Backward message

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A backward message (also known as backmasking) is a supposed message hidden in an audio recording that is only fully apparent when played backwards.

Contents

Alleged backmasking

For a list of examples, see: List of backward messages#Alleged_messages

Backmasking first became famous with The Beatles. Just before the band's break-up in 1970, DJ Russell Gibb initiated the infamous "Paul Is Dead" urban legend (a rumor that Beatle Paul McCartney had died) by playing certain Beatles records backwards to reveal hidden messages. One album in particular, The Beatles (aka The White Album) was said to contain backwards messages. Intentional gibberish at the end of "I'm So Tired" supposedly is "Paul is dead, man, miss him, miss him..." Likewise, the repeated words "Number nine, number nine, number nine..." in "Revolution 9" are supposedly "turn me on, dead man, turn me on, dead man..." backwards.

British heavy metal band Judas Priest was sued over a 1985 suicide pact made by two Nevada schoolboys. One of the two boys survived, and the lawsuit by their families claimed that a 1978 Judas Priest album contained hidden messages. The words "Do it" were allegedly audible when the record was played backwards, and the letters S U I (supposedly for "suicide") are in the sleeve artwork. The case was dismissed after evidence was introduced that the boys had grown up in "violent and depressed" surroundings, and after the band demonstrated that other, nonsensical, backwards messages could be found if one exercised enough imagination. Judas Priest members also commented that if they wanted to insert subliminal commands in their music, killing their fans would be counterproductive, and they would prefer to insert the command "Buy more of our records."

Other artists accused of backmasking include AC/DC, Black Oak Arkansas, Styx,and Prince. Styx and Prince would later put deliberate backmasking in a couple of their songs to poke fun at the controversy.

Deliberate backmasking

For a list of examples, see: List of backward messages#Deliberate_messages

Several musicians have deliberately recorded backward messages into their songs, as a way of making an artistic statement, and also to have fun at the expense of their critics. Unlike unintentional, alleged backward messages, which result from playing normal lyrics backward, deliberate backward messages are usually unintelligible noise when played forward.

On Pink Floyd's rock epic The Wall there is an intentional backwards message halfway through the track "Empty Spaces":

"...congratulations. You've just discovered the secret message. Please send your answer to Old Pink, care of the funny farm, Chalfont"

which refers to former lead singer Syd Barrett, who suffered a breakdown years earlier. On Roger Waters' 1991 album Amused to Death, he deliberately recorded a backward message critical of film director Stanley Kubrick, who had refused to let Waters sample a breathing sound from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

A few Christian rock musicians in the 1980s included deliberate backmasking with a gospel message as a lighthearted way of poking fun at the concern over backmasking—concern which was often being promoted by the same fundamentalist evangelists who were also attacking Christian rock. The Christian rock group Petra in their song "Judas Kiss" included the message "What are you looking for the devil for, when you ought to be looking for the Lord?" Another Christian rock musician, Randy Stonehill, included the backward message "He shall reign forever" in his song "Rainbow." The Christian heavy metal band Stryken (not to be confused with Stryper) put a warning label on their album to warn listeners that the album contained numerous backward messages urging the listener to accept Jesus Christ as personal savior.

On the other side of the spectrum, on their 1994 album Born Dead, heavy metal band Body Count intentionally put in a backward message on the song "Killing Floor," which when played backwards says, "Body Count, motherfucker. Burn in hell!" Black metal band Darkthrone put a backward message at the end of the seventh track of their Transilvanian Hunger album, which said, "In the name of God, let the churches burn." The Cradle of Filth song "Dinner at Deviants Palace" consists almost entirely of ambient sounds and a reversed reading of the Lord's Prayer (being able to say the Lord's Prayer backwards was perceived in the middle ages as a sign of being a witch). The Finnish metal act Turmion Kätilöt, on their 2005 EP Niuva 20, inserted a deliberate backwards message about halfway through the second track, "Kirosana" ("Swear Word,") which, when played backwards, says, "Raiskatkaamme tämä helvetillinen maanpäällinen taivas. Siinä sinulle elämän tarkoitus" (roughly translating to "Let's rape this damned aboveground heaven. There is meaning of life for you.") This is one known example of backmasking in another language.

