nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan) (03/28/85)
> From: Lippard@his-phoenix-multics.arpa (James J. Lippard) > Creating things like this would probably be no more difficult > than creating palindromes (which is pretty hard, the farthest > I've ever gotten is "tear gas is a great"). I'm not incredibly impressed with the fact that "number nine" backwards sounds like "turn me on dead man", because neither "number nine" nor "turn me on dead man" seem to have a whole lot of meaning. The phenomenon was probably discovered accidentally by the Beatles while listening to tapes backwards. Maybe they were listening to tapes of converstaions backwards and suddenly heard the words "number nine" and decided to use it on their album. I'm pretty convinced, though, that the phenomenon was used intentionally in "Revolution 9". There is LOTS of backwards stuff in "Revolution 9" -- there is at least backwards piano music and backwards baby cries. It seems quite unlikely that, considering all the backwards stuff in it, they wouldn't have listened to it backwards and noticed that "number nine" backwards still sounds sort of like forward speech. > I'm inclined to believe that most of this stuff is > unintentional, though, and that people are just imposing their > own meaning on it. Certainly some things of this nature are unintentional and just as certainly, some are intentional. People who say, "Rubish! No one ever puts backward messages on their albums!" are being just as dimwitted as those who find secret messages in everything. The two-way message on Kate Bush's song "Leave It Open" is inarguably intentional, as I will explain soon, and much more impressive. > From: marno@ihuxm.UUCP (Marilyn Ashley) >> I'm inclined to believe that most of this stuff is >> unintentional, though, and that people are just imposing >> their own meaning on it. > I certainly have to agree. When I read the book "Helter Skelter" the > author, Vince Bugliosi, insisted that Revolution 9 carried the phrase > "block that nixon" in reference to the political situation in America. > After all these years, it still sounds like "block that kick" to me. > I'll bet the Beatles (and other groups) must have had agood laugh at > some of the interpretations made on their music. Just because a lot of people make rediculous claims, doesn't mean that all claims are unreasonable. The claim that "block that kick" is really "block that Nixon" seems ludicrous to me (unless I'm not listening at the right place). It sounds to me clearly and plainly without a doubt like "block that kick". On the other hand, to claim that the Beatles NEVER put any death of Paul clues on their records is just as ludicrous. There is at least one. Ever listen to the song "Glass Onion"? Some of the lyrics are I told you about the Walrus and me, man You know that we're as close as can be, man Well here's another clue for you all: The Walrus was Paul Please don't tell me these lyrics are only my imagination. Other things are of a much more questionable nature. Does O.P.D. on Paul's arm on "Sgt. Pepper's" really stand for "officially pronounced dead"? Etc.? Anyone who would claim that these things are definitely intentional or definitely unintentional is probably being thick-headed. > From: jcjeff@ihlpg.UUCP (jeffreys) > There ACTUALLY seems to be MORE idiots who play records backwards!!! > What kind of jerk plays records backwards anyway ?????? > If that isn't STUPID enough, they THEN try to determine some > *Hidden Meaning* or *phrase* out of the garbage they hear!!!!! > ..........Time to GROW-UP kiddies. Your intelligent, witty, and thoughtful comments on the subject matter are greatly appreciated. It's nice to know that the net is filled with such open-minded, experienced people in all fields of knowledge. I now realize that all the people I know who play with things like palindromes and ambigrams are just totally brain-damaged. I wish you success in your destiny to become a telephone sanitizer. Which brings me to what I really want to talk about. The two-way message on Kate Bush's song "Leave It Open" is certainly not imaginary and is completely intentional. At the end of the song a voice comes in singing "We let the weirdness in!" If you play this backwards, the voice sings "And they said they wouldn't let me in." This to me is much more impressive than the thing on "Revolution 9" because the two messages are quite meaningful and very appropriate. Not only that, but the backwards message has the opposite meaning of the forwards message. I think that it would be incredibly difficult to design this sort of thing in the same way one does a anigram because you can't play around with it easily on paper unless you know a lot about phonology and even then, the field of kowledge of how sounds combine to make words is not very well understood yet. Also, the message on "Leave It Open" sounds very processed. It has backwards sounding edges in it both forwards and backwards. I don't know a whole lot about the Fairlight CMI synthesizer, but I do know that it's Kate Bush's main instrument these days and allows you to sample sounds with a microphone and then play them back at any pitch. [I just saw a video tape of a TV show on the making of