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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb. In today's vault episode for you,

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Speaker 1: because it is Saturday, we have a classic episode. This

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Speaker 1: is Play the Record Backwards Part one. It originally published

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Speaker 1: eleven nine, twenty twenty two. This is one that I

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Speaker 1: did with the former producer Seth Nicholas Johnson back during

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Speaker 1: Joe's parental leave. So I hope you enjoy part one

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Speaker 1: of this series.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I'm Seth Nicholas Johnson.

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Speaker 1: Seth is of course the producer of Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: Your Mind, but he also co hosts the music podcast

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Speaker 1: Rusty Needles Record Club. Today's episode is going to be

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Speaker 1: something of a crossover episode because we're going to be

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Speaker 1: talking about Stuff to Blow your Mind type stuff, but

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Speaker 1: this one is going to veer directly into vinyl record

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Speaker 1: territory for I think a large a large portion of

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Speaker 1: the episode, and especially when you get into that area,

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Speaker 1: I'm really going to have to defer to you, Seth,

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Speaker 1: being the master of records that you are, and with

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Speaker 1: myself being someone who was told from an early age

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Speaker 1: not to touch records, yes, and being an obedient child,

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Speaker 1: I obeyed everyone on that and I have virtually not

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Speaker 1: touched any vinyl my entire life, because that's what grown

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Speaker 1: ups are supposed to do.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's not actually a bad rule to make

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Speaker 3: for children, because you know, they are very delicate. And

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Speaker 3: not only do I manufacture vinyl on my own, which

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Speaker 3: has taught me a lot about it, but also I

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Speaker 3: run a record label, so I've had it pressed at

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Speaker 3: vinyl factories, and I'm a big vinyl collector on my own,

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Speaker 3: and even me very familiar with what you should and

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Speaker 3: shouldn't touch. Basically, only touch the rim and the label,

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Speaker 3: never touch the grooves. Even I just because I'm a

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Speaker 3: human being, I'll be clumsy and drop something and it'll

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Speaker 3: like scratch against an edge and like, well that's ruined forever,

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Speaker 3: you know, So I can't imagine in trusting that to

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Speaker 3: a child. You know, That's why children's records are always

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Speaker 3: just scratched into oblivion. So so you know, I understand,

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Speaker 3: and I also understand why even adults have are hesitance

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Speaker 3: to jump into that world.

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Speaker 1: But I also see the attraction of it. Obviously. I

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Speaker 1: mean on Weird House Cinema episodes are always pointing out

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Speaker 1: which movies score has been re released in some sort

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Speaker 1: of strange, ultra rare vinyl release, and it's often beautiful

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Speaker 1: just from a packaging standpoint, but also when you get

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Speaker 1: down to the details of the record pressing, like, I

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Speaker 1: see the appeal of it. So it's not for lack

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Speaker 1: of occasionally thinking, hey I could, I could start getting

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Speaker 1: into vinyl. But yeah, just from an early age, I

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Speaker 1: was told shouldn't touch that, and I agree.

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Speaker 3: I mean, it's wonderful for forcing yourself to be actually

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Speaker 3: involved in what you're consuming musically, that's my favorite part

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Speaker 3: about vinyl. Sure, the sound quality is better, there's no

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Speaker 3: getting around that. It is better. But in addition to that,

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Speaker 3: I love that I need to put the record on

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Speaker 3: the little turntable, I need to turn on my stereo,

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Speaker 3: got to put the needle in the groove, I need

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Speaker 3: to wait fifteen to thirty minutes, flip it over, put

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Speaker 3: it back on the other side. You know, like I

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Speaker 3: have an active interest in what I'm listening to, and

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Speaker 3: therefore it makes me appreciate it more. It's just like

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Speaker 3: eating sunflower seeds. You know, cracking open the shells is

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Speaker 3: half the fun.

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Speaker 1: You know. Okay, so you get that Tack Kyle experience

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Speaker 1: with it.

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Speaker 3: It's not just a passive series of zeros and ones

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Speaker 3: being pre chosen by an algorithm. I chose this record,

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Speaker 3: I'm putting it on. I'm making these noises happen in

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Speaker 3: my own small contribution way.

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Speaker 1: So in this episode, we're going to be talking in

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Speaker 1: general about things hidden in music. You might think of

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Speaker 1: them as easter eggs or any other number of terms.

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Speaker 1: You might use hidden messages if you'd rather. And we'll

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Speaker 1: also be talking about accusations and panics associated with some

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Speaker 1: of these techniques, the psychology involved, and specific examples from

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Speaker 1: music history.

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Speaker 3: And as we explain these various record based techniques, I

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Speaker 3: will give some real world examples of them that you

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Speaker 3: can find in your local record store and that hey,

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Speaker 3: I think you should listen to, because I think every

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Speaker 3: example I give is something that I'm like, Yes, I

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Speaker 3: recommend this, go check it out.

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Speaker 1: Excellent. Yeah, And some of these examples are going to

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Speaker 1: come up are things that were mentioned in papers I'll

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Speaker 1: be citing, but they're obviously ones In many cases you

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Speaker 1: were very familiar with and you can perhaps give a

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Speaker 1: little more background on right. All right, So the first

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Speaker 1: stop is going to take us back before musical recording

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Speaker 1: was possible, or at least to a time when the

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Speaker 1: main way to record music was at least via media

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Speaker 1: was to put it on paper, was to write down

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Speaker 1: the music, and even then a certain amount of musical

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Speaker 1: encoding is possible. So we have to be reminded that

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Speaker 1: music is information. So it shouldn't come as a surprise

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Speaker 1: that hidden information can be present in music in ways

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Speaker 1: that pre date analog or digital media. Not getting into

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Speaker 1: what's possible with language itself, because obviously, you know any

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Speaker 1: given song's lyrics in any given language, there's going to

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Speaker 1: be enough complexity there that you can hide things that

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Speaker 1: you can sort of get across points Subliminally. You can

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Speaker 1: use metaphors. I mean, all the weapons of language are

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Speaker 1: at your disposal if you at all know how to

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Speaker 1: use them when you're crafting lyrics. But beyond that, we

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Speaker 1: can certainly look at examples of musical cryptograms, because basically

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Speaker 1: musical symbols and musical notes can and have been used

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Speaker 1: in substitution ciphers. And we've talked about substitution ciphers on

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Speaker 1: pasted up of stuff to blow your mind. When musical

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Speaker 1: theorists in the West began to assign letter names to notes,

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Speaker 1: steering I believe the ninth century CE, it also became

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Speaker 1: possible to turn things around. Though it wasn't until I

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Speaker 1: believe the Romantic period and beyond that that this was

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Speaker 1: really explored. So you might be wondering, well, okay, what

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Speaker 1: are you talking about here with the obviously we have notes,

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Speaker 1: we have an play, an a play, A B natural,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. And this is where we see a great

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Speaker 1: example of this, and this is one that I mentioned

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Speaker 1: a number of you're familiar with. The famed Baroque composer

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Speaker 1: Johann Sebastian Bach, who lived sixteen eighty five through seventeen fifty,

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Speaker 1: would employ what we call the Bach motif. So that's

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Speaker 1: a B flat an A A C and then a

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Speaker 1: B natural. Now you might say, well, well that's a

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Speaker 1: B A C B that's meaningless. Well, in German, a

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Speaker 1: B flat is B and a B natural is H,

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Speaker 1: thus spelling out Bach.

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Speaker 3: Clever.

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Speaker 1: Maybe maybe once you've it's been explained, maybe a little

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Speaker 1: too obvious, but but yeah, there it's an example where

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Speaker 1: he decided to using the system in place to label

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Speaker 1: these different sounds, to then turn it around and write

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Speaker 1: his no own name in the music itself. And there

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Speaker 1: are numerous other examples of this from other composers.

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Speaker 3: You know, I've actually looked this up before because it

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Speaker 3: is it's a fun idea to communicate with the sounds

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Speaker 3: of notes. In fact, I remember there was a gosh

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Speaker 3: I believe it was a scene in the Paul Thomas

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Speaker 3: Anderson film Magnolia where they're on like a game show

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Speaker 3: and these are like what these are things you'll bring

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Speaker 3: to a picnic and they'll just play notes and they'll

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Speaker 3: like spell out the words, so like egg, I'll bring

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Speaker 3: an egg, that kind of thing, you know, like it's

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Speaker 3: it's something you can do and it's fun, it's puzzley,

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Speaker 3: it's it's good times. So I've looked this up in

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Speaker 3: the past. There are approximately, especially if you include the

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Speaker 3: h as a part of it, around two hundred words

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Speaker 3: that you can spell using just musical notes. You know,

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Speaker 3: things like cabbage head. You know, like these things, these

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Speaker 3: things are possible, they're a part of that language. So

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Speaker 3: I think it would be difficult, but I bet you

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Speaker 3: could form a message you could form sentences and you know,

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Speaker 3: we'll talk more about more examples right now.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, because you're essentially talking about music

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Speaker 1: obsessed individuals, total music nerds in different ages, just eventually

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Speaker 1: getting in there and just experimenting with what they could do,

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Speaker 1: be it something that was about creating new sound, elevating

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Speaker 1: the art, etc. Or just having a laugh, and that's

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Speaker 1: those two ideas seem to run throughout the history of

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Speaker 1: this kind of hidden messages in music activity. There are

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Speaker 1: also older examples of musical cryptograms, including the work of

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Speaker 1: Renaissance musician Jocquin de Prez lived fourteen fifty five through

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Speaker 1: fifteen twenty one. He was a French Flemish composer and

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Speaker 1: he composed a particular work, this is Missa Hercules du Ferrari.