Parodies of backmasking

Image:Sox Satanic Subliminals.png
The manual for the popular sound program SoX pokes fun at subliminal messages.
For a list of examples, see: List of backward messages#Parody_messages

A famous, deliberately recorded backward message comes from the beginning of the Electric Light Orchestra song "Fire on High," where the mysterious deep mumbling reverses to "The music is reversible, but time is not...turn back! Turn back! Turn back!"—ostensibly a shot at the hysteria surrounding "reversed speech" at the time the album was released.

Two songs by "Weird Al" Yankovic employ deliberate backmasking; only one song of the two has a particular (albeit tongue-in-cheek) demonic reference. In "Nature Trail to Hell", from the 1984 album "Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D, Al declares that "Satan eats Cheez Whiz." Later, in "I Remember Larry" from the 1996 album Bad Hair Day, Al lightly chastises the listener, remarking, "Wow, you must have an awful lot of free time on your hands."

In Neal Stephenson's novel Zodiac, the protagonist, Sangoman Taylor, at one time comes home to find a series of death threats on his phone's answering machine; when he rewinds the machine's tape, his flatmate enters the room and asks when Taylor started listening to heavy metal music.

A Simpsons episode made use of backmasking. Bart Simpson and The Party Posse (a short-lived boy band) sang a song with the lyrics "Yvan Eht Nioj." Lisa subsequently figured out, once the townspeople were boarding navy buses that the term said Join the Navy.

In the man page of the popular SoX program, the description of the "reverse" option says "Included for finding satanic subliminals."

Backward music and lyrics as a form of art

The Icelandic band Sigur Rós has used backmasking in a somewhat different way. The instrumental portions of one of their songs, "Starálfur," sounds similar played forwards and backwards. Another song named "Intro," if played backwards, is identical to a song of the same disc named "Ágætis byrjun." Finally, the song "Ávalon," if played four times faster, sounds like an instrumental version of "Starálfur." While not strictly speaking a backward message, this reveals other ways in which a song can be hidden inside another.

Heavy rock act Korn used backmasking in their interlude track "Am I Going Crazy" from their fourth album "Issues." When listened to forwards it is a short track less than a minute in length without any of the distorted guitars or heavy drumming typical of the band. When listened to backwards the song sounds the same backwards as forwards. The song is recorded forwards in one track and backwards on the other, meaning the two are split between the left and right speakers. One final note is that the words "It's the same thing" become audible when the track is played in reverse.

The Stone Roses created the song "Don't Stop" from their self-titled debut-album by playing the demo of another song, "Waterfall", backwards, and then adding lyrics that they thought fit to the sound of the song.

Skepticism

It is worth noting that, given a randomly generated series of syllables spoken in a variety of accents, a two-syllable pair that can be liberally interpreted as "Satan" is very easy to generate. Therefore, any individual with a small amount of creative interpretation skills could play virtually any song with vocals backwards and uncover "Satanic messages". This fact has been exploited by defense attorneys in "backwards messaging" court cases, who often disprove allegations by "uncovering Satanic messages" in songs by Christian artists, most famously Amy Grant.

In many movies, the voice of a Satanic character is made by reversing and reducing the speed of any voice. Thus one might suppose that either this technique started from backward messages, or that a voice played in slow motion has a Satanic tone in American culture.

Vokey and Read study

In 1985, university psychologists John R. Vokey and J. Don Read conducted a study using Psalm 23 from the Bible, Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust," and various other sound passages made up for the experiment. Of the 300 people tested, less than 10% claimed they could hear any messages. When a particular phrase was cited beforehand and the subjects prompted to listen for it, 90% were able to hear it, even when the phrase was not intentionally recorded. Vokey and Read concluded that if backmasking did indeed exist, it was ineffective. Their volunteers had trouble even noticing the backmasked phrase when the tape was played forward, were unable to judge the type of message (whether it was Christian, Satanic, or commercial) it contained, and were not led to behave in any certain way as a result of being "exposed" to the backmasked phrase. Due to this research, Vokey and Read were later called upon as expert witnesses in the above-mentioned trial involving the band Judas Priest.

See also

External links

fr:Message à l'envers

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