The Book of the Bizarre: Freaky Facts and Strange Stories (47 page)

Backmasking, an audio technique in which sounds are recorded backwards onto a track that is meant to be played forwards, is a deliberate process. Backward messaging is similar, but it may be unintentional. Backmasking has been a source of much controversy, especially related to the supposed subliminal messages it may provide. Many musicians have been reported to use backmasking in their records, and several of them have quite possibly
intentionally
included secret messages in their music when played backwards. You be the judge.

LED ZEPPELIN, “STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN”

Original lyrics: “If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now. It's just a spring clean for the May queen. Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there's still time to change the road you're on.”

Played backwards: “Oh, here's to my sweet Satan. The one whose little path would make me sad, whose power is Satan. He'll give those with him 666, there was a little tool shed where he made us suffer, sad Satan.”

THE BEATLES, “I'M SO TIRED”

Original lyrics: While played forward, there is a segment that may sound like indistinguishable gibberish.

Played backwards: The same segment is quite alarming when played backwards. What comes out rather clearly is, “Paul is a dead man. Miss him, miss him, miss him.”

SATAN LOVES HEAVY METAL

Satanic messages are alleged to be found throughout heavy-metal music. Slayer's 1985 album
Hell Awaits
is a prominent example of hidden satanic messages in music. The album starts with a demonic-sounding voice that, when played backwards, urges listeners to “join us” over and over at increasing volumes.

The Cradle of Filth song “Dinner at Deviants Palace” consists almost entirely of ambient sounds and a reversed reading of the Lord's Prayer. (In the Middle Ages, being able to say the Lord's Prayer backwards was thought to be a sign that someone was a witch.)

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. Played forward, the English words are, “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).

THE INTERNATIONAL
STRANGE MUSIC FESTIVAL

In Olive Hill, Kentucky, the International Strange Music Festival was founded to honor people who make music from nonmusical items. Performers have included a Japanese trio playing “My Old Kentucky Home” on a table (upside down, strung like a cello), a teapot (a wind instrument), and assorted pots and pans (bongo drums). Other sets of performers were a fifteen-piece orchestra of automobile horns, a seven-foot slide whistle requiring three people to operate it, and a “graduated clanger”—a system of ever-smaller fire-alarm bells, played like a xylophone.

Four men dressed like Elvis jumped out of a plane to promote a Boston nightclub in 1996. Three of them lived, but one unlucky Elvis died when he caught a gust of wind and was blown out to sea.

TRULY ODD