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* Title: Music Played Backward
* Date occurred: Early May of 1986
* Date written: May 14, 1986
* Date edited and prepared for the web: May 6, 2003
* Written by: Joseph T. Arendt
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About a week ago, I decided to take a break during the evening from working on a large and infuriatingly complicated computer program for one of my university courses. I felt the need to do something else for a while to relax. I had seen signs posted around the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus that there was a presentation that evening that showed how the Devil puts evil messages on rock-and-roll albums that can be heard when the records are played backward. While I certainly do not believe in this, these postings were not the first time I had encountered this idea.
Back when I was still at University of Wisconsin-Platteville before transferring up here, some students approached me in my dorm room. I knew they were very religious because they had already tried multiple times to convert me to their flavor of religion, but without success. They also knew that I was studying to be an electrical engineer and doing well. They believed that rock-and-roll albums contain Satanic messages when played backward. To check this out, they put a record album on a turntable with the motor off. They spun the record backward with a finger. The results had not been satisfactory, as they could not turn the record at a steady pace. Therefore, one of them had recorded a song with a suspected backward message onto a cassette tape. He had then laboriously removed the screws from the cassette. He undid the tape. He switched the reels, then rethreaded the tape through the rollers and slots. Yet, when they had eagerly listened to the tape, all they had heard was a quiet hissing noise! They wondered what had gone wrong. Was there a physical explanation that I could give them or had the Devil done something to give a snake-like hiss at their meager efforts?
Although unkind of me, I could not resist laughing. What had happened was obvious. A cassette tape is designed to flip over so each side can be played. All they had done was flip over the tape inside its case. If a commercially recorded tape, the songs from the A side would be on the B side and vice versa. Since they had used a blank tape and put music on only one side, all they heard was a tape hiss when it was flipped. When I stopped laughing, I explained this to them.
I privately thought if an expendable tape player was sitting around, perhaps some way could be cobbled together...perhaps with judicious use of epoxy...to physically move the head so it read the wrong track. I did not tell them this idea, though, because I did not want to encourage them. Perhaps I missed a chance to come up with a salable product. I suspect one could find a product to do this if one searched hard enough.
So, a couple years had passed, and I was at a different university. Although I was certain the idea was silly, I decided to go because I was curious how it would be performed.
A large auditorium was nearly full. Some people looked old enough that I doubted they were students, but most of the crowed looked to be UW-Madison students.
As the presentation started, the main speaker claimed that music came from someplace spiritual. The effect he was talking about seemed to be that many musicians describe how they are suddenly inspired to write something. He had plenty of quotes from musicians who said that they were inspired with the words or tune for a song unexpectedly while flying in an airplane, taking a shower, or whatever. He then claimed that this inspiration could come from only two sources, either God or the Devil.
This struck me as a matter of personal belief, which I did not share. I thought the view he was giving meant interpreting all music as either completely good or completely evil. I had heard of the Muses providing artistic inspiration when I had studied Greek mythology, but never thought of attributing inspiration to solely God or the Devil before this talk.
After the claim of inspirational sources, he tried to show that many rock-and-roll songs contain what he considered evil messages when played normally. Heavily implied was that this showed which party provided the inspiration for these songs. With musicians like Ozzy Ozborne and Judas Priest producing records, he had plenty of material to support his argument. There were enough lyrics that he found offensive that there it seemed there was no need to bother playing anything backward to find more to complain about. Obviously, lyrics that infuriate people like this speaker must sell records because so many rock-and-roll songs are about premarital sex, drug use, intoxication, violence, and anti-social and criminal behavior.
He had a slide projector. On a large screen, he showed album covers that had images he found evil. However, the one he objected to the most, I liked. It showed a musician, possibly Jimi Hendrix, nailed to a telephone pole as if it were a cross. I found it artistic and interesting. The guy doing the presentation felt it profaned the cross.
Telling us about the lyrics of various songs and viewing the album covers took some time. I grew bored waiting to hear the music played backward. He finally got to that part. He used the slide projector to display the correct lyrics to a fragment of a song on a screen along with the word "Forward". After we had been given some time to read these, the segment of the song was played properly. It was easy to follow along.
After this, a new slide was shown that had the word "Backward" along with the evil message that was supposed to be heard. Thus, we got to read the words before the song itself was played backward. The song was then played backward not once, but three times.
After hearing this, do I think the Devil is putting backward messages on records? No, I do not! When the song was played backward the first time, I read the words on the screen and tried to follow with the sound. I was not successful. By the third playing, I would find myself forcing the printed words on the screen to try to fit with what I was hearing. I think having the words printed on the screen was too strong an influence for me to reliably tell whether I heard something or not. I strongly doubted that I would hear the indicated message if I couldn't see the suggestive words on the screen in front of me.
There was only one message I heard with clarity. The song was "Another One Bites the Dust." The message printed on the screen was "start to smoke marijuana." What I heard was "blah blah blah MARIJUNA."
I should add that I only have the presenter’s word that this was the song played backwards without any messing around with it. I never got the song and played it backward myself to see if I could duplicate the effect.
For another song, I forgot which one, the screen showed that I was supposed to hear the word “Satan,” but all I heard was “Satin.” That is a type of fabric, not the Devil.
Much of the backward music sounded to me like warbled nonsense. I felt this was a little like searching for images of animals and castles in the clouds that float by.
After the presentation was over, cards were handed out. On the front was a place for name, address, and phone number. Most in the audience filled these out, but I did not. I did not want to be contacted. I could see that a few others were also reluctant to fill out the cards. The speaker noticed this reluctance by a few people. The phrase "no obligation" was used to encourage more people to fill out the cards, but I still did not do so.
During the question-and-answer period after the formal presentation, a man asked what I considered a valid question about the manner of presentation being too suggestive.
The presenter replied, "That is an interesting question,... What is your name?"
It was done so it seemed natural that the presenter would need to know his name before continuing the answer, if only to be polite.
The questioner responded, "My name isn't important. Just answer the question, please!"
The presenter insisted, "What do you mean your name isn't important? I think it is."
This argument about the importance of names went on for a while without the questioner ever giving out his name. The audience acted like the presenter was scoring major points by showing every person’s name is important both to God and for self-esteem, which I considered irrelevant to the question. Finally, the presenter gave a brief answer to the question, although I did not find his answer convincing.
I did not give my name at all. However, as I left, I suddenly realized that I was still carrying around my backpack full of textbooks. On the back of it, in two-inch-high letters, is written "Joe Arendt." If I ever go to anything like this again, I am going to be sure to leave the backpack behind. More likely, I will never go to a presentation like this again. I strongly did not like being in that social environment.
THE END
If you want to talk to me, I can be reached at arendtj@att.net