Backward masking

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(Real backward "masking")
(Real backward "masking")
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On the triple-disc<ref>On vinyl, it sprawled over three twelve inch records.  It's a two-disc set on the CD release.  Or, for today's generation, it's 36 mp3s.</ref> set ''Sandinista!'', by the Clash, the master backing track of "Something About England" is also used for "Mensforth Hill" - but played backwards.
 
On the triple-disc<ref>On vinyl, it sprawled over three twelve inch records.  It's a two-disc set on the CD release.  Or, for today's generation, it's 36 mp3s.</ref> set ''Sandinista!'', by the Clash, the master backing track of "Something About England" is also used for "Mensforth Hill" - but played backwards.
  
The Electric Light Orchestra, Styx, and the Canadian band Klaatu reacted to the backward masking scare in a [[snark]]y way by putting dozens of deliberate backward messages in their music, often garbled pseudo-religious sentence fragments. The B-52s included a backwards "watch out, you might ruin your needle" in one song, and the aforementioned Bloodrock put a backwards "anyone who is stupid enough to play this record backwards deserves what he is about to hear".  The [[Christian Rock]] band Petra even pulled a funny on their own evangelical audience with "what are you looking for the devil for when you oughta be looking for the lord?"
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The Electric Light Orchestra, Styx, and the Canadian band Klaatu reacted to the backward masking scare in a [[snark]]y way by putting dozens of deliberate backward messages in their music, often garbled pseudo-religious sentence fragments. (ELO did an entire album called ''Secret Messages''.) The B-52s included a backwards "watch out, you might ruin your needle" in one song, and the aforementioned Bloodrock put a backwards "anyone who is stupid enough to play this record backwards deserves what he is about to hear".  The [[Christian Rock]] band Petra even pulled a funny on their own evangelical audience with "what are you looking for the devil for when you oughta be looking for the lord?"
  
 
Prince put a deliberate Christian message backwards in "Darling Nikki", the controversial song about [[masturbation]] which set off the [[censorship]] campaign in the late 1980s that led to "[[Parents Music Resource Center|Parental Advisory]]" labelling of music: "Hello, how are you? I'm fine, because I know that the Lord is coming soon."
 
Prince put a deliberate Christian message backwards in "Darling Nikki", the controversial song about [[masturbation]] which set off the [[censorship]] campaign in the late 1980s that led to "[[Parents Music Resource Center|Parental Advisory]]" labelling of music: "Hello, how are you? I'm fine, because I know that the Lord is coming soon."

Revision as of 11:18, 14 June 2010

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Warning: Extreme Wingnuttery
This topic may or may not be bullshit, and is either nonsensical or idiotic.
May damage the mind and lead to drinking of the Kool-Aid.
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For those living in an alternate reality, Conservapedia has an "article" about Backward masking

Backward masking was a scare promoted by a number of Christian evangelists, most notably Jacob Aranza during the early 1980s. Allegedly, several rock songs had messages that could be heard if the record was played backwards, glorifying Satan, drug abuse, or the occult. It was part of the Satanic Panic.

The backward masking scare alleged that a large number of songs contained backwards messages, and that most of them promoted Devil-worship. These songs did not, in fact, contain any deliberately placed backward vocals at all. When played backward the result was gibberish that could be interpreted as a backward message by somebody letting their imagination run away with them. Among the songs alleged to contain such messages:

  • "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin. Allegedly contained long passages of Satanic stream of consciousness drivel if played backwards along the lines of "happy is the man who makes me sad whose power is Satan"
  • "A Child Is Coming" by Paul Kantner and Jefferson Starship. Allegedly, "Son of Satan" repeated over and over when played backwards.
  • "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen. Allegedly, "Start to smoke marijuana" (or "It's fun to smoke marijuana") when played backwards. Worse, rumors suggest a celebration of mass murder when played forward.
  • "Eldorado" by Electric Light Orchestra. Allegedly, "He is the nasty one, Christ, you're infernal, It is said we're dead men, Everyone who has the mark will live" when played backwards.
  • "Snowblind" by Styx. Allegedly, "Satan move through our voices" when played backwards.
  • "When Electricity Came To Arkansas" by Black Oak Arkansas. Allegedly, "Satan Satan Satan, He is God, He is God, He is God" when played backwards.
  •  !natas liah

William Poundstone's 1983 book Big Secrets investigated these and many other alleged backward messages and found them nothing but unintentional gibberish. [1]

Backward masking even got a day in court when the band Judas Priest was sued in 1990 over their 1978 song "Better By You, Better Than Me". The song allegedly contained a subliminally recorded "do it!" The lawsuit alleged that the subliminal message in the song led two Nevada teens to enter into a suicide pact. The court dismissed the lawsuit. Interestingly, the song is actually a cover, and the original was by a band named 'Spooky Tooth'.

