Backmasking

Backmasking (also incorrectly known as backward masking) is an audio technique in which sounds are recorded backwards onto a track that is meant to be played forwards. Backmasking is a deliberate process, whereas a backward message may be unintentional. Backmasking has been a source of much controversy, especially related to supposed subliminal messages in rock music.

Alleged backmasking

For a list of examples, see: List of backmasked 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" was supposedly "Paul is dead, man, miss him, miss him..." Likewise, the repeated words "Number nine, number nine, number nine..." in "Revolution 9" were supposedly "turn me on, dead man, turn me on, dead man..." backwards.

Probably the most well-known example of alleged backmasking is found in rock group Led Zeppelin's 1971 song "Stairway to Heaven." If a portion of the song is played backwards, then supposedly words beginning with "Here's to my sweet Satan" can be heard [1]. But Swan Song Records issued the statement: "Our turntables only play in one direction—forwards"[2]. And Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant denied the accusations in an interview [3]: "To me it's very sad, because 'Stairway To Heaven' was written with every best intention, and as far as reversing tapes and putting messages on the end, that's not my idea of making music."

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, The Eagles, Sweet, Black Oak Arkansas, Rush, J. Geils Band, The Beatles and Prince.

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.

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.

Deliberate backmasking

For a list of examples, see: List of backmasked messages

Many musicians have deliberately recorded backward messages into their songs. Their purposes include avoiding censorship, making artistic or social statements, and having fun at the expense of their critics. Some bands have, indeed, advocated Satanism or violence using backmasking. Unlike unintentional, alleged backward messages, which result from playing normal lyrics backward, deliberate backward messages are usually unintelligible noise when played forward.

Early backmasking

Backmasking was used by Frank Zappa in his earliest albums to avoid censorship. We're only in it for the Money (1968) contains the backmasked message "Take a look around before you say you don't care, shut your fucking mouth about the length of my hair, how would you survive, if you were alive, shitty little person" at the end of side A. This profanity laced verse of the song "Mother People" was not permitted by the record publisher, hence the need for backmasking.

Satanic and violent messages

Much of the controversy over backmasking is a result of Satanic messages in heavy metal music. The extent of the link between backwards messages and heavy metal is shown in Neal Stephenson's novel Zodiac, in which the protagonist, Sangamon Taylor, 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.

Slayer's 1985 album Hell Awaits is often cited as an example of hidden Satanic messages in music.^{[citation needed]} The album starts with a demonic-sounding voice that, when played backwards, urges "Join Us" over and over at increasing volumes. Another anti-Christian message was done by black metal band Darkthrone, whose Transilvanian Hunger album contains, when listened to backwards, "In the name of God, let the churches burn." The Christian Death song "Mysterium Iniquitatis" is sung almost entirely backwards, and when reversed, expresses atheistic beliefs. 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). Another controversial message can be found on the 1994 album Born Dead, by heavy metal band Body Count, which contains a backward message on the song "Killing Floor": "Body Count, motherfucker. Burn in hell!"

Violent and Satanic backwards messages have been done in languages other than English. 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 hellish heaven on earth. There's your meaning of life."). Another lesser-known example is in the Alan Parsons Project album The Turn of a Friendly Card: at the very end of the first track "May be a price to pay," a backward message is inserted, constructed by the words "something's been going on, there may be a price to pay" played in reverse. The message, in clear Spanish, is "Escucha, baby, al Demonio, es bien fácil" (Listen, baby, to the Demon, it's so easy).

Political and social statements

Backwards messages have also been used as statements. 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.

Many backwards messages are parodies, poking fun at the controversy (see Parody messages). 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.

Other artists have also poked fun at themselves or at critics using backmasking. On Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict, a track from the two part 1969 Pink Floyd album Ummagumma, someone says, "That was pretty avant-garde, wasn't it?" And 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."

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."

Artistic backmasking

Backmasking has also been used artistically. In the instrumental portions of "Starálfur," by Icelandic band Sigur Rós, similar sounds are hidden inside another. Heavy rock act KoЯn used backmasking in their interlude track "Am I Going Crazy" from their fourth album Issues. It is a short track, less than one minute in length, without any of the distorted guitars or heavy drumming typical of the band. When listened to backwards, the song sounds almost exactly the same as when listened to forwards, except 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. In Enigma's fourth album, The Screen Behind the Mirror, the song "Camera Obscura" contained sections of Andru Donalds' reversed vocals from "Modern Crusaders", an earlier track in the album. Towards the end of "Camera Obscura", a symmetric pattern emerges at the point of climax, as it reverses into the buildup of the climax, creating a chaotic atmosphere.

Radiohead created the song "Like Spinning Plates" from Amnesiac by playing the backing track from "I Will" backwards. Singer Thom Yorke then sung the lyrics, played them backwards and learned how to sing them backwards. He recorded them backwards and reversed them for the final take of the song. This technique was also used for the Man from another place character in the television drama Twin Peaks, and by Kate Bush in Watching You Without Me (1985) and Leave it Open (1982). Bush's use of this technique started a long discussion thread [4] about mysterious hidden messages in her lyrics.

In the early 1980s, bass player Bill Lanphier reversed a recording of the "Theme from New York, New York", which he and other musicians mimicked and recorded, and then reversed that backward recording to create a double-backward recording, in which the music is oriented correctly but which maintains the quality of a backward recording (mp3 file).

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