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Speaker 1: It was for the Duke of Ferrara, and the music

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Speaker 1: is derived from the musical letters in the Duke's name,

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Speaker 1: a musical cryptogram that was later known as the Soghetto cavato.

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Speaker 1: Another example, American occultist Paul Foster Case would create a

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Speaker 1: cryptogram in the twentieth century that made use of esoteric

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Speaker 1: symbols and concepts and if I understand what I was

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Speaker 1: reading on it correctly. It used occult symbols Hebrew and

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Speaker 1: Latin to translate a word into notes, though the usage

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Speaker 1: here would be more ceremonial than anything. But one of

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Speaker 1: several examples will be touching on that either is within

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Speaker 1: the realm of the occult or we'll touch on examples

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Speaker 1: later that are more in the area of sort of

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Speaker 1: like foe occultism or accusations of occultism, etc.

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Speaker 3: So those are all excellent examples, but let's give our

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Speaker 3: audience one more that's a bit more modern something. Then

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Speaker 3: they can go find a record of right now, the

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Speaker 3: nineteen seventy seven album Let There Be Rock by ACDC.

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Speaker 3: They close with a song called a Whole Lot of

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Speaker 3: Rosie where the primary guitar riff goes aca daca or akkadaka,

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Speaker 3: which is acdc's nickname in their home country of Australia.

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Speaker 1: Ah, that's impressive. I had no idea about that, huh,

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Speaker 1: so John Sebastian Bach. Also, the members of ACDC all

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Speaker 1: all the same brain when it comes to coding the

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Speaker 1: songs here.

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Speaker 3: Yes, shoulder to shoulder.

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Speaker 1: So there are just a few brief examples to demonstrate

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Speaker 1: what is It was possible even before analog and digital

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Speaker 1: media becomes involved in the scenario. But at this point

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Speaker 1: let's move on to some more analog examples. So the

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Speaker 1: first thing we're going to look at with actual recorded

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Speaker 1: audio is something that I'm sure many, if not most,

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Speaker 1: of you are familiar with at this point, either by

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Speaker 1: virtue of various panics over popular music, especially satanic panic,

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Speaker 1: and its reverberations through media from everything from horror movies

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Speaker 1: to supernatural television shows and so forth. But also it

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Speaker 1: impacts actual record an actual recording practice, an actual production practice,

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Speaker 1: a technique known as back masking.

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Speaker 3: So before we.

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Speaker 1: Get into any actual examples of back masking or allegations

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Speaker 1: of back masking, and this is where it gets, it

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Speaker 1: gets very weird because it seems like on the surface

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Speaker 1: you would think, well, either you're doing it or you're

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Speaker 1: not doing it, and if you're doing it, truly it's provable.

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Speaker 1: But it gets a little more ambiguous than that. So

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Speaker 1: in simple terms, this is reversing audio, especially recordings of

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Speaker 1: human speech, playing it backwards in a recording. In many cases,

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Speaker 1: you know you know it when you hear it. Basic

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Speaker 1: backward speech, which is also sometimes utilized in media for

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Speaker 1: like alien words or arcane spells and so forth. A

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Speaker 1: lot of times it's used for creepy effects. And I

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Speaker 1: think we all we you know it when you hear it.

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Speaker 1: You can hear this this sound effect, and it's it's

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Speaker 1: people speaking backwards. That's what it is.

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Speaker 3: It's almost unfortunate that we're all so familiar with it

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Speaker 3: at this point, because back in the old days, before

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Speaker 3: you know, before we all walked around with computers in

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Speaker 3: our pockets and we all have the ability to record

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Speaker 3: ourselves whenever we wanted, it must have truly sounded foreign.

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Speaker 3: You know. It's here audio played backwards, and it's been like, wow,

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Speaker 3: what is that. I've never heard any creature make that

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Speaker 3: noise before. And now when we hear it, we just go, oh,

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Speaker 3: that's that's reversed audio. We know what it sounds like,

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Speaker 3: you know, we know, we know the hallmarks of it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And I guess with with actual reversed audio, they're

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Speaker 1: like one of two things happens. It just sounds weird

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Speaker 1: and cool and sounds like dark magic and so forth.

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Speaker 1: And I think that's especially nowadays, that's how most of

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Speaker 1: us hear it. But also the brain can't help but

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Speaker 1: lean into it and sometimes try and hear things in it,

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Speaker 1: and that gets into a whole other area. Now, the

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Speaker 1: other side of the equation we mentioned allegations of back masking,

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Speaker 1: erroneous back masking, arguments that especially dangerous seeming rock bands

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Speaker 1: of previous decades, the idea that they were actually back

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Speaker 1: masking in a way so that what sounds like just

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Speaker 1: normal lyrics can be reversed and have a totally different meaning,

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Speaker 1: usually one that is satanic.

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Speaker 3: Or sometimes not. There's a great episode of The Simpsons

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Speaker 3: where a joke is made that Paul McCartney snuck in

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Speaker 3: a recipe for lentil soup into Maybe I'm Amazed. We

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Speaker 3: have to play it backwards to hear it. And here's

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Speaker 3: actually the really fun part. Over the closing credits of

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Speaker 3: that episode of The Simpsons, they do play maybe I'm amazed.

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Speaker 3: This is actually a famous episode. This is the one

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Speaker 3: where Least becomes a vegetarian.

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Speaker 1: This episode, that's a great episode.

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Speaker 3: Yes, and so in that episode they do play maybe

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Speaker 3: I'm Amazed over the closing credits. And if you actually

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Speaker 3: record the closing credits audio and reverse it, they really

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Speaker 3: did insert a recipe for lentil soup into that song.

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Speaker 3: It's wonderful.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I had no idea the real song only in

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Speaker 3: the Simpsons episode Wow.

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Speaker 1: So it shouldn't surprise anyone that this practice goes back

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Speaker 1: pretty much as long as we've had the ability to

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Speaker 1: record in playback speech. In fact, I was reading, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's a book titled Language, Myths, Mysteries and Magic from

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Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, and there's an article in there I'm backmasking

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Speaker 1: by Karen stoles Now, and the author points out that

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Speaker 1: this actually goes all the way back to Thomas Edison

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Speaker 1: around eighteen seventy seven, as the noted American inventor and

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Speaker 1: businessman would experiment with playing music backwards. I think, notably

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Speaker 1: a whistled version of Yankee Doodle Dandy, and this would

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Speaker 1: have been used via tinfoil phonograph recordings. He observed that

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Speaker 1: music quote is still melodious in many cases, and some

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Speaker 1: of the strains are sweet and novel, but all together

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Speaker 1: different from the song reproduced in the right way. And

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Speaker 1: I think this is a realization that certainly someone like

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Speaker 1: Thomas Edison was in a position to acknowledge and admire

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Speaker 1: back then. And then there's kind of been a wave

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Speaker 1: of it throughout audio history and certainly nowadays. I'd never

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Speaker 1: really looked at this before, but if you go on

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Speaker 1: like YouTube, you'll find so many examples of people taking

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Speaker 1: music and reversing like whole albums, just to play it

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Speaker 1: backwards and see what happens. Sometimes they have a specific

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Speaker 1: thing they're going for, maybe they're after something in the lyrics,

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Speaker 1: or it's one of the cases that we'll be touching

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Speaker 1: on later on in this episode. But other times, especially

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Speaker 1: with I saw the number of ambient albums, people just

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Speaker 1: want to experience the album. I love both both the

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Speaker 1: forwards and backwards.

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Speaker 3: I've got another little recommendation to throw in here. Okay,

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Speaker 3: So there is a wonderful musician and his name his

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Speaker 3: real name is Dave Portner, but he goes by av Tair.

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Speaker 3: Av Tair is most famously from the band Animal Collective,

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Speaker 3: but he has a wonderful solo career as well. There

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Speaker 3: was a time when he was married to one of

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Speaker 3: the members of the band Moom and her name was

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Speaker 3: Krea Brecken. Okay, so they released while they were married

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Speaker 3: a collaborative album together called Pull Hair Rabbi All right, now,

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Speaker 3: when this album first leaked back in the days when

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Speaker 3: like leaking was a big issue. Folks would listen to

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Speaker 3: it and they were like, oh, this is a bad leak.

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Speaker 3: It sounds like the entire album is played backwards. Someone

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Speaker 3: let me know when you get a real version of

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Speaker 3: the leak. Well, av Tair himself came onto these boards

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Speaker 3: and was like, no, no, that's the real version. When

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Speaker 3: he and his wife had finished recording their album, they decided,

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Speaker 3: you know, the entire album sounds better if you play

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Speaker 3: it backwards. So what became a pretty straightforward folk album

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Speaker 3: became a pretty foreign sounding backwards album and it's wonderful.

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Speaker 3: It's called pull Hair Rubbi. I highly recommend it, and

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Speaker 3: it sounds almost instrumental. It sounds very foreign, and it

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Speaker 3: sounds very strange because once they did reverse it initially

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Speaker 3: and they decided, yes, this whole album just will be

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Speaker 3: backwards versions of every single song, then they did start

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Speaker 3: leaning into that. They made special decisions that really highlighted

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Speaker 3: those choices, and it worked out really well. Genuinely, it's

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Speaker 3: a wonderful album. I think people should.

