such a throwback to even bother with 'deciphering' alleged back-masking lyrics. I think the mind seeks to create patterns out of the chaos of the universe, even when patterns don't exist.
WSJ.com - Behind the Music: Sleuths Seek Messages In Lyrical Backspin
When Jeff Milner installed software on his Web site that could play digital songs in reverse, he tested it with a snippet of Led Zeppelin's “Stairway to Heaven.” The song, heard normally, refers to “a bustle in your hedgerow.” Played backward, says Mr. Milner, the line sounds like: “Oh, here's to my sweet Satan.”Today, Mr. Milner's Web site plays parts of songs from the Eagles, John Lennon, Britney Spears, Eminem and others -- both normally and in reverse. Mr. Milner, a Canadian college student majoring in new media, offers interpretations of the reverse-plays. A line in Ms. Spears's “Baby One More Time,” played backward, becomes “Sleep with me, I'm not too young,” Mr. Milner claims. What sounds like mumbling in Pink Floyd's “Empty Spaces,” Mr. Milner says, becomes more intelligible in reverse: “Congratulations, you have just discovered the secret message.”
At least Milner doesn't believe in the 'evils of Rock and Roll'
Years ago someone told me that if you played Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven song backwards that you could make out “satanic messages”. It is not my opinion that Led Zeppelin and the other artists here were given some kind of evil power to make these backwards sounds have a satanic message. And, no, I did not create this to show the evils of Rock and Roll. Instead I made this flash piece for two reasons: 1. I was new to flash and wanted to be better at it and 2. The reverse files sound cool.
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from the WSJ again:
More conspiracy-minded practitioners believe that messages are deliberately placed in music. Some even contend that such messages are conveyed subliminally when the recordings are played normally....During the first round of secret-message hunting more than three decades ago, some parents, social psychologists and other critics worried a diabolical effort was under way to corrupt children. Some religious groups feared satanic messages had been inserted. Musical satirist Weird Al Yankovic seemed to toy with the critics in his song “Nature Trail to Hell” which includes a clearly audible backward message: “Satan eats Cheez Whiz.”The revival of message hunting has spawned new critics. Joseph Wasmond, president of the Knoxville, Tenn.-based Freedom in Christ Ministries, says he is concerned about secret messages because it has become so easy to share music files over the Internet. “There is the potential for manipulating people's behavior based on subliminal and subconscious music,” says Mr. Wasmond.
But James Walker, president of Watchman Fellowship, a Christian group that studies religious movements and subcultures, sees the hunt for messages as harmless. “You could take a Christian hymn, and if you played it backwards long enough at different speeds, you could make that hymn say anything you want to,” he says.
Tags: music, /Led_Zeppelin
