Backward message - Deliberate backmasking - Encyclopedia II

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.

Frank Zappa experimented with the unusual sounds of backmasking from his earliest albums, particularly "We're only in it for the Money" 1968, which has 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.

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

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.

It is considered by many that Slayer's 1985 album Hell Awaits is largely responsible for the idea of hidden satanic messages in music. The album starts with a demonic-sounding voice urging something that when played backwards is "Join Us" repeated over and over as it and increases in volume.

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.

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.

The irreverant rap/punk band Bloodhound Gang poked fun at the backmasking controversy in their song Lift Your Head Up High (and blow your brains out). At one point the lyrics contain the lines

followed by garbled speech. When played backwards, the speech says "devil child will wake up and eat chef boyardee beef-a-roni" in an intentionally deep, odd-sounding voice, similar to the way backwards speech normally sounds.

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."

In the video game Doom II, a garbled message played at the start of Map 30, "Icon of Sin", can be played backwards to hear "To win the game, you must kill me, John Romero." The player can then use the no-clip cheat to enter the brain of the Icon of Sin to see Romero's head impaled on a stake.

In the end credits of the Cartoon Network show The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy a voice can be heard speaking backwards at the end of the credits. Played backwards, the voice states "No, no, this is the END of the show. You're watching it backwards!"

In the HIM song, "Venus (In Our Blood)" off their 2005 Sire release Dark Light, at the beginning if you reverse it, it plays VERY creepy Jack-In-The-Box type music and there is a little girl that says "Where are we going, Daddy?".

The Icelandic band Sigur Rós has used backmasking in a somewhat different way. The instrumental portions of one of their songs, "Starálfur," sounds similar be hidden inside another.

Heavy rock act KoЯn 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.

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.)

In the song, "It's Alive" by Tech N9ne, he records rehearsed gibberish into the beginning of the second verse, which, when reversed, makes an actual rhyme. In fact, Tech N9ne has several songs where he runs the lyrics backwards. Sometimes (in the case of the song, "Freaky"), he runs it backwards to censor himself. The method he used in "It's Alive" has caught the attention of many an underground hip-hop artist, and his music serves as an inspirational challenge to a lot of rising stars.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Deliberate backmasking", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page