On the Electric Light Orchestra's album Face the Music, there's a song called 'Fire on High', a segment of which, when played in reverse, says: 'The music is reversible, but time isn't, turn back, turn back, turn back'. In their album, Eldorado there are backward messages which say: 'Christ, you're the nasty one, you're infernal,' and 'He's there on the cross dead.' Queen's song, 'Another One Bites the Dust,' when played in reverse, continually says: 'It's fun to smoke marijuana.' In Jefferson Starship's 'Blows Against the Empire,' the song says: 'I've got a surprise for you, a child is coming, a child is coming. Everything's gonna get better, it's gonna be brighter.' When played in reverse, it continually says: 'Son of Satan.' On the live album of Black Oak Arkansas, called Raunch and Roll, during the song, 'The Day Electricity Came to Arkansas,' the lead singer, Jim Landy, utters something unintelligible, then laughs. When it is played backwards, he says: 'Satan, Satan, {Satan;} He is god, he is god, he is god.'
To be fair, I have to relate information to the contrary by critics of backward masking. In 1988, the state of Nevada tried to implicate the group Judas Priest in a case where a fan, James Vance, allegedly put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger, because the 'Stained Class' album contained a song which repeated a phrase, which, when played backward, said 'do it.' However, the defense pointed out that the same song, when played backwards, also contained other, much clearer messages, including, 'I asked for a peppermint, I asked her to get one.' In the opinion of the judge, in his statement to the court, when any segment of human speech is played backwards, it will inevitably contain sounds than can be interpreted as cohesive sentences, but
Jul 14 2002, 7:41 PM