Hi devil, he's devil' backwards.

The Queen song - Another one bites the dust, sounds vaguely like a badly slurred voice saying 'It's fun to smoke marijuana'

And I once saw a program late at night with all this kind of stuff, and Madonna's - Like a Prayer was supposed to have something when played backwards. I was staying at my Grandma's huge house alone that night, where I have always been scarred of the dark hallways, and the tactics used to ensure there was a light on ALL the way to my room took several minutes to formulate!!!
 
I've heard the backmasking on Prince's Purple Rain Album. It's at the end of either Darling Niki" or "Purple Rain", and in the song foward it just sounds like strange tones, but backwards it says "how are you? I am fine. I hope you live to see the new Dawn"....
 
Chris Morris used to come up with some great backward messages in music on his 90s radio show. Helpfully, I can't remember any of them now.
 
Do I have to? I'd rather not listen to Evenesence.

Ha Ha Ha You'll have to forgive me, I have a certain weakness for vaguely alternative god-rock.

Backmasked but not desperately hidden, The Chameleon's The Fan and the Bellows has "Tomorrow remember yesterday" at the end of the last track on one side, and Wolfsheim's Sparrows and Nightingales has an obvious bit at the end too which sounds like "Eeeerif" but it's on CD so I can't just turn it backwards to find out what it's actually saying.
 
Well, if you play the Weird Al song Nature Trail to Hell backwords, it contains the hidden message "Satan eats Cheez Whiz".
 
Heh.

Playing Stairway To Heaven backward yields nothing about Satan.

In The Weird 100--Probably not the BEST book ever, but...Still informative, there's a website URL with links to quite a few backstrappings...And not all of them music. HOWEVER, a few of 'em are complete B.S.

The book's on my dresser--Which is in my room--Which is down the dark hallway--which is across from the bathroom with the eerie mirror--which shows the reflection of ANYTHING that walks past it. So. I'm not going to get it right now. Perhaps in the morning.

To get to the point, Stairway To Heaven says, in the final "And she found her stairway---" (or whatever), It says; backstrapped: "Play Backward, Hear Words Sung" quite clearly. You might have to slow it down a smidgeon, but it's there.
 
My mate's band tried to put a hidden backwards message in one of their songs saying 'Satan is lord' or something along those lines, but when it was played forwards it sounded like they were saying 'a moist sandwich' so they left it out in the end.

I've spent hours playing stuff backwards and you can make almost anything out of it.
 
Article Last Updated: 03/22/2005 11:21:07 PM

Backmasking: Old theory, new spin

'Backmasking,' the idea that recordings have hidden messages when played in reverse, gathers new momentum in the digital age

By Bob Mims
The Salt Lake Tribune

It is one of our most enduring conspiracy theories: Rock 'n' roll albums often contain intentionally reverse-recorded messages from the dark side.
Now nearly four decades old, the debate over so-called "backmasking" has been resurrected thanks to the advent of digital music and easy-to-use editing software. No more spinning that vinyl record backward on a turntable: Satan, apparently, has gone binary.
Enter "backmasking" into the Google search engine and nearly 9,000 sites pop up. One of them is "Stairway to Heaven: Backwards" (http://jeffmilner.com/backmasking.htm), a site established by Jeff Milner, a 25-year-old student, part-time lifeguard and bed salesman.
"As a kid, a cousin of mine told me he took his 'Stairway to Heaven' record and played it backwards hearing some kind of satanic message," Milner says. "I never had a chance to hear it myself. . . . Then when the technology came along to do it on the computer, I jumped at the chance."
He copied the song from the 1971 Led Zeppelin al- bum onto his hard drive, then used the Windows Sound Recorder application to reverse it. He found what sounded like lines about the devil. Well, sort of.
At first listen, the clip, among many on his site, does seem to have someone muttering about "my sweet Satan." Play it again, with the supposed reverse lyrics on-screen, and it seems a clearer, more complete ode to ol' Beelzebub.
"The response I received was amazing," says Milner, who nonetheless remains skeptical that the message is more than coincidental or a chance combination of backward syllables sounding like speech. "Within a month or so, my e-mail was being flooded."
In the little more than a year, Milner has logged nearly 2.5 million unique visitors just on the "Stairway to Heaven" clip.
There are other examples, but you will need to strain to make out "Paul is a dead man . . ." from a backward portion of "I'm So Tired" off the 1969 Beatles album, "Abbey Road." And while there might be a secretive "It's fun to smoke marijuana" in Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust," it takes a sensitive ear, indeed, to catch "I love Satan" secreted beneath the "Pokemon Rap."
Milner finds the backmasking phenomenon fascinating, but has concluded it's "nothing more than the power of suggestion."
Experts tend to agree. In their 1985 study, collegiate psychologists John Vokey and Don Read played Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" and the 23rd Psalm

