[alt.rock-n-roll] A REAL guide to backmasking

michael@radio.astro.utoronto.ca (Michael Bietenholz) (01/20/90)

Oooh yes. I love Satin, too.  I even like velveteen.  Not to mention
SEYNETary napkins.

phrack@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Buck Dharma @ Club Ninja) (01/20/90)

Working for a commercial radio station and doing much production work, I feel
as though I am qualified to give the real low down on this stuff.

First of all BACKMASKING is a term that implys that a message was pre-recorded
and played in reverse into the normaly direction music& lyrics that are being
layed down on a track. You CAN tell, generally, when this is being done
becuase you can hear the tape being played backwards when listening to the
music in the normaly dirction.

Some songs that have this are:
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Pink Floyd - The Wall - Good Bye Blue Sky
Take your reel-to-reel play it backwards, slow it down a bit and eliminate
the right channel and you will clearly hear:

"Congratulations you have discovered the secret message. Please send your
answer to old pink care of the funny farm, Charlesfort.

Charlesfort was a man in England who collected odd pieces of information out
of newspapers and books. Thinks like, baby cows falling from the sky, and
UFO's and the like. He was in the process of trying to try and make some sense
off all this "madness." In fact there is a Fortian society that is deticated to
his venture. This Charlesfort character has been dead for quite a long while so
I really can't elaborate. Anyway the referance about "old pink" at the funny
farm is probably a referance to Syd Barret to apperently spent some time
at one.

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Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind -  Still Life
Before the song starts you will hear somthing odd sounding.
Played backewards says, in a Hatian accent:

"Fuck you", said the thing with three bumps. Don't meddle with things you
don't understand. (belch!)
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Blue Oyster Cult - Mirrors - Your not the one I'm looking for
In the middle of the song you will hear a tape being rewound.
Played backwards and slowed down DRAMATICALLY you will hear the Lord's
Prayer. There is somehing similar done in a Cheap Trick song.
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Styx - Kilroy Was Here - Heavy Metal Poisening
At the begging of the song you will hear some bull shit.
Played backwards you will hear:

"Annuit Coeptis Novus Ordo Seclorum" Which is latin for something to the
effect of "God has looked favorably on what we had done." A literal
interrprition is not possible here. Who knows exacly why that 
is there, but as an interresting side note. Many of our founding fathers were
free masons and into the occult.
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Ozzy Osbourn - No Rest for the Wicked  - Bloodbath in Paradise
You will hear some bullshit at the beginnig of the song.
Played backwards it very clearly says:

"You mother sells whelks in Schoal"
Gee how evil of him. A whelk is a sea crustacia for those who do not know.
Schoal (is a town is in England, I don't remember if its exactly Schoal or
not, it's been a while since I heard it.)
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The Waitresses- (I don't remember right off hand, but this one is my favorite!

"People who look for backwards messages in pop songs are stupid. So Nya, Nya,
the Waitresses!"
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There are more I know of but don't care to type them out.

Now, the other stuff that has been mentioned like the stuff in Led Zeppelin
songs, is NOT back masking. The deal is with this stuff these religeous
asshloles claim that someone sat down with the intent to make a song with
lyrics that made sense in both the forward and reverse direction. QUITE a
difficult task, I might add. The Queen message that was mentioned I have heard
MANY interpritations of that. "It's fun to smoke..","You're supposed to
smoke..", blah, blah, blah. Even the right wing preachers cant even agree on
it.  For a blast try playing Wierd Al's song, "Another One Rides the Bus" in
reverse. What I'm gettin at is that this is just what the english language
sounds like in reverse. If you say "Ten, Yes." into a mic and play it in
reverse over a real-to-real you will hear somehting that sounds like "Satin."
On a Jim Neigbors album, I found something that appeard to sound vaguely like,
"I love Satin." Even Gomer can't even resist the devil's influence I suppose.

that's it for now....