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Speaker 1: Listen to it on a very I guess, kind of

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Speaker 1: simple level. It reminds me a lot of what's going

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Speaker 1: on with AI and creativity nowadays, be it with text

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Speaker 1: or visuals, where you have a level of human creativity

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Speaker 1: that's going into the machine, it's getting spat out in

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Speaker 1: some form, and then there's going to be a certain

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Speaker 1: amount of tweaking, either after tweaking to the resulting material

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Speaker 1: or then going back and seeing, Okay, now I see

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Speaker 1: what the technology does to what I started with. What

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Speaker 1: can I do to optimally change the results and make

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Speaker 1: it even more in line with what I'm trying to create.

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Speaker 3: I think this has been something that's an element of

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Speaker 3: creativity the people have used forever, which is just taking

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Speaker 3: some of the decisions out of the hands of the

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Speaker 3: creator to help influence something else, whether it be like

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Speaker 3: those you know, those like cut up practices where you're

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Speaker 3: trying to write lyrics, so you write little words, put

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Speaker 3: them in a hat and pull them out one by one,

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Speaker 3: or you know those famous Brian Eno cards where there's

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Speaker 3: like difference like prompts written on each card that you

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Speaker 3: pull out, and that's supposed to help you with your

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Speaker 3: production process. Like you know, there's lots of examples of this,

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Speaker 3: and yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. I think

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Speaker 3: AI and intentional reversing just takes a few of those

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Speaker 3: decisions out of the hands of the artist.

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Speaker 1: Now stalls Now also shares another example from Edison. Edison

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Speaker 1: and his colleagues were apparently also fond of making recordings

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Speaker 1: of someone saying mad dog and playing it backwards so

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Speaker 1: that it sounded like God damn. And this was not

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Speaker 1: any kind of early satanic record recording. This was apparently

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Speaker 1: just pure novelty. They just observed that this was the

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Speaker 1: case and found it amusing. But it touches on something

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Speaker 1: that will We'll keep coming back to the idea that

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Speaker 1: sometimes when you take spoken language and you reverse it,

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Speaker 1: it can sound like other words in that language. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: and then then there's a lot of psychological layering to

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Speaker 1: put on top of that. But we'll get to that now. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: real to real tapes came along, this would have in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, and it became increasingly easy for audio

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Speaker 1: lovers to experiment with the medium. So, for instance, French

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Speaker 1: composer Pierre Schaeffer lived nineteen ten through nineteen ninety five

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Speaker 1: experimented with t looping, sampling and back masking, and the

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Speaker 1: use of back masking would then increase among avant garde

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Speaker 1: musicians during the nineteen fifties, according to Stassnow, and certainly

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of you out there can think

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Speaker 1: of various recording artists who use some of these tools,

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Speaker 1: tape loops especially. There are a lot of ambient recording

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Speaker 1: artists that I can think of that make use of this,

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Speaker 1: But it comes down to just manipulating the recorded data

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Speaker 1: at heart. Now, in the history of back masking, it's

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Speaker 1: impossible to talk about all this without touching on the Beatles.

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Speaker 1: And it's not just because all of the Beatles are

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Speaker 1: popular and are an easy band to source for all this.

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Speaker 1: Like that, they really were the ones that are credited

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Speaker 1: with sort of bringing back masking into the mainstream, both

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Speaker 1: for good and kind of also for bad, for the

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Speaker 1: you know, leaning into the whole panic area. So to

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Speaker 1: be clear, though, all major and serious accounts, which which

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Speaker 1: stalls Now discusses in their paper, seem to drive on

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Speaker 1: the Beatles engaged in back masking purely for novelty's sake.

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Speaker 1: This entails large. I think The main examples here three

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Speaker 1: tracks off of the legendary nineteen sixty six album Revolver

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Speaker 1: that would be I'm Only Sleeping Tomorrow never Knows. But

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Speaker 1: then also the single Rain, which wasn't on that album

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Speaker 1: but came out of the same recordings. So specifically, on

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Speaker 1: these I'm Only Sleeping you have a back masked lead

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Speaker 1: guitar part by George Harrison. So George Harrison played it

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Speaker 1: one way. When they were tinkering around and figuring out,

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Speaker 1: you know, how they're putting all this together, they said, hey,

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Speaker 1: we like it better in reverse. Let's use it that way.

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Speaker 1: It helps create this kind of dreamlike, you know, psychedelic sound.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sure just novelty variety and probably just purely

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Speaker 3: aesthetics is just what dictated these decisions for them. I mean,

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Speaker 3: and sure maybybe part of it. Was like, hey, it'll

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Speaker 3: be funny if people try to reverse these things because

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Speaker 3: they sound backwards, But I bet that wasn't really the

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Speaker 3: primary thoughts. I'm sure aesthetics were the first and foremost

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Speaker 3: decision maker there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen it mentioned that the John Lennon and

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Speaker 1: producer George Martin both kind of took credit for the discovery,

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Speaker 1: but both in kind of casual ways, Like I think

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Speaker 1: George Martin was more along. It was more along the

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Speaker 1: lines of like, yeah, we were experimenting and this sounded good,

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Speaker 1: and John Lennon was more likely to say, well, I

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Speaker 1: was really high at the time and I kind of

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Speaker 1: discovered it either way, though Yeah Tomorrow Never Knows also

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Speaker 1: has backwards guitar on it, and then Rain stands out

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Speaker 1: a little bit because it features backward vocals. So these

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Speaker 1: are popular and I guess somewhat obvious examples of backmasking

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Speaker 1: in the biggest band in the world. And so of

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Speaker 1: course this leads to greater scrutiny, great greater awareness of

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Speaker 1: the technique. And this is going to mean that that

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Speaker 1: later on people were looking at subsequent Beatles albums and saying, well,

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Speaker 1: I wonder what's forwards, but what's backwards? Are they using

408
00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:06,879
Speaker 1: this again? And this ends up this ends up leading

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Speaker 1: to a lot of speculation from some of the more

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Speaker 1: I guess, you know, conspiracy minded fans about what may

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Speaker 1: be hidden in subsequent albums. Those stalls now writes in

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Speaker 1: their paper quote, there were no hidden messages until the

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Speaker 1: fans and fanatics went looking for them. And so from

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Speaker 1: here we begin to veer into this area of accusations

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Speaker 1: of back masking and getting into urban legends about songs

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Speaker 1: like Revolution nine off of nineteen sixty eight's The White Album.

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Speaker 1: If this is something I wasn't super familiar with, but

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Speaker 1: there's a voice saying number nine, number nine, number nine,

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Speaker 1: and the legend goes that if you reverse that, you

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Speaker 1: hear turn me on dead Man, and you can. You

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Speaker 1: can find examples of this on I think just the

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Speaker 1: Wikipedia page for the White Album or for Revolution number nine,

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Speaker 1: and you can hear it. I was listening to it

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Speaker 1: just the other day, and I have to say I

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Speaker 1: did not find it particularly convincing. I feel like you

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Speaker 1: really have to want to hear turn me on dead Man,

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00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:12,239
Speaker 1: And then you get into that area where it's like,

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Speaker 1: if this is the hidden message, why is the hidden message?

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Speaker 1: Like so like clunky.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think you can say that about something

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Speaker 3: of that I think you're coming to, which is all

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Speaker 3: of the Paul is Dead clueses that are out there.

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Speaker 3: This was taken as one of those, as a Oh,

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Speaker 3: this is just an indicator if folks don't know, there's

435
00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:39,840
Speaker 3: a long held rumor slash conspiracy theory that is clearly

436
00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:43,639
Speaker 3: very untrue, but people just like to talk about it

437
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:46,040
Speaker 3: that Paul died in a car crash early on in

438
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:48,679
Speaker 3: the Beatles' career, and then he was replaced by a

439
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:53,640
Speaker 3: Paul look alike at one point. It's obviously very untrue,

440
00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:57,960
Speaker 3: but there are many examples that conspiracy theorists like to

441
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 3: talk about, like, oh gosh, here here's one. For example,

442
00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:05,080
Speaker 3: if you look at the cover of Abbey Road picture

443
00:25:05,119 --> 00:25:07,040
Speaker 3: in your mind, you have the four Beetles walking across

444
00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:10,800
Speaker 3: the road. They're all dressed in kind of interesting clothing,

445
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:14,840
Speaker 3: very distinct from one another. I'm going off the top

446
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:15,959
Speaker 3: of my head, but I think I can do this

447
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:18,480
Speaker 3: all the way. At the back you have George Harrison,

448
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:20,720
Speaker 3: who is dressed kind of like a working man, kind

449
00:25:20,720 --> 00:25:23,920
Speaker 3: of like working man's clothes, denim, nothing fancy. In front

450
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:26,000
Speaker 3: of that, you have Ringo who's wearing like kind of

451
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:28,639
Speaker 3: a fancier suit and tie. Okay. In front of that

452
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:32,159
Speaker 3: you have Paul, also dressed, you know, pretty casually, and

453
00:25:32,200 --> 00:25:34,840
Speaker 3: I think he's not wearing shoes all right, And then

454
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:37,399
Speaker 3: in front of him you have John Lennon, who is

455
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:39,880
Speaker 3: dressed all in white with long flowing hair, et cetera,

456
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:43,600
Speaker 3: et cetera. So the message you were supposed to receive

457
00:25:43,640 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 3: from that is that John Lennon was God and he

458
00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:50,920
Speaker 3: was taking home the dead body of Paul McCartney. He

459
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 3: wasn't wearing shoes because something to do with like being

460
00:25:54,160 --> 00:25:57,800
Speaker 3: buried without your shoes on. It was something this one referenced.