So many Black Oak Arkansas songs were accused of having Satanic backward messages that the scare is probably responsible for most of the post-"Jim Dandy" album sales of that obscure one hit wonder.

Contents

Real backward "masking"

Even though much of the panic was over non-existent or unintentional maskings, there have been real instances of artists deliberately placing backward vocals and sounds in their recordings. Early examples include the Beatles, Frank Zappa, and the band Bloodrock, who placed such a message in "Gotta Find A Way" on their 1969 debut album. These messages were either humorous or done for artistic effect, and not "Satanic" in nature at all. The Beatles, for example, recorded several songs with various tracks, including vocals, running backwards. They tend not to contain Satanic lyrics, however. Usually they are repeats of things already sung forwards.

On the triple-disc[1] set Sandinista!, by the Clash, the master backing track of "Something About England" is also used for "Mensforth Hill" - but played backwards.

The Electric Light Orchestra, Styx, and the Canadian band Klaatu reacted to the backward masking scare in a snarky way by putting dozens of deliberate backward messages in their music, often garbled pseudo-religious sentence fragments. (ELO did an entire album called Secret Messages.) The B-52s included a backwards "watch out, you might ruin your needle" in one song, and the aforementioned Bloodrock put a backwards "anyone who is stupid enough to play this record backwards deserves what he is about to hear". The Christian Rock band Petra even pulled a funny on their own evangelical audience with "what are you looking for the devil for when you oughta be looking for the lord?"

Prince put a deliberate Christian message backwards in "Darling Nikki", the controversial song about masturbation which set off the censorship campaign in the late 1980s that led to "Parental Advisory" labelling of music: "Hello, how are you? I'm fine, because I know that the Lord is coming soon."

Released in 1966, the 45rpm record for "Yellow Balloon" by the band of the same name has the forwards version on side 1, and the same song played backwards in its entirety (called "Noollab Wolley") on side 2.

Pink Floyd included the message "Congratulations, you have just discovered the secret message. Please send your answer to Old Pink, care of the funny farm, Chalfont" at the start of "Empty Spaces" on their classic album "The Wall". [2]

"Weird Al" Yankovic has included backmasked segments at least thrice:

  • "Nature Trail to Hell" includes the words "Satan eats Cheez Whiz".
  • "I Remember Larry" includes the words "Wow, you must have an awful lot of free time on your hands."
  • The six-second 'song' "Bite Me", a hidden track on the Off The Deep End album, is a reversed sample from another song.

On the other hand, however, punk band Choking Victim (now known as Leftover Crack) placed a backward mask on their song "Hate Yer State" where vocalist Stza Sturge intentionally promoted, amongst other things, Satan worship and suicide.[3]

Some radio stations will reverse swears in order to allow songs to be played on air without having to constantly edit the songs "live" (aka cut the sound channel on the board for the swear) during safe harbor hours (6 am - 10 pm local time). The Beastie Boys did this on their 1983 "Cookypuss" with uncensored, and censored radio versions, the latter reversing all the nasty language.

Forward masking

In the Cheap Trick song How Are You? from the album Heaven Tonight, after a lyric that says roughly "What you said, I know you're lying", there is a speeded-up bit of vocal tracking that, when slowed down, is revealed to be a recital of the "Lord's Prayer". Pretty damning, no excuses there.

At the end of the Beatles song Strawberry Fields Forever there is a slowed down sample of John Lennon allegedly saying, forward, "I buried Paul," but he's really just saying "cranberry sauce".

See also

Footnotes

  1. On vinyl, it sprawled over three twelve inch records. It's a two-disc set on the CD release. Or, for today's generation, it's 36 mp3s.
  2. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiveqbMsHwQ Empty Spaces forwards and backwards
  3. http://www.seanbluestone.com/20-backmasked-songs-a-few-others
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