"Stairway to Heaven" played in reverse (backwards masking)

[radhead]

I have heard for years that the so-called satanic messages in "Stairway to Heaven" were a hoax. Well, you can't really call them a hoax. You can either be open to the possibility, or be skeptical. But there was no engineered "joke" behind the recording of this masterpiece of rock.

Many hard rock groups in the seventies starting doing their own backwards messages. These really were jokes. They were messages recorded onto tape, then inserted backwards onto the final song, so that if you had a turntable you could turn it backwards with your hand to hear the message.

That's not what happened with Stairway. When the band wrote and recorded the song, it all happened very quickly. Robert Plant started writing the words after hearing Jimmy Page playing around with the opening chords. Plant barely understood the meaning. But with statements like, "There are two roads you can go by, but in the long run there's still time to change the road you're on," well, at least to me, there could have been an Otherworldly inspiration behind it.

There is a practice in satanism about speaking in reverse. The song when played in reverse, where the vocals mix with the sounds of all the instruments, seems to create new messages. A recent audience presented with this reverse recording unanimously claimed to hear the messages.

Do you think it's possible that a message from the spirit realms made it's way into the recording?

Personally, I don't know. But I think it's possible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCwo4pdUZLg

 

[crishmael]

I have trouble believing that a message from the spirit realms would not only make its way onto a record, but also make its way on backwards to only be heard by those who can endure listening to a record played backwards. If the spirit realms have something to say they should just put it out openly because people have enough trouble understanding things that are spoken plainly.

And I never underestimate the human minds desire to make gibberish sensible so I suspect any hidden messages I or anyone else thinks they're picking up.

 

[radhead]

Here is a clip showing the part in question.

YouTube - The Truth about Stairway to Heaven backwards

 

[radhead]

I have trouble believing that a message from the spirit realms would not only make its way onto a record, but also make its way on backwards to only be heard by those who can endure listening to a record played backwards. If the spirit realms have something to say they should just put it out openly because people have enough trouble understanding things that are spoken plainly.

And I never underestimate the human minds desire to make gibberish sensible so I suspect any hidden messages I or anyone else thinks they're picking up.

Any attempts to spread messages from the other side are usually feeble and ineffective. It doesn't mean it can't happen.

I saw a guy on Larry King Live who believed that EVERYTHING people say has a subliminal reverse message. He would say everything in choppy fragmented phrase, I suppose to avoid having his "subconscious" heard by others.

Some say it's like a "subliminal" technique (like cinema owners used to do to sell popcorn.) But I don't really believe in the effectiveness of subliminal messages. You can see all kinds of things in a cloud formation. It doesn't mean that it will have an effect on you.

 

[radhead]

Jimmy Page was deeply interested in the occult. He owned the house where famous satanist Aleister Crowley once lived. He also owned an occult bookstore and publishing company. In the film Song Remains the Same you can see him (repeatedly) performing a gesture believed to summon Lucifer himself. Some believe that his involvement somehow "cursed" the band and led to the death of Robert Plant's firstborn son, as well as the death of drummer John Bonham.

Two Christians I know who remember that time also believe that.

 

[HotRhymez]

I don't think they did it intentionally, nor do I think there are "spirits" that made their way into the record. You hear what you want to hear. If you listen to a song backwards thinking "I'm gonna hear something Satanic" then you're probably gonna hear something that sounds Satanic to you.

Plus, people must be really bored if they spend all day listening to their music backwards looking for weird stuff, lol

 

[NoodlesNoodlesNoodles]

Because we all know how satanic tool sheds are.

 

[CrusaderKing]

I don't think they did it intentionally, nor do I think there are "spirits" that made their way into the record. You hear what you want to hear. If you listen to a song backwards thinking "I'm gonna hear something Satanic" then you're probably gonna hear something that sounds Satanic to you.

This.

These claims are decades old and extremely tired. It's bad enough that Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne were put on trial for allegedly getting people to kill themselves through subliminal messages. Would getting their fans to do such a thing would really help them continue to sell records? Not at all. In short, it's nonsense.

 

[BranwenUerchLlyr]

Pareidolia.