461
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 3: Ringo represented like the priest who was like burying and

462
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:06,119
Speaker 3: giving the eulogy, and George Harrison was representing the grave digger,

463
00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:10,440
Speaker 3: the man actually burying Paul. And it's like, yeah, I guess,

464
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:14,560
Speaker 3: you know, like that's quite a stretch. There's a lot

465
00:26:14,600 --> 00:26:17,440
Speaker 3: of other things too, Like if you hold a mirror

466
00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 3: up to the bass drum on the cover of Sergeant

467
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 3: Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, it allegedly like gives you

468
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 3: the date that Paul died. And like if you look

469
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 3: at like the pictures on the cover of Let It Be,

470
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 3: I think Paul's is the only one with like a

471
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:34,600
Speaker 3: red background and everyone else's is white or something like that.

472
00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:38,199
Speaker 3: Like there's all these little things and they're all meaningless.

473
00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 3: But this was another one to turn me on dead Man.

474
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:44,240
Speaker 3: It's I don't know, I don't know why someone could

475
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:47,359
Speaker 3: put so much stock in this, but I suppose it's fun,

476
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:50,199
Speaker 3: you know, just to look for clues and hints and stuff.

477
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:52,199
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, we have to remember this is in

478
00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:55,520
Speaker 1: the wake of Beatlemania, and we could think of it

479
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:58,679
Speaker 1: as like a heretical strain of Beatlemania that began to

480
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 1: attach itself to these various cryptic details in either the

481
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 1: you know, the advanced production design of the music or

482
00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:11,479
Speaker 1: the advanced record design of you know, illustration work and

483
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:14,600
Speaker 1: graphic design on the albums. There's plenty to sort of

484
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:18,919
Speaker 1: latch onto in both of these and some of one

485
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:20,479
Speaker 1: of those things, I guess you look at a lot

486
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 1: of conspiracy thinking some of this may have began for fun,

487
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:26,720
Speaker 1: it's just as an amusement, but then it can kind

488
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 1: of take on an energy of its own, and you

489
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:31,600
Speaker 1: begin to wonder to what extent are people truly buying

490
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:34,760
Speaker 1: into this idea that Paul is dead and has been

491
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:39,199
Speaker 1: replaced by a look alike. And obviously the most rational

492
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:41,239
Speaker 1: thing you would do if you were perpetrating this kind

493
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:43,360
Speaker 1: of conspiracy was leave a lot of clues for it

494
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:48,679
Speaker 1: in your subsequent album output. Absolutely so, anyway, Paul McCartney

495
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:51,840
Speaker 1: was not dead then, and as of this recordings still alive.

496
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:54,800
Speaker 1: Actually now, it is worth noting that a day in

497
00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:57,480
Speaker 1: the life off of Sergeant Pepper's Only Hearts Club Band,

498
00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 1: which will come back to again that it does contain

499
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:04,680
Speaker 1: some sounds that are just for dogs. Though there's also

500
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:07,879
Speaker 1: the allegation that a reverse section at the end of

501
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 1: the song can be reversed into something crude, but according

502
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 1: to Martin, this is all just gibberish reverse. They just

503
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 1: recorded a lot of gibberish and then reversed it.

504
00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:20,240
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, you can hear nearly anything in anything.

505
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 3: I remember personally. I had a copy of Crosby, Stills

506
00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:28,040
Speaker 3: and Nash Deja Vus, and when I was younger, I

507
00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 3: played the title track backwards because why not, you know,

508
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 3: I had a record player, why not play it backwards?

509
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:37,800
Speaker 3: And there was a section where I swore, my little

510
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 3: teenage brain, I swore that they said you cannot hide,

511
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 3: hide amongst them. Okay. So I was hanging out at

512
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:48,400
Speaker 3: a friend of mine's house and I heard her her

513
00:28:48,480 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 3: I think it was her stepfather, was in the other

514
00:28:50,080 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 3: room playing this record out loud, and I was like,

515
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, I know a hidden message in this

516
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:57,160
Speaker 3: record that if if you play it backwards, that it

517
00:28:57,200 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 3: says you cannot hide. Hide, amongst them, and she's like, oh,

518
00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 3: go to the go tell. I'm like, okay, this is

519
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 3: gonna be great. So I go to this adult little

520
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 3: teenage boy and I'm like, you know, if you play

521
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:08,640
Speaker 3: this song backwards, you can hear, you can hear hidden messages,

522
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:11,239
Speaker 3: you can hear, you cannot hide hide amongst them. And

523
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 3: he goes. He stares me for a while, cocks his head.

524
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 3: He's just like, you smoke a lot of pot, do

525
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 3: you No, I'm just a music lover. I love playing

526
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:25,160
Speaker 3: my records backwards. And yeah, didn't. I didn't get the

527
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:27,719
Speaker 3: reaction I was hoping for, which was awe and praise

528
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:28,719
Speaker 3: and a standing ovation.

529
00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 1: But oh well, this is a great time for me

530
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 1: to ask this though, because I guess this is something

531
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 1: that should be obvious to people who use record players.

532
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:41,719
Speaker 1: But I didn't even think about this. But every record

533
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:44,960
Speaker 1: player gives you the ability to play both forward and backwards?

534
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 1: Is that correct?

535
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:50,240
Speaker 3: Almost? Almost some of them do it deliberately, Like there

536
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 3: are record players that I own that literally have a

537
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:55,600
Speaker 3: switch that you can go from forwards to backwards. And

538
00:29:55,640 --> 00:29:59,040
Speaker 3: that's if you have a quote unquote like fancy record player,

539
00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 3: that button will be the and that's that's a very

540
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 3: useful thing to have, especially we're trying to like cue

541
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 3: up an exact moment in a song, that kind of thing.

542
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:07,560
Speaker 3: So yeah, so that that is a feature that many

543
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 3: record players have a literal reverse button, but on the

544
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 3: less expensive ones, And this is the way I used

545
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:16,080
Speaker 3: to do it when I was younger. You would turn

546
00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 3: off the belt that that drives the actual turning of

547
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:21,840
Speaker 3: the record, and you would but you would leave the

548
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:25,720
Speaker 3: speaker on and you would manually move your hand backwards,

549
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:29,600
Speaker 3: pushing the record in reverse, which makes it sound even

550
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 3: creepier because it's not even like, you know, at like

551
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:34,080
Speaker 3: a regular pace. It's got like this like human lurch

552
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:36,880
Speaker 3: to it's you know. So, but I also know that

553
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:39,280
Speaker 3: there are record players that just will not go in reverse,

554
00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:40,960
Speaker 3: no matter if you push them, you'll just end up

555
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:45,160
Speaker 3: breaking them. So yeah, there's different kinds, but some actually

556
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 3: just have a button that plays it in reverse.

557
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 1: Interesting, well, this is all telling because it does sound,

558
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 1: from what you're saying, like just the basic vinyl record

559
00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:58,160
Speaker 1: scenario would sort of put the tools in the average

560
00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: music fans hands to sort of go in and investigate

561
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 1: for themselves, right and find things potentially or confirm things

562
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:09,440
Speaker 1: that they heard they might.

563
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 3: Find Yeah exactly. Yeah.

564
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 1: So again. By most accounts, back maasking by the Beatles

565
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:17,000
Speaker 1: was generally more about novelty and dumb jokes, but that

566
00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:20,600
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that occult back masking didn't take place. According

567
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 1: to Jonathan Weinel, Darryl Griffiths, and Stuart Cunningham in twenty

568
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 1: fourteen's Easter Eggs, Hidden Tracks and Messages in Musical Mediums,

569
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:34,200
Speaker 1: occultist Aleister Crowley encouraged practitioners to engage backwards thinking by

570
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 1: listening to recordings backwards. And while I think this sounds

571
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 1: kind of silly, this notion and the ripples of this

572
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:48,240
Speaker 1: notion certainly influence the eventual place of backtracking in Satanic panic.

573
00:31:50,160 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 1: Satanic Panic, of course, this is something that we've touched

574
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:55,000
Speaker 1: on in the show before. This was a moral panic,

575
00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 1: mostly in the United States and then also in the

576
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 1: UK and parts of Europe here in the eighties and nineties,

577
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:05,480
Speaker 1: though its reverberations in subsequent years and subsequent decades can

578
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:07,800
Speaker 1: be found in different parts of the world and also

579
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 1: in different sort of communities and certainly faith communities as well.

580
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 1: Basically just whips everyone into a frenzy over the idea

581
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:18,800
Speaker 1: that something that had never really existed in the world,

582
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 1: that is, the organized worship of Satan, was in engaging

583
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:26,120
Speaker 1: in covert means of corrupting the youth of the world,

584
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 1: as well as ritually torturing and murdering children. So, yeah,

585
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 1: there's much more one could say about satantic panic in

586
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:39,960
Speaker 1: its awfulness and also like the real cost of it

587
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 1: to actual human beings. There's also a lot to be

588
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 1: said into how it ends up impacting media, how it

589
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:50,960
Speaker 1: impacts music and horror and so forth. But backmasking comes

590
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:52,680
Speaker 1: into play as a part of all of this as well,

591
00:32:52,720 --> 00:32:57,320
Speaker 1: because you had allegations that scary metal bands and even

592
00:32:57,360 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 1: bands that we might not think of today as being scary,

593
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:06,400
Speaker 1: we're using backmasking to corrupt listeners with incantations of devil, magic,

594
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 1: drugs and more.

