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Led Zeppelin backwards messages?

mactonite

Critical Thinker
mactonite
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Messages
432
I am new to JREF so please forgive me in advance. I am sure you are aware of the backwards messages in Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven. This is one of the things that boggles my mind to this day and I would like to hear some feedback regarding this. So, any thoughts?
 
mactonite said:
I am new to JREF so please forgive me in advance. I am sure you are aware of the backwards messages in Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven. This is one of the things that boggles my mind to this day and I would like to hear some feedback regarding this. So, any thoughts?
Click to expand...

It's a recording technique called Baskmasking. The Beatles' Revolver album might have been the first record ever to include lyrics and "secret" messages that were recorded using it.

The supposed Satanic messages included in Stairway to Heaven don't really exist. Nowadays, the easiest way to hear any backmasked recording is by listening to the digital version of the song itself. Download Audacity for free and try it. There's no backmasked recording in "Stairway to Heaven." It's really just another case of "Satanic" hysteria and lots of dumb people. It gave lots of Christian groups a reason to raise money to "fight" satan and his "evil" rock music at the time though. The only problem was, like most things when it comes to religion, none of it really existed. ;)
 
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mactonite said:
I am new to JREF so please forgive me in advance. I am sure you are aware of the backwards messages in Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven. This is one of the things that boggles my mind to this day and I would like to hear some feedback regarding this. So, any thoughts?
Click to expand...

It doesn't exist.

Here's one that does though:
 
Here is an example of backmasking from the band Mindless Self Indulgence



For clarity, this video reveals the hidden backmasked messages.

 
I never backmasked any of my songs! There is no Satanic message...except perhaps to go get me a nice cup of tea.
 
No Satanic messages on mine either. Just lots and lots of the evil messages about the Vanir. They were the "bad guy" god race who fought with ancient Norse gods like Thor.

I figure I can release my albums on the net or something, subliminally spread the evil messages to all who listen, and get away with it scott free. Who is going to suspect the Vanir afterall?
 
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Lyrics to Houses of the Holy:

Let me take you to the movies. Can I take you to the show
Let me be yours ever truly. Can I make your garden grow

From the houses of the holy, we can watch the white doves go
From the door comes Satan's daughter, and it only goes to show. You know.

There's an angel on my shoulder, In my hand a sword of gold
Let me wander in your garden. And the seeds of love I'll sow. You know.

So the world is spinning faster. Are you dizzy when you're stoned
Let the music be your master. Will you heed the master's call Oh... Satan and man.
Said there ain't no use in crying. Cause it will only, only drive you mad
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had? Oh-oh

So let me take you, take you to the movie. Can I take you, baby, to the show.
Why don't you let me be yours ever truly. Can I make your garden grow
You know.

More lyrics: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/l/led+zeppelin/#share

Highlighting mine. No backmasking needed.
​
 
This is true.

In Weird Al Yankovic's song "Nature Trail to Hell in Three-D", there's a long organ solo. At the end of it there's a chorus solo, then a violin solo. (It's an amazing song! Trust me!)

At the end of the song, there's a piece of backmasking.

The voice says "Satan eats Cheese-Whiz."

During the release of this album, my college friends and I went to a Weird Al Yankovic concert. We actually met one of the band members (along with Dr. Demento) after the show and we asked him about the backmasking. His reply was "Woah! Don't want to get in trouble.....with the Cheese-Whiz company. Those guys are tough."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7P64YKXzRI&feature=related
 
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jhunter1163 said:
Styx's "Mr. Roboto" has some too.
Click to expand...

For which Styx was condemned by the Calif. State Legislature.

I've never been able to hear the backward messages on "Mr. Roboto", but somehow I'm thinking they were more innocuous than satanic. It was Styx, after all.

'The devil had nothing to do with this next song..." Tommy Shaw
 
The presumption of those who were hysterical over such things is twofold:
1. That our minds were somehow capable of decoding such backwards-masked recordings (without actually playing the thing backwards)
2. That such messages would be capable of somehow influencing behavior.

Neither is true.
 
You know what's funny?

Through most of history, playing or saying something backwards was supposed to be basically the opposite or negation. Saying the Lord's Prayer backwards would for example make it an unholy invocation, and was supposedly what witches do at Satan's sabbath.

So including a backwards satanic message... you get the idea. If the fundies worrying about it had at least two braincells to rub together, they'd be more worried if anyone backmasked something like "be a nice kid and always go to church" ;)

Not that it would matter anyway, since the brain's language recognition is a highly predictive system. It's also trained on stuff it actually has to _do_. You have a lifetime of training at narrowing down what the next phoneme in existing words can be, but no training and (thus) no wiring to work from the last phoneme to the first.

Not to mention that a lot of phonemes really sound completely different backwards than forwards, so it would have to recognize in real time that that "sht" is a "ch" played backwards, before it can even start to do the task described in the previous paragraph. And again, unless you've grown up with playing music backwards, you're not trained to do that.
 
My favorite example of back-masking silliness is the word Czechoslovakia. With any computer, record yourself saying this and then reverse the recording. Simple to do with the Microsoft application "Sound Recorder" that has been included on every version of Windows since 3.1 (On a Mac, try Audacity, nice freeware sound editing suite).

You'll hear, clear as day, "I gobble swordfish"
 
Once I figured out how to reverse songs in Audacity I kept choosing random songs from my collection to see if any sounded good backwards. Most were just weird and choppy, as I would expect.
 
Thanks for all of the quick responses. I always thought the "he will give you 666" sounded a bit like "this will make you sick sick sick". Not to mention, I have heard various transcriptions of this particular track by different preachers. My pops goes to a local church in which the pastor is Joe Schimmel. Joe is the creator of "Rock and Roll Sorcerers of the New Age" video in which his major selling point is this Led Zeppelin song. He mentions that Robert Plant stated this song was written in 15 minutes and automatic writing was used. I am starting to think that his passion to this subject is more powerful than the actual evidence.
 
My all-time personal favorite experience of this kind of thing was when the wife of a Baptist ministry student told me in all earnestness that if you played Jimi Hendrix records backwards they told you to use drugs.
 
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