Peter Gabriel's fourth album. It shows him going to a junk yard to tape sounds of TVs being smashed and wind blowing through pipes and then shows him feeding these sounds into his Fairlight and fiddling around with them. It was really neat!] Does anybody know anything about these things? Do they allow you to interpolate between two sounds? Could you feed in a guitar sound and a car door slamming sound and ask it to create a new sound that sounds like a cross between the two? It couldn't do this by just adding together the sounds, because then you just get a sound that sounds like a guitar playing while a car door is slamming. You would get two voices rather than just one that sounds like a cross between the two. If it can do this sort of thing, maybe the message was created by putting the sound of Kate singing "We let the weirdness in" and a backwards recording of her singing "And they said they won't let me in" and asking it to combine the two into one voice. Maybe after all this, it would still sound comprehensible in either direction. Anyone think this is reasonable or know otherwise? There is lots of evidence that this two-way message was intentional. First of all, it sounds very convincing! The meanining of the message forwards perfectly summerizes Kate Bush's attitude towards life, and the fact that the message backwards has the reverse meaning seems quite unaccidental. Furthermore, Kate Bush herself has claimed that she likes to put hidden things in her albums to reward those who who listen to it really closely. Another example of this is her KT logo, which appears somewhere on all of her albums, but sometimes in very hard to find places. For example, on "Never for Ever", the KT logo appears carved into the stem of the bleeding rose. And on "The Dreaming" it appears hidden in the pattern of Kate's shirt. This is a quote from Kate Bush which appeared in "Break-Through" which reprinted it from the "The Kate Bush Club" (Kate's own newsletter): Leave It Open ------------- Like cups we are filled up and emptied with feelings, emotions -- vessels breathing in, breathing out. This song is about being open and shut to stimulus at the right times. Often we have closed minds and open mouths [jcjeff, pay attention! -- Doug] when perhaps we should have open minds and shut mouths. ... Every person who came into the studio was given the "end backing-vocals test" to guess what is being sung at the end of the song. "How many words is it?" "Five" "Does it begin with a 'W'?" It is very difficult to guess, but it can be done especially when you know what the song is about. I would love to know your answers. -Kate Bush Why is Kate pointing out this specific part of the song? Could it be that she is giving us a hint that she has done a neat hack here? "With my ego in my gut My babbling mouth would wash it up," Doug Alan mit-eddie!nessus Nessus@MIT-MC
Benjamin%PCO@CISL-SERVICE-MULTICS.ARPA (Paul Benjamin) (03/29/85)
> Does O.P.D. on Paul's arm on "Sgt. Pepper's" really stand for > "officially pronounced dead"? The Beatles themselves laid that one to rest. It's really O.P.P. (Ontario Provincial Police). They picked it up on a Canadian tour or somebody sent it to them or something and they decided it'd look spiffy on a uniform.
nessus@MIT-EDDIE.ARPA (Doug Alan) (03/30/85)
> The Beatles themselves laid that one to rest. It's really > O.P.P. (Ontario Provincial Police). They picked it up on a > Canadian tour or somebody sent it to them or something and they > decided it'd look spiffy on a uniform. The third letter doesn't look like any "P" to me. But I have heard some say that it stands for "Ontario Police Department". In any case, just because The Beatles said that they weren't hinting at the "death" of Paul, doesn't mean they weren't. John Lennon also maintained that "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" doesn't stand for L.S.D. I'm not convinced either way. "Wide eyes would clean and dust Things that decay, things that rust (But now I've started leraning how) I keep them shut I keep them shut" Doug Alan mit-eddie!nessus Nessus@MIT-MC
lborsato@watdcsu.UUCP (L. Borsato - DCSU) (04/02/85)
> > The Beatles themselves laid that one to rest. It's really > > O.P.P. (Ontario Provincial Police). They picked it up on a > > Canadian tour or somebody sent it to them or something and they > > decided it'd look spiffy on a uniform. > > The third letter doesn't look like any "P" to me. But I have heard some > say that it stands for "Ontario Police Department". In any case, just > because The Beatles said that they weren't hinting at the "death" of > Paul, doesn't mean they weren't. John Lennon also maintained that "Lucy > in the Sky with Diamonds" doesn't stand for L.S.D. As someone who has lived in Ontario for much of his life, and has seen many too many OPP officers, I can assure you that that crest on Paul's shoulder does indeed read 'OPP' and stands for Ontario Provincial Police. This is probably because Ontario is a province and that is our police department (much like the State Troopers in the U.S.). -- A memo from the desk of : Larry W. Borsato Just one step away from total mental collapse ... but fine otherwise. {decvax|utzoo|ihnp4|allegra|clyde}!watmath!watdcsu!lborsato