595
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 3: Which this era is so baffling to me because I suppose,

596
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 3: if you're the kind of person that wants to believe

597
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 3: in this organized worship of Satan that's happening right under

598
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:21,480
Speaker 3: your nose, any of your neighbors could be a Satan worshiper.

599
00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:23,960
Speaker 3: I suppose you're also the same kind of person that's

600
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:29,040
Speaker 3: going to believe that a backwards incantation can do something

601
00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 3: have some effects in the real world. So I don't know.

602
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 3: I just hope for the practical minds of most people

603
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 3: to go, wait, there's a backward spell on this. Oh well,

604
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 3: good things. Spells don't work, so who cares? You know?

605
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, it ultimately raises a bunch of ridiculous questions when

606
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:51,120
Speaker 1: you start analyzing it with a logical mind. But and

607
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 1: then some of them too. It just it just made

608
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:54,680
Speaker 1: absolutely no sense, or it makes no sense to me.

609
00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 1: For example, it was alleged at one point that acdc's

610
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:03,160
Speaker 1: Highway to Hell can hained back masked lyrics, and when

611
00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:06,200
Speaker 1: asked about this, Angus Young refuted it by saying, hey, well,

612
00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:09,719
Speaker 1: there's nothing subliminal about the actual lyrics to the song.

613
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:12,680
Speaker 1: Part of the lyrics are hey, Satan paying my dues

614
00:34:12,719 --> 00:34:17,279
Speaker 1: playing in a rocking band? Like what? Like? Why do

615
00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:20,320
Speaker 1: you need to also hide the Satanism if you're basically

616
00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:21,719
Speaker 1: saying praise Satan right there in.

617
00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:23,120
Speaker 3: The lyrics, I don't get it.

618
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:29,000
Speaker 1: And there were these were, but these were real accusations

619
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 1: with potentially real consequences for bands and record companies at

620
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 1: the time. For instance, one accusation that picked up steam

621
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:38,960
Speaker 1: among evangelicals, especially at the time, And this is one

622
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:40,480
Speaker 1: that I imagine a lot of you have heard, and

623
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:42,239
Speaker 1: there are examples of this. You can pull up on

624
00:34:42,280 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 1: Wikipedia for the entry for this song. But led Zeppelin

625
00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:49,279
Speaker 1: Stairway to Heaven classic rock song, like it's it's a

626
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:52,839
Speaker 1: song that I think is great, but I couldn't tell

627
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:54,920
Speaker 1: you because I've heard it too many times on the radio.

628
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 1: So it's it's not my favorite led Zeppelin song because

629
00:34:58,360 --> 00:34:59,920
Speaker 1: I've just heard it too many times. It would not

630
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:04,200
Speaker 1: like in the top ten for me. And it contains

631
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 1: it does contain some actual lyrics that go as follows.

632
00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:11,240
Speaker 1: If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed.

633
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:13,560
Speaker 1: Now I'm not entirely sure what that means, but that

634
00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:15,839
Speaker 1: those are just part of the lyrics to Stairway to Heaven.

635
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:19,319
Speaker 1: And the accusation is that if you play this backwards,

636
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 1: then you hear the words Here's to my sweet Satan,

637
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 1: the one whose little path would make me sad, whose

638
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 1: power is Satan. He'll give you, He'll give you six

639
00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:31,840
Speaker 1: sixty six. There was a little tool shed where he

640
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:33,480
Speaker 1: made us suffer, sad, satan.

641
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:38,000
Speaker 3: Way too elaborate for backbasket, not a chance.

642
00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:42,080
Speaker 1: I mean, after I read this, I listened to the

643
00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:45,920
Speaker 1: example of it, and I mean, it is it is

644
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:50,600
Speaker 1: creepy to hear because you are hearing reverse language. You

645
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:54,240
Speaker 1: are hearing you are hearing something that sounds like satan.

646
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:58,360
Speaker 1: But then on the other hand, it's so ridiculous sounding,

647
00:35:58,400 --> 00:35:59,839
Speaker 1: like what does this even mean? Like if I were

648
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:02,759
Speaker 1: to take this at face value, what is the tool

649
00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:05,600
Speaker 1: shed doing for me in this scenario? Like nothing in

650
00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:11,200
Speaker 1: this is really all that creepy compared to any actual

651
00:36:11,719 --> 00:36:15,400
Speaker 1: satanic lyrics. Oh really, there are plenty of examples in

652
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:18,800
Speaker 1: led Zeppelin's lyrics that are, on the face, more shocking

653
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:22,240
Speaker 1: than what we have right here in the alleged back masking.

654
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:25,760
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, and also I think certain words

655
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:28,640
Speaker 3: just when they get reversed automatically kind of sound creepy.

656
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:30,680
Speaker 3: Like for example, I remember Yoko oh No got accused

657
00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 3: of this. She had a song called Kiss, Kiss Kiss,

658
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 3: and of course when you play kiss Kiss Kiss backwards,

659
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:42,200
Speaker 3: it's six six six for sure. And you know, yeah,

660
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:46,200
Speaker 3: I think certain words just sound easily like other words backwards.

661
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:50,240
Speaker 3: But I don't believe for a moment that this many

662
00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:53,960
Speaker 3: words could sound good forwards and backwards, not for a second.

663
00:36:55,680 --> 00:36:59,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean also the weird exercise you'd have to

664
00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 1: go through to get to this point. I think the

665
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 1: other important thing is like when you when you reverse lyrics,

666
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:10,400
Speaker 1: when you reverse words, you're gonna get other sounds. But

667
00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:13,840
Speaker 1: those sounds are not going to have real context until

668
00:37:13,920 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 1: you give them contexts and you you say like, well, yeah,

669
00:37:16,640 --> 00:37:19,000
Speaker 1: that sound that that kind of six sixty sixth sound,

670
00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 1: it's going to sound like like six sixty six that

671
00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:22,719
Speaker 1: sort of thing.

672
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a real Laurel or Yanny situation.

673
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:28,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I think the other telling thing about this so,

674
00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:30,600
Speaker 1: first of all, it's an accusation that Robert Plant and

675
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:35,640
Speaker 1: their audio engineer at the time refuted, and unlike with

676
00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:37,799
Speaker 1: the Beatles, it doesn't seem like the band or those

677
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 1: involved in producing the tracks really found this technique all

678
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: that interesting. And I don't know this is maybe just me,

679
00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:46,640
Speaker 1: but I feel like if they had actually done this

680
00:37:46,719 --> 00:37:49,880
Speaker 1: on purpose, it's one thing to cover it up during

681
00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:53,520
Speaker 1: the initial period of satanic panic during the you know,

682
00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:55,800
Speaker 1: certainly in the eighties and even nineties, but it seems

683
00:37:55,840 --> 00:37:58,719
Speaker 1: like if this, if they had actually back masked some

684
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:02,160
Speaker 1: content here and gone to some links to put some

685
00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:05,319
Speaker 1: satanic silliness in here, it would have come out right,

686
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:08,800
Speaker 1: Like how great are the surviving members of led Zeppelin

687
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:10,440
Speaker 1: going to really be at keeping secrets like this?

688
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:15,359
Speaker 3: I mean, I think when these things happened. Like another

689
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 3: example of this that was famous at the time was

690
00:38:17,760 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 3: the supposed sinking of playing Pink Floyd's Dark Side of

691
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:24,359
Speaker 3: the Moon with the Wizard of Oz and I gave

692
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:26,719
Speaker 3: you this whole experience with the two lined up perfectly,

693
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:28,880
Speaker 3: and everyone in Pink Floyd is like, how would we

694
00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:33,000
Speaker 3: do that? You know, like we were just like in

695
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 3: a studio. Everything's analog, Like we didn't have like you know, no,

696
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:39,839
Speaker 3: of course not, of course we couldn't have done that, you.

697
00:38:39,800 --> 00:38:43,239
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, or like can you imagine the reality where

698
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:44,960
Speaker 1: they're like, yes, this is actually how we make all

699
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:48,359
Speaker 1: of our albums. We pick a classic movie, we play it,

700
00:38:48,680 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 1: and we just match things up with what's happening on

701
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:55,640
Speaker 1: the screen. I mean that could be somebody's artistic technique,

702
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:59,920
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's just those connections are not made by

703
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:03,279
Speaker 1: the creator. Those connections are made on your end. When

704
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:06,279
Speaker 1: you combine two things and look for meaning between those

705
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:07,320
Speaker 1: two things, which.

706
00:39:07,160 --> 00:39:09,520
Speaker 3: Can be fun, but don't believe it. Yeah, you know, yeah,

707
00:39:09,800 --> 00:39:12,200
Speaker 3: like fun is fun as long as you don't believe

708
00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 3: this nonsense.

709
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:16,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, enjoy it, but don't ruin by going too far right.

710
00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 1: So I mentioned that there were potential real consequences for

711
00:39:26,680 --> 00:39:28,880
Speaker 1: all this, Like it got to the point where there

712
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 1: were actually some lawmakers that were interested in demanding backtracking

713
00:39:33,719 --> 00:39:37,480
Speaker 1: warnings on albums so that consumers could be aware that

714
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:42,120
Speaker 1: there might be hidden messages, which is ridiculous to imagine,

715
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 1: like may contain hidden messages that.

716
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:45,760
Speaker 3: May contain electric guitar.