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backwards; subjects typically did not hear hidden phrases until Vokey and Read suggested them.
"The short answer is that delivering subliminal messages via backward masking is totally and ridiculously impossible," says Mark D. Allen, a psychology professor at Brigham Young University.
"The brain just doesn't work that way," he notes.
Adds Don Sinex, a Utah State University colleague: "Speech played backwards is unintelligible, even in the absence of a competing sound. It's simply not plausible to think that backward speech could be understandable when embedded in music."
Well, unless the messages are intentionally dubbed in by musicians as either an artistic statement, or a gibe at particularly obsessive fans.
Pink Floyd's song "Empty Spaces," for example, hides a "gotcha" comment: "Congratulations! You have just discovered the secret message."
Music parodist Weird Al Yankovic hid "Satan eats Cheez Whiz" in his song, "Nature Trail to Hell." And even the Christian rock group Petra got into the act with its hit, "Judas Kiss," reverse-recording the message: "What are you looking for the devil for, when you ought to be looking for the Lord?"
Still, for a segment of conservative Christian America - even some Muslims - backmasking remains a spiritual threat.
On his Web site http://rossolson.org , Christian commentator Ross Olson allows that some bands - think Marilyn Manson, or Ozzy Osbourne in his early, crazy days - created intentionally dark imagery "as a publicity stunt, but many have gotten deeply into occult symbols . . .
"Their music appeals to youth and their beliefs and lifestyle are imitated," he warns.

Source
 
The Art of Backmasking

Got directed to this website the other day..

http://jeffmilner.com/backmasking.htm

Nice to see a website showing some examples.

However, while the Led Zeppelin one is pretty good (and probably the most famous backmasking example out there), I couldn't distinguish many of the other backwards messages (other than the intentional Pink Floyd one) until I'd actually read what the backwards lyrics were..

See what you think..
 
Some dubious ones in there, was the Eminem one intentional? I think thats the best.
 
Re: The Art of Backmasking

TonyLaMesmer said:
I couldn't distinguish many of the other backwards messages (other than the intentional Pink Floyd one) until I'd actually read what the backwards lyrics were..

That's kind of suggestive of something isn't it?

I recall seeing a documentary with footage of the infamous Judas Priest trial which suggested the same thing.

"I'm in a rut and i want out... "
 
Re: The Art of Backmasking

theyithian said:
I recall seeing a documentary with footage of the infamous Judas Priest trial which suggested the same thing.

The best bit of that Doc was the defense used the same techniques as the prosecution to discover the backmasking to refute the contention that the 'backmasked' lyric 'Kill yourself' was deliberate and found the crystal clear gem 'I eat peppermints'.

As Dennis Leary so memorably commented, "heavy metal fans listen to heavy metal and then kill themselves, what's the problem?" :p
 
Well the Edinburgh Fortean Society had a tlak on this in September of this year and it included Brittney Spears - from Hit Me Baby One More Time - "Sleep with me I'm not too young"
Stairway to Heaven with Satan's little toolshed
Yoko Ono saying "I shot John Lennon"
And some Chrsitain bands saying "go to church" , "respect your parents"
And the fact that if backmasking really worked bands would slip messages saying buy more records rather than kill yourself!
Gordon
 
if backmasking really did work then that would be the scenario. manufacturers would have leapt at the potential in sales and marketing ploys. what i don't understand however is how do people hear the messages if they are in reverse, conciously or subconciously? i think it's a load of tosh personally. !eca ma i ghuohtla :lol:
 
that should have read " sssyaah mmaah yaiih woaatthloaah"
 
won yllis gnieb tsuj er'uoy ,ti pots

This thread reminds me of a couple of records I've had for years, where tracks begin with what I'm sure is reverse speech. One is the single "Break Free" by Europe (yes I know, but I was very young) and the other is one of the tracks on the Aerosmith album "Permanent Vacation" (not sure of the name of the track, sorry).

I don't have the technology to play cassettes or vinyl backwards, but maybe someone out there with equally dodgy musical tastes owns one or both of the above, and can tell me what the messages are. If they're subliminal, it would be worrying to think that I might have been subconsiously under their influence for years. Mind you, I don't have long permed hair or incredibly tight leather trousers, so I suspect I'm OK!
 
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