Paean to Satan? I think not!

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
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Ok, hopefully this one hasnt been posted yet…

In regards to Cecil’s reply to the meaning of Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin (found here )one interpretaion he mentioned that when played backwards, it was a paean to Satan. To save you the research, here are the reversed lyrics as interpreted by several sites:

Oh here’s to my sweet Satan. The one whose little path would make me sad, whose power is Satan/(one site said fake, but I don’t think is sounds like fake). He’ll give you give you 666, there was a little toolshed where he made us suffer, sad Satan.

This backwards verse starts at “If there’s a bustle…” and ends at “…time to change the road your on.”

Anyway, my first objection is fairly nitt picky, but what the hell. A paean, is as Dictionary.com accurately defines, a song of joyful praise or exultation. Barring the first line, this verse does not portray Satan in any kind of joyful praise, especially the last sentence.

So if it isn’t Satanic praise, what is it? Well, I’ve been doing some research on it, and the best I have found can be found here, David John Oates, the founder of Reverse Speach Analysis’s, site. Basically, it summarizes the backwards verse as a song about Boleskine, Crowley’s house that Jimmy Page bought. Satan represents shadowy creatures that Crowley writes escaped the oratory facing the house, which would later wreck havoc among the townsfolk (toolshed may mean the oratory, as Boleskine was often called the toolhouse). The forward meaning of the song, along with some other allusions, may very well just be pointing towards the backwards meaning of the song. Such lines as “And you know words sometimes have two meanings” and “And if you listen very hard/The tune will come to you at last.” seem obvious clues that theres something under the surface of the song.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think that it would be almost impossible for Jimmy Page to purposely write a song (in one afternoon no less) that when played backwards continues the story of the forward version. Partially I feel that it is his subconcious talking, and I’ve also heard rumors that in studio they changed a few words so that it would sound right and that may very well be the case.

One more interesting thought, the very very end of the song played backwards yields “Play backwards, hear words sung.” The chance of this being intentionally backmasked is extemely low considering its just a repeat of the title of the song elongated (and who would guess the words Stairway to Heaven would reverse to play backwards hear words sung…)

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Does dictionary.com have an entry for “poetic license”?

For the sake of argument, does any part of the song really make that much sense? Frankly, I’d be willing to buy that “Stairway to Heaven” was chosen as the title precisely because it backmasks like that.

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I was at an anti-rock/back-masking seminar in the early 1980s & I realized that it really helped to hear this stuff if you were in a crowd with dim lighting & told in advance what you were going to hear.

That said, near the same time, we had a tape-player malfunction at home in which you could record on one side & hear it backwards on the other side- so of course on went Stairway to Heaven & Revolution No. 9 & by God, there does seem to be backwards stuff there (much of in in Rev 9 being obviously deliberate but some not).

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This is meaningful. In short, it means that you can get all sorts of junk out of random syllables, especially if you are expecting to hear something already.

The consensus is that backmasking is pretty much bunk in most cases. Sometimes bands deliberately insert backwards content, sometimes content can be meaningful in both directions, but most of the time it’s just people in a dark room who expect to hear something specific.

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poetic license
n.
The liberty taken by an artist or a writer in deviating from conventional form or fact to achieve a desired effect.

Sorry, couldnt resist…

Yes, it is possible Stairway to Heaven was chosen because of its backwards message, but then they’d have to right the whole If there’s a bustle verse with the intent of it being played backwards, no easy task if given monthes, and they did it in an afternoon.

As for hearing what your told to hear, I couldn’t agree more. When hearing backmasking, it always helps to be given lyrics. I personally saw the lyrics while listening backwards, so I cannot attest to blindly hearing it. However, I have given many of my friends a link of the backwards Stairway without lyrics, and they all claim they hear many words, such as 666, Satan several times, and suffer. Given the lyrics only helped them fill in some of their blanks (this is confirmed by many of the comments given on the page that contains the backwards song.)

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Here’s a sporting propositiion for the readers with spare time.

Play a number of randomly selcted songs backward, and ask a person who believes in such things to identify the satanic messages.

Then post the results on the internet and see how many people propagate the story.

Please don’t say I put you up to it.