717
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:49,400
Speaker 1: And this is another thing getting back to I mentioned earlier,

718
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 1: how when you have the full tools of language at

719
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 1: your disposal, there's so many things you can do to

720
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:59,520
Speaker 1: manipulate people, to hide your message, to say something kind

721
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:02,360
Speaker 1: of cheeky so that some people get it but others don't.

722
00:40:02,560 --> 00:40:06,319
Speaker 1: There's plenty of stuff you can do with language that

723
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:09,600
Speaker 1: hasn't been reversed, and great lyricists are going to be

724
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:13,440
Speaker 1: able to use those tools, like doing this whole backtracking

725
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:16,759
Speaker 1: technique is just such a crude and ineffective way of

726
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:19,280
Speaker 1: hiding your secret message if you actually have a secret

727
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:20,920
Speaker 1: message you want to get out there.

728
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:23,360
Speaker 3: And especially too if you want to keep it a

729
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:27,000
Speaker 3: secret for most people. Like for example, Oh, let's say

730
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:28,959
Speaker 3: you're trying to send a secret message on a sheet

731
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:31,920
Speaker 3: of paper and you just write each of the letters backwards,

732
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:33,200
Speaker 3: so you have to hold it up and look at

733
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:35,720
Speaker 3: it in the mirror to read the message. Yeah, someone's

734
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:37,840
Speaker 3: going to figure it out like that. Let's say you

735
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:40,640
Speaker 3: take the first letter of each word in your lyrics

736
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:43,799
Speaker 3: and it spells a new secret message. Hey, that's going

737
00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:47,080
Speaker 3: to be actually harder to decipher, you know, So it's

738
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:49,480
Speaker 3: not even a very good secret message.

739
00:40:49,760 --> 00:40:53,759
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, we mentioned Don McClain recently on the

740
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:57,560
Speaker 1: show when we discussed the Flight of Dragons, like American

741
00:40:57,600 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 1: Pie has plenty of cryptic content within it, and that

742
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 1: has achieved without reversing anything. Right. So anyway, getting back

743
00:41:06,640 --> 00:41:09,080
Speaker 1: to this idea that like, why would you need a label, right,

744
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 1: why would there need to be a warning saying mine

745
00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:16,080
Speaker 1: contained secret messages? Because if it's backwards, I can't understand it. Right. Well,

746
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:18,759
Speaker 1: that's where we get into these claims, and I think

747
00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:22,240
Speaker 1: these are this is this is pretty much been refuted

748
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:26,800
Speaker 1: as pseudoscience at this point. But this idea that backmasked

749
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:32,239
Speaker 1: messages can be understood subconsciously even if you're not consciously

750
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 1: understanding them. So one of the main proponents of the

751
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:38,600
Speaker 1: power of reverse speech is an individual by the name

752
00:41:38,640 --> 00:41:41,080
Speaker 1: of David John Oates. And this is a guy that's

753
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:43,680
Speaker 1: appeared on the likes of Coast to Coast. This is

754
00:41:43,719 --> 00:41:47,839
Speaker 1: the you know, the radio station radio show rather that's

755
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 1: popular and known for its various treatment of UFOs and

756
00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:55,239
Speaker 1: so forth. You know, a lot of what I guess

757
00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 1: you've described a sort of fringe ideas. And Oates would

758
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:04,480
Speaker 1: discover this notion that normal speech contains a smaller percentage

759
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:08,480
Speaker 1: of backward speech that I'm not sure I even understand

760
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:10,600
Speaker 1: exactly what the idea here is. That maybe it kind

761
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:13,200
Speaker 1: of cuts to the chase a bit that the thing

762
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:17,080
Speaker 1: that you're sort of trying to say through with forward

763
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:20,880
Speaker 1: facing speech, you're also saying, at least in a simplistic form,

764
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:24,160
Speaker 1: through the reverse of the speech. There is an example

765
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:28,480
Speaker 1: that is sometimes used to support this, and it's apparently

766
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:31,799
Speaker 1: if you take Neil Armstrong in nineteen sixty nine saying

767
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:34,720
Speaker 1: small step for man of course during the lunar landing.

768
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:38,279
Speaker 1: If you were to reverse that it sounds something like

769
00:42:38,440 --> 00:42:44,360
Speaker 1: manual spacewalk. And this one I thought sounded pretty pretty

770
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:46,960
Speaker 1: silly to me. I mean, what does that even mean? Why? What?

771
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:50,839
Speaker 1: What's my take home from that? If this is some

772
00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:53,839
Speaker 1: sort of meaningful content, like I guess, it would at

773
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:57,360
Speaker 1: best mean that the smart things that you say forward

774
00:42:57,440 --> 00:42:58,719
Speaker 1: sound stupid or backwards.

775
00:42:59,120 --> 00:43:00,960
Speaker 3: It doesn't make any sense. If it at least like

776
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:04,879
Speaker 3: predicted the future, it'd be helpful, you know, like, oh,

777
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 3: let's say he said small step for man, and then

778
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 3: in reverse it actually said like, hey, watch out for

779
00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 3: that rock over there, you're going to trip over. It's

780
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:14,960
Speaker 3: like that would be helpful. He could use that information,

781
00:43:15,200 --> 00:43:18,960
Speaker 3: you know. But but no, this is nothing. This is nonsense.

782
00:43:19,640 --> 00:43:23,520
Speaker 1: Yeah. So again this has been widely refuted in scientific

783
00:43:23,560 --> 00:43:27,520
Speaker 1: literature at pseudoscience, and one of the central arguments is that, okay,

784
00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:31,279
Speaker 1: with oats work, and with well not even just oats work,

785
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:32,920
Speaker 1: but just in general, if you're trying to push this

786
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:37,239
Speaker 1: idea that the thing that you're about to hear reversed

787
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:41,280
Speaker 1: is going to say something else, it depends heavily on priming.

788
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:45,279
Speaker 1: You're being You're given an idea of what you were

789
00:43:45,320 --> 00:43:48,759
Speaker 1: about to hear. Backwards, and I encountered that time and

790
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:51,759
Speaker 1: time again researching for this episode. Like when you go

791
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:57,480
Speaker 1: to the audio examples on the Wikipedia for Stairway to Heaven,

792
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:00,279
Speaker 1: he tells you what you're about to hear, what you

793
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:03,040
Speaker 1: were going to hear straightforward, and what you were expected

794
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:07,720
Speaker 1: to hear in reverse. So you're going into it to

795
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:10,319
Speaker 1: it looking for that template to line up. But what's

796
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:13,000
Speaker 1: really going on is something called paridolia. This is the

797
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 1: tendency for humans to find meaning in something, be it

798
00:44:17,719 --> 00:44:20,160
Speaker 1: seeing a face in the surface of the moon, secret

799
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:25,120
Speaker 1: messages in a reverse song, connections between this album and

800
00:44:25,160 --> 00:44:28,680
Speaker 1: this movie when this movie's played on mute, that sort

801
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:30,600
Speaker 1: of thing, and it's I mean, it's a powerful force.

802
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:33,239
Speaker 1: It's it's a it's something that guides a lot of

803
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:36,280
Speaker 1: our creativity that we can look at, like a smear

804
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:38,080
Speaker 1: on the wall. We can look at a cloud in

805
00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:41,399
Speaker 1: the sky and we can we can we can lean

806
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:44,279
Speaker 1: into a version of it that's not there. We can

807
00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:47,279
Speaker 1: make we can apply some sort of logic to it

808
00:44:47,640 --> 00:44:50,919
Speaker 1: and create fantasy. And I think that, I mean, that's

809
00:44:51,200 --> 00:44:54,080
Speaker 1: I feel like easily the far more sensible way of

810
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:58,080
Speaker 1: understanding any kind of sense that seems to come out

811
00:44:58,080 --> 00:45:01,839
Speaker 1: of reverse speech. I'm extremely skeptical of the notion that

812
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:06,560
Speaker 1: meaningful reverse speech would simply emerge from traditional speech, as

813
00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 1: well as the idea that meaningful information could then be

814
00:45:09,800 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 1: understood by our brain and even on like a subliminal level,

815
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:17,839
Speaker 1: like mad dog and goddamn sorry to have to curse again.

816
00:45:17,880 --> 00:45:21,839
Speaker 1: But this is the one of the historical examples. These

817
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:26,279
Speaker 1: ideas are maybe not completely unconnected from each other, but

818
00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:31,359
Speaker 1: they're also like there's not really a strong meaningful connection either,

819
00:45:31,400 --> 00:45:33,920
Speaker 1: Like I'm not sure what the argument would be between

820
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:34,800
Speaker 1: those two words.

821
00:45:35,320 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 3: And it's funny too because and then the argument is, oh,

822
00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:41,600
Speaker 3: but only in English, you know, Yeah, because these words,

823
00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:44,640
Speaker 3: let's say we say them in French instead, the two

824
00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:47,360
Speaker 3: words will not be the same two words forward and backwards.

825
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:50,640
Speaker 3: You won't be the same message, no matter what. That's

826
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:55,480
Speaker 3: basically impossible. So so no, you know, it's like when

827
00:45:55,480 --> 00:46:00,000
Speaker 3: people make arguments about oh, great predictions followed through like

828
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:01,960
Speaker 3: the myan calendar or something. It's like, yeah, but they

829
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:04,239
Speaker 3: didn't use like leap days like we do, you know,

830
00:46:04,480 --> 00:46:07,640
Speaker 3: like what time zone were they using? Like like these

831
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:10,760
Speaker 3: things don't line up, like like different cultures have different

832
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:17,040
Speaker 3: ways to kind of like parcel out our lives, and

833
00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:20,120
Speaker 3: they don't match up cross culturally, so you can't just

834
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:23,120
Speaker 3: say something is a universal truth. It's just like, well,

835
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:25,719
Speaker 3: maybe that only works in English for me when I

836
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:26,839
Speaker 3: have the words written down.

