jkk@aiai.ed.ac.uk (John Kingston) (11/09/90)
(There's some personal experience at the end of this. People who dislike
what they call "theorising" should skip the first 4 paragraphs.
To summarise the whole article: you should worry about burning your records
with forward unmasked unsavoury messages before worrying about backward
masking!)
I went to a seminar on "Christianity and Rock Music" at Spring Harvest in
1989. The speaker was Steve Chalke, a Baptist minister ( who is responsible
for the "Christmas Cracker" project in the UK, which aims to get young
people to open charity restaurants at Christmas, with advertising for the
needs of the Third World and the slogan "Eat Less, Pay More". End of
digression).
Steve's first point was that there is a lot of exaggeration amongst
Christians about the amount of backward masking on records, based on
ignorance. While backward masking *probably* does happen (see Richard
O'Keefe's comment about how easy it is to misinterpret song lyrics), many
bands are claimed to use backward masking just because a "reliable friend"
said they did. Steve took Queen as a case in point; he knew a girl who had
destroyed all her Queen albums because she'd heard they used backward
masking. Steve used to be a sound engineer, so he actually had the
equipment to listen to records backwards. He listened to all the Queen
tracks indicated as suspect by a certain preacher, and heard nothing. When
challenged, the preacher replied something about "the messages are speeded
up 40 times". This is ridiculous; for one thing, the loss of quality in 40
copyings would ruin the sound (says Steve); for another, a human voice
speeded up 40 times has the frequency of a radio wave, which is impossible
to put down on vinyl.
Steve also touched on the argument that "rock music is of the Devil
because it is based on occult African tribal music". Rock music has its
roots in the gospel music (sometimes called "black gospel") made popular
by African slaves and their descendants, which in turn is derived from (or
at least similar to) tribal music. So, if rock music is of the Devil
because of its roots, so is "O Happy Day", "This is my story, this is my
song", and all other gospel music.
Steve's conclusion was similar to another point made by Richard O'Keefe:
he is much more concerned about some of the words which come into our
living rooms sung forwards rather than backwards. Attitudes to pre-marital
and extra-marital sex are good examples (thank you Richard): George Michael
might be such a nice young man that even Steve Chalke's mum likes him,
but a song entitled "I want your sex" is a direct attack on Christian morals.
Personal experience: I used to listen to a lot of heavy rock/heavy metal. I
was a Christian at the time - I just happened to like that style of music.
Various debates on the merits of listening to such music as a Christian
brought out the usual arguments: "the band claim the words don't mean
anything, they just use the voice as another instrument"; "the band don't
practise Satanism, or even sing about it very much, it's just their image".
However, you usually sing the last song you heard before leaving the house
all day, and when I caught myself singing "I'm on a highway to hell", I
decided something was wrong.
On analysis, a lot of heavy rock songs have POWER as their major theme. These
divide (broadly speaking) into three categories: fast cars & machines;
power over women; and the power of evil being greater than the power of
good. There are other songs which have the same themes as other rock music
(lost romance, can't get romance, etc :-)), and some which mean nothing very
much. I quickly decided that listening to songs on the themes of power over
women and the power of evil was not in line with the Bible's command
to "fill your mind with what is pure and holy and right and honourable"
(Philippians 4.8) and so I cleared out some of my collection, including
some which I liked (musically) and listened to a lot. I destroyed most of
them - if they have a bad influence on me, what's the use of giving or
selling them to someone else?
Nowadays, I have little heavy rock left in my collection, and what I do
have I don't listen to much. The rationale is:
1/ Why give any money to bands who promote ideas you strongly disagree
with, even if they claim not to believe or practise these ideas?
2/ While some heavy rock music isn't particularly wrong, it isn't
particularly right either. I listen to a lot more praise and worship music
these days - the musical quality is sometimes poorer than my rock
collection, but the benefits of obeying the command to "fill your mind with
what is pure etc" outweigh that.
--
* I fear for the freedom fighter who chose the bloody road *
* Who tried to harness evil to try to lift an evil load *
* And I understand the righteous wrath that drove him to what he's done *
* But forgiveness lies in nail-scarred hands, not in the hand with a gun *
-- Garth Hewitt, **Road To Freedom**
John Kingston: E-mail jkk@uk.ac.ed.aiai, phone 031-225 4464 ext. 229
Arpanet: J.Kingston%uk.ac.ed@nfsnet-relay.ac.uk TELEX: 727442 UNIVED G
John Kingston, AI Applications Institute, University of Edinburgh,
80 South Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1HN, Scotland
E-mail jkk@uk.ac.ed.aiai, phone 031-225 4464 ext. 229 FAX: 031 226 2730
Arpanet: J.Kingston%uk.ac.ed@nfsnet-relay.ac.uk TELEX: 727442 UNIVED G