I was going to link this with a joke, but I couldn’t think of anything funnier than the actual truth. DJ Lobsterdust mashes up Pastor Gary Greenwald, with the forward version of Another One Bites The Dust, and Midfield General’s Devil in Sports Casual.
Simon Singh and backwards Led Zepplin.
How come these Christian anti-rockers never seem to get around to mentioning Jim Morrison of the Doors? What with all the weird lyrics, sex, drugs, and his actual participation in NeoPagan ceremonies (most famously a 1970 “handfasting” with Patricia Kennealy.) You’d think he’d be a natural target for those guys.
But “DOOR” spelled backwards is … “ROOD”! (For that matter, “Led Zeppelin” spelled backwards is almost “Nipplez Deal,” but that, they’d certainly object to.
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Also, there are Christian messages in rock and roll. Get out a map and trace the route suggested in the first verse of Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” and see what shape you get!
I am a practicing skeptic and don’t go in for all the rock = satan crap (it may possibly = stupid but YMMV) but I do recall the rage years ago about rock music causing suicides, backward masking (horrors!) and satanic messages. 99% of it was pure hysterical bunk but some folks did get a kick out of including some tidbits for the nitwits to savor. I recall one from Black Oak Arkansas (not sure of the song. maybe ‘When Electricity Came To Arkansas?’) where Jim Dandy Mangrum clearly says over and over “Nay-Tasssss” which rendered backwardly is a rather overt and creepy “SSSSSatan!.” Nice job, Jimmy! I’m sure Mom was proud of that one.
Wouldn’t Naytassss sound like Sat-TANE?
Here’s an excerpt, with commentary, of what Poundstone said in Big Secrets on the matter. It provides a number of examples, including two from Black Oak Arkansas: “When Electricity Came to Arkansas” and “Lord Have Mercy On My Soul”. He didn’t find intentional back masking in either song.
If anyone wants to test this stuff on their own, Audacity can certainly handle the process of reversing arbitrary sections of audio.
I have an interview with Styx from 1977 where the interviewer asks the band about the accusations of backwards messages on their albums. Their reply? We have never put any backwards messages on our albums, but we have put a lot of forward messages on them.