837
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:31,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I was looking at a couple of sources

838
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:32,799
Speaker 1: on this, you get a little more depth in it.

839
00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty five, JR. Voki and JD. Reid suggested

840
00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 1: that some information might pass through when you were when

841
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:48,480
Speaker 1: you were reversing using reversed audio, But they were also

842
00:46:48,719 --> 00:46:51,640
Speaker 1: very firm on the matter being misrepresented in the media

843
00:46:52,480 --> 00:46:55,880
Speaker 1: in this in nineteen eighty five and one of their papers,

844
00:46:55,880 --> 00:46:59,200
Speaker 1: they write, quote, is there any evidence to warrant ascertations

845
00:46:59,239 --> 00:47:02,840
Speaker 1: that such a messages affect our behavior across a wide

846
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:05,840
Speaker 1: variety of tasks. We were unable to find any evidence

847
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:09,520
Speaker 1: to support such a claim. Secondarily, we present evidence to

848
00:47:09,560 --> 00:47:12,640
Speaker 1: suggest that the apparent presence of backward messages in popular

849
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:16,600
Speaker 1: music is a function more of active construction on the

850
00:47:16,640 --> 00:47:19,560
Speaker 1: part of the perceiver than of the existence of the

851
00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 1: messages themselves.

852
00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:22,920
Speaker 3: Right, almost like a roar shack test.

853
00:47:23,200 --> 00:47:26,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, And this I think is extremely telling too.

854
00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:29,600
Speaker 1: At two thousand and one study by Kriner, Altis and

855
00:47:29,719 --> 00:47:32,719
Speaker 1: Vass found that quote no priming effect was found for

856
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:36,960
Speaker 1: backwards messages, although there were significant priming for forward messages.

857
00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:40,040
Speaker 1: The results are not consistent with an effect of reverse

858
00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:43,680
Speaker 1: speech on word processing. And I think that's this is

859
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:48,640
Speaker 1: really key, because we know that priming works with forward

860
00:47:48,719 --> 00:47:51,319
Speaker 1: with normal language, that I can say something to you

861
00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:53,960
Speaker 1: and I can prime you for something, and the effects

862
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:59,720
Speaker 1: of that priming is measurable through experimentation. So if something

863
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:05,040
Speaker 1: wise to come through via reversed audio through back masking,

864
00:48:05,800 --> 00:48:08,120
Speaker 1: it would have an effect on priming, and we would

865
00:48:08,120 --> 00:48:11,840
Speaker 1: be able to measure that. And there's nothing to measure

866
00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:15,480
Speaker 1: because it doesn't work. It doesn't do that. Now that

867
00:48:15,520 --> 00:48:18,719
Speaker 1: being said, there's still plenty of fun examples of back

868
00:48:18,760 --> 00:48:23,400
Speaker 1: masking in music. One that came up for me and

869
00:48:23,400 --> 00:48:25,280
Speaker 1: this is another example of the song that I've heard

870
00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:28,960
Speaker 1: many times, but I did not really think about the

871
00:48:29,000 --> 00:48:30,680
Speaker 1: back masking in it because I'm just so used to

872
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:32,640
Speaker 1: hearing this technique. It's cool, but I don't give it

873
00:48:32,640 --> 00:48:35,719
Speaker 1: a lot of second thought or even wonder what's being reversed.

874
00:48:36,600 --> 00:48:41,640
Speaker 1: But there's a great Boards of Canada album Geogotti and

875
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:45,200
Speaker 1: there's a track titled you Could Feel the Sky, and

876
00:48:45,640 --> 00:48:49,040
Speaker 1: there's definitely some back mask audio in there, and it

877
00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:52,640
Speaker 1: may be reversed. It seems like it's likely a reversal

878
00:48:53,120 --> 00:48:56,560
Speaker 1: of a clip from I think a documentary on paganism

879
00:48:57,040 --> 00:49:00,160
Speaker 1: that says the God with Horns, and I guess this

880
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:02,000
Speaker 1: is maybe just kind of a cheeky nod to back

881
00:49:02,080 --> 00:49:07,000
Speaker 1: masking history in some of the Satanic panic ideas, which

882
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:09,359
Speaker 1: of course Boards of Canada would have very much been

883
00:49:09,360 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 1: familiar with. And there's still so many examples too of

884
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:16,440
Speaker 1: people going into business for themselves on back masking, playing

885
00:49:16,760 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 1: stuff backwards, sharing it on YouTube and saying, hey, clearly,

886
00:49:21,800 --> 00:49:25,359
Speaker 1: if you play this Black Sabbath lyric backwards, you hear

887
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:28,000
Speaker 1: I want to be like Jesus. Stuff like that. I mean,

888
00:49:28,040 --> 00:49:32,120
Speaker 1: there's if you're just going into it purely for fun. Yes,

889
00:49:32,160 --> 00:49:35,800
Speaker 1: there's probably some fun and amusing quote unquote discoveries to make.

890
00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:38,640
Speaker 3: There, but just keep in mind that it's just as

891
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:42,880
Speaker 3: much meaning as can be applied to spilling some alphabet

892
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:45,520
Speaker 3: soup on the floor and seeing how many words are spelled.

893
00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:46,520
Speaker 1: Outs, you know exactly.

894
00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:49,879
Speaker 3: That can be fun, but there's no meaning there.

895
00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:52,600
Speaker 1: I thought It was put really well in a piece

896
00:49:52,600 --> 00:49:56,120
Speaker 1: of salon written by Eric Davis. This piece was titled

897
00:49:56,120 --> 00:49:58,680
Speaker 1: what exactly lyrics within the background grooves of Stairway to

898
00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:02,879
Speaker 1: Heaven quote. Soon, backmasking became the Satanic Panic du jour,

899
00:50:03,320 --> 00:50:07,640
Speaker 1: giving paranoid Christians technological proof that rock bands like Queen

900
00:50:08,080 --> 00:50:11,360
Speaker 1: Kiss and Sticks and then there's an exclamation point in

901
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:15,600
Speaker 1: Parnhesies did indeed play the Devil's music. While most people

902
00:50:15,680 --> 00:50:18,880
Speaker 1: Christian or otherwise found all this rather silly, these fears

903
00:50:18,880 --> 00:50:22,640
Speaker 1: did reflect more pervasive fears that the media had become

904
00:50:22,680 --> 00:50:26,680
Speaker 1: a subliminal master of puppets, fears that would themselves come

905
00:50:26,719 --> 00:50:29,880
Speaker 1: to inspire some nineteen eighties metal and I think this

906
00:50:30,680 --> 00:50:32,359
Speaker 1: one might have also been the paper to point out

907
00:50:32,360 --> 00:50:37,919
Speaker 1: that you also get these ridiculous images and ridiculous footage

908
00:50:37,160 --> 00:50:43,360
Speaker 1: of some of the provocateurs of Satanic Panic, some of

909
00:50:43,360 --> 00:50:47,520
Speaker 1: the individuals that were making these accusations, messing around with

910
00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:51,680
Speaker 1: record players and playing stuff backwards and just really gazing

911
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:54,360
Speaker 1: hard and deep and trying to find evidence of Satan

912
00:50:54,480 --> 00:50:55,600
Speaker 1: in the reversed audio.

913
00:50:55,920 --> 00:50:58,879
Speaker 3: Hey, you know, everyone needs a hobby. I'm glad they're

914
00:50:58,880 --> 00:51:00,600
Speaker 3: having fun. Good for them.

915
00:51:00,840 --> 00:51:03,240
Speaker 1: How about you Seth. Do you have any favorite examples

916
00:51:03,239 --> 00:51:04,239
Speaker 1: of backmasking You A.

917
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:07,120
Speaker 3: Uh, yeah, yeah, I have one that I absolutely love,

918
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:09,200
Speaker 3: not only because I think it's a fun example of,

919
00:51:09,400 --> 00:51:12,200
Speaker 3: you know, kind of how this can influence a song's

920
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:14,799
Speaker 3: writing and kind of create a finished product, but also

921
00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:16,920
Speaker 3: just because I think it's a lovely song off of

922
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:20,319
Speaker 3: a wonderful album by one of my favorite bands. Here's

923
00:51:20,320 --> 00:51:24,000
Speaker 3: an example. This is off of radioheads two thousand and

924
00:51:24,120 --> 00:51:28,800
Speaker 3: one album Amnesiac. There's a very alien sounding song called

925
00:51:29,239 --> 00:51:33,640
Speaker 3: like Spinning Plates. It sounds so odd because it originally

926
00:51:33,640 --> 00:51:36,279
Speaker 3: started off as a song called I Will, which is

927
00:51:36,360 --> 00:51:39,120
Speaker 3: very funny because Radiohead eventually actually finished that song and

928
00:51:39,200 --> 00:51:41,640
Speaker 3: released it on a later album. But enough about that.