 

[Stravinsk]

Pareidolia.

Yep. Without the written out "translation" I would never come to "hear" all those words in that order in the backwards part. In fact, not having memorised the backwards "translation" I listened to it while looking away from the screen and couldn't identify most of the words through audio only.

 

[Tink]

My ex husband actually owns a vinyl copy of this and we were unable to get the results others claim to have heard when reversing the record by hand.

False.

 

[Edwards1984]

Here is a clip showing the part in question.

YouTube - The Truth about Stairway to Heaven backwards

OK, honestly, I listened to this with my eyes closed...and didn't hear ANYTHING they said was supposedly being said in the backwards message. I wasn't too convinced about the supposed hidden Satanic messages.

I think most of these supposed backwards Satanic messages are just garbled nonsense people assume sounds like something else. I recall watching a YouTube video where some guy was playing Britney Spears song backwards, and what they sounded like was:

"foihfioahifoshfiaspojfposajfopsajfopsaf..."

Then he would come on and say:

"See! That was clearly saying 'Sell your children into the slavery of the dark one!'"

That backward messages exist intentionally I know (Roger Waters put one in "What Shall We Do?" in The Wall album), but the Satanic messages are, for the most part, simply hoaxes. I think the biggest problem with them is Satan is causing us to laugh at the hidden of evil spiritual forces so that eventually no one thinks they exist at all.

 

[Stravinsk]

YouTube - Iron Maiden Backmasking

Intentional backmasking as a reaction to various religious figures claiming Maiden was a satanic band.

 

[NoodlesNoodlesNoodles]

YouTube - Weird Al's "Nature Trail To Hell" In Reverse

 

[radhead]

This.

These claims are decades old and extremely tired. It's bad enough that Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne were put on trial for allegedly getting people to kill themselves through subliminal messages. Would getting their fans to do such a thing would really help them continue to sell records? Not at all. In short, it's nonsense.

Fine, but you know that has absolutely nothing to do with this.

 

[Singermom]

1) Robert Plant of Led Zepplin has gone on record (no pun intended) many, many times, saying that there is NO - repeat NO - "backmasking" in "Stairway to Heaven".

2) The best bit of backmasking I've ever heard was at the end of the last song on side 1 of Prince's "Purple Rain" (yes, I'm talking vinyl). Prince purposely added some strange-sounding recording that, when played backwards, came out as (and this is from memory, so the words may not be exact): "Hello, how are you? I am fine because the Lord is coming! HA HA HA HA HA..."

 

[radhead]

Yep. Without the written out "translation" I would never come to "hear" all those words in that order in the backwards part. In fact, not having memorised the backwards "translation" I listened to it while looking away from the screen and couldn't identify most of the words through audio only.

I couldn't understand many of the real lyrics in forward play. I would expect the backwards ones to be even less clear.

 

[radhead]

1) Robert Plant of Led Zepplin has gone on record (no pun intended) many, many times, saying that there is NO - repeat NO - "backmasking" in "Stairway to Heaven".

I agree. But that's not the issue. No one has ever said (as far as I know) that the band did it intentionally.

 

[radhead]

I knew a lady who said her niece used to scream whenever this song came on. I know whenever I used to hear it on the radio when I was younger, it scared me. Sometimes I couldn't even listen to it.

Not to say it has anything to do with backwards messages, but it's possible that there is a dark element to the song, and that those who are young are more in tune with that type of thing. More sensitive to evil spirits. Until we become jaded to everything. Just a theory.

 

[Singermom]

I knew a lady who said her niece used to scream whenever this song came on. I know whenever I used to hear it on the radio when I was younger, it scared me. Sometimes I couldn't even listen to it.

Not to say it has anything to do with backwards messages, but it's possible that there is a dark element to the song, and that those who are young are more in tune with that type of thing. More sensitive to evil spirits. Until we become jaded to everything. Just a theory.

Sorry to go off topic, but I can't believe that there is someone else who is actually afraid of a song! Believe it or not, to this day, "Green Tambourine" by the Lemon Pipers gives me the screaming horrors...and I am NOT joking or being sarcastic.