929
00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:44,800
Speaker 3: They were trying to record this song during this recording

930
00:51:44,840 --> 00:51:47,640
Speaker 3: session called I Will, and they just couldn't get it

931
00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:50,040
Speaker 3: to work. They were just messing around with it, doing whatever,

932
00:51:50,360 --> 00:51:52,200
Speaker 3: and at one point they decided to play it backwards

933
00:51:52,239 --> 00:51:55,400
Speaker 3: and they're like, yeah, that's it, that's the album I

934
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:58,600
Speaker 3: want to hear. So they had this instrumental for this

935
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:00,960
Speaker 3: song backwards and I this is good. This is good,

936
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:03,759
Speaker 3: And so Tom York, the lead singer, he created a

937
00:52:04,040 --> 00:52:06,759
Speaker 3: new vocal melody to go over it. But when you

938
00:52:06,800 --> 00:52:10,480
Speaker 3: played the forward vocal melody over the backwards song, it

939
00:52:10,560 --> 00:52:13,319
Speaker 3: just didn't quite line up. It just didn't sound right.

940
00:52:13,360 --> 00:52:16,360
Speaker 3: They didn't mesh together. So what he decided to do

941
00:52:16,440 --> 00:52:20,400
Speaker 3: instead was to phonetically take the words he wanted to say,

942
00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:26,080
Speaker 3: reverse them, and then sing it backwards. He was obviously

943
00:52:26,080 --> 00:52:29,160
Speaker 3: singing forward in real time, but he's singing the backwards

944
00:52:29,600 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 3: result of what he wanted, so when he reversed it,

945
00:52:34,080 --> 00:52:37,640
Speaker 3: it would sound like forward words. Oh wow, So I'll

946
00:52:37,640 --> 00:52:41,319
Speaker 3: say that in a morsisstinct way. Tom York made up

947
00:52:41,400 --> 00:52:45,080
Speaker 3: new words that were phonetically the backwards version of his

948
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:49,720
Speaker 3: new forward vocals, and then reverse the recording, creating lyrics

949
00:52:49,719 --> 00:52:53,360
Speaker 3: that sounded forward in the final song but are actually

950
00:52:53,480 --> 00:52:58,000
Speaker 3: being reversed. A very similar system was used in the

951
00:52:58,040 --> 00:53:00,759
Speaker 3: TV show Twin Peaks for the character the Man from

952
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:03,960
Speaker 3: Another Place aka the Arm. He's the guy that's like,

953
00:53:03,960 --> 00:53:07,160
Speaker 3: you know, sometimes my arm's been back. You know that

954
00:53:08,080 --> 00:53:10,880
Speaker 3: you like will come back in style that guy. That's

955
00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:14,840
Speaker 3: very similar system. Yeah, but as we'll point out, it's

956
00:53:14,920 --> 00:53:17,520
Speaker 3: just like all this discussion we've been having that character

957
00:53:17,719 --> 00:53:20,000
Speaker 3: of the man from Another Place from Twin Peaks, he

958
00:53:20,080 --> 00:53:23,640
Speaker 3: always had subtitles, because would you really be able to

959
00:53:23,760 --> 00:53:27,040
Speaker 3: understand what he was saying backwards if there weren't subtitles there.

960
00:53:27,520 --> 00:53:27,960
Speaker 3: I don't know.

961
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:30,719
Speaker 1: That's a great point. That's a key point. Now. I

962
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:35,920
Speaker 1: love Radiohead, and I love Tom Yorke's vocals. Tom new

963
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:40,319
Speaker 1: York's vocals almost seemed like the perfect vocals to use

964
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:44,480
Speaker 1: in an experiment of reverse because I don't know. Sometimes

965
00:53:44,480 --> 00:53:50,000
Speaker 1: I feel like there's certain vocalists whose voices I think

966
00:53:50,000 --> 00:53:52,640
Speaker 1: of more as a musical instrument, like a pure instrument,

967
00:53:52,640 --> 00:53:56,680
Speaker 1: as opposed to a deliverer of actual linguistic information. And

968
00:53:56,719 --> 00:53:59,160
Speaker 1: I don't mean that as like a slam on them,

969
00:53:59,480 --> 00:54:02,600
Speaker 1: and it doesn't necessarily mean that I can't understand what

970
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:05,800
Speaker 1: they're saying. I mean sometimes I think of people like

971
00:54:05,800 --> 00:54:07,920
Speaker 1: like Maynard from Tool. You know, It's like I can

972
00:54:08,000 --> 00:54:11,319
Speaker 1: understand the words he's saying, but I'm not really engaging

973
00:54:11,400 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 1: with what he's saying on a lyrical level. It's more

974
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:16,480
Speaker 1: about like the pure sound experience, and I feel like

975
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 1: that's that's what I have with Tom York.

976
00:54:18,440 --> 00:54:20,000
Speaker 3: Well, if you look at like the kind of the

977
00:54:20,040 --> 00:54:24,719
Speaker 3: hallmarks of reversed audio, and what's really changing. The big key,

978
00:54:24,920 --> 00:54:27,960
Speaker 3: the thing that we cannot create with forward sounds and

979
00:54:28,040 --> 00:54:32,680
Speaker 3: can only be created backwards is when anything percussive occurs,

980
00:54:33,040 --> 00:54:35,680
Speaker 3: it goes and there's like a big sound at the

981
00:54:35,680 --> 00:54:38,879
Speaker 3: beginning and then it trails off very quickly. So when

982
00:54:38,880 --> 00:54:41,040
Speaker 3: you hear that backwards, especially thinking about something like the

983
00:54:41,040 --> 00:54:43,200
Speaker 3: sound of like a drum being played backwards, it's a

984
00:54:45,080 --> 00:54:49,480
Speaker 3: which is a very iconic backwards sound. I suppose, you know,

985
00:54:49,520 --> 00:54:51,719
Speaker 3: I'm the one who edits these episodes. I could just

986
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:53,640
Speaker 3: put in a reverse sound there, but no, no, no,

987
00:54:53,680 --> 00:54:57,600
Speaker 3: I like making with my mouth instead. But but yeah,

988
00:54:57,880 --> 00:54:59,520
Speaker 3: I think that's a big part of it. And Tom

989
00:54:59,600 --> 00:55:05,200
Speaker 3: York has a very vowel heavy, very floaty, ethereal singing style,

990
00:55:05,520 --> 00:55:07,960
Speaker 3: lots of oohs and ahs and moaning and kind of

991
00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:12,320
Speaker 3: like soft sounds. So because of that, forwards and backwards

992
00:55:12,360 --> 00:55:14,879
Speaker 3: doesn't affect it too much. You know, he's not a percussive,

993
00:55:15,480 --> 00:55:19,200
Speaker 3: you know, singer, and the percussion is really what signifies, oh,

994
00:55:19,280 --> 00:55:20,520
Speaker 3: something's backwards here.

995
00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:23,719
Speaker 1: So huh, all right, everybody, that's going to have to

996
00:55:23,760 --> 00:55:26,480
Speaker 1: be side A and you're gonna have to flip it

997
00:55:26,520 --> 00:55:31,279
Speaker 1: over for side B. We ended up reaching the point

998
00:55:31,280 --> 00:55:32,879
Speaker 1: where we're going to have to cut this one in half,

999
00:55:32,880 --> 00:55:34,960
Speaker 1: but we'll be back in the next episode of Stuff

1000
00:55:34,960 --> 00:55:37,040
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind. Seth Will and I will continue

1001
00:55:37,040 --> 00:55:41,160
Speaker 1: this discussion and we'll get more into physical media where

1002
00:55:41,400 --> 00:55:44,840
Speaker 1: we'll start talking about well, essentially enter the labyrinth of

1003
00:55:44,920 --> 00:55:48,200
Speaker 1: Vinyl records. In the meantime, I'll just remind everybody that

1004
00:55:48,239 --> 00:55:50,319
Speaker 1: core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind published on

1005
00:55:50,400 --> 00:55:52,359
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind

1006
00:55:52,360 --> 00:55:56,120
Speaker 1: podcast feed Mondays, we do listener mail. Wednesdays we do

1007
00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:58,680
Speaker 1: a short form artifactor Monster Effect, and on Fridays we

1008
00:55:58,719 --> 00:56:01,279
Speaker 1: do Weird House Cinema our time to set aside most

1009
00:56:01,320 --> 00:56:04,920
Speaker 1: series concerns and just talk about a weird film. By

1010
00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:07,319
Speaker 1: the time you're listening to this, I think Joe is

1011
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:10,759
Speaker 1: actually back, So uh, we should be welcoming Joe back

1012
00:56:10,800 --> 00:56:13,880
Speaker 1: on some episodes in the very near future. But we

1013
00:56:13,960 --> 00:56:17,759
Speaker 1: recorded these episodes ahead of time. And as always, thanks

1014
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:20,239
Speaker 1: to Seth Nichols Johnson for not only co hosting but

1015
00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:22,120
Speaker 1: of course producing Stuff to Blow Your Mind. And if

1016
00:56:22,120 --> 00:56:23,799
Speaker 1: you want to reach out to any of us, if

1017
00:56:23,840 --> 00:56:26,280
Speaker 1: you have feedback on this episode, you have thoughts about

1018
00:56:26,280 --> 00:56:29,400
Speaker 1: reversed music and so forth. Well, you can email us

1019
00:56:29,440 --> 00:56:35,920
Speaker 1: at contact. It's Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com.

1020
00:56:39,480 --> 00:56:42,400
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1021
00:56:42,480 --> 00:56:45,280
Speaker 2: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1022
00:56:45,440 --> 00:57:11,280
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.

1023
00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:03,560
Speaker 1: Sat there at the time.

1024
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:05,000
Speaker 3: The farm part