Some of these are real, some aren't. The Queen one doesn't even sound like the words its suppossed to be, nor does the Britney track. Led Zep? I dunno. That's an awful lot of words that make a sentence to just be a coincidence. The Crowley connection makes it possible.

The Beatles? I have no doubt whatsoever that they did the whole "Paul is Dead" thing as a giant publicity gimmick (as well as an excuse to experiment with backwards masking). I think the "I shot John Lennon" bit from Double Fantasy is a bit of a stretch.

The Floyd one was VERY intentional on the part of the band. Waters and Gilmour thought the whole backward-masking thing was goofy, and found it hilarious that people were actually playing their records backwards. That message is essentially sarcastic.

Of course, we all know about the Prince backwards messages on "Darling Nikki", Baby I'm A Star", "Girl" etc. Again, very deliberate.

I have no idea if it was for real or not, but years ago (back when my parents were dragging me to fundamentalist churches) I heard a backwards message played from a Black Oak Arkansas live album. It had to be, hands down, the creepiest thing I've heard from these things. Backwards, it said "satan is god, satan is god, he is god, yes he is god!", then it was followed by all this evil sounding laughter. I think it probably was legit, because forwards it sounds like the guy's speaking gibberish, but you can make out what sounds like him saying "dog si natas".

Overall, I think 90% of the "messages" people hear in these songs are BS. Most of them BARELY sound like the words they are purported to be.


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[Edited 2/24/05 13:44pm]

Wasn't there a whole lot more of suppossed backwards messages in "Stairway"? Seems like I remember it being rumoured that the whole friggin's song had messages throuhout it.

blackguitaristz said:

So tell us what they are!!

JediMaster said:

Just the whole third verse. And one at the very end.

Can someone tell me what do the Prince messages say!

BlackCladLizard said:

He has some in his songs?! Really?!! I can't believe that! Hey, they should check out the links u posted up above. I've been hip to this since I was kid, but a lot of folks aren't. Seriously, I don't know how people that are into music never heard what is in "Stairway To Hell, oopps, I mean Heaven.

BlackCladLizard said:

U may be hip to this. Check out "Let's Go Crazy". The intro section where Prince says "There is something else...the afterworld" Play that line in reverse. Hint: He says what his sexual orientation USED to be and he speaks of "a girl named Stella".

BlackCladLizard said:

I cant belive no one checked out my links! Especially the second one! That one has a million people on it. Oh well.

blackguitaristz said:

As for that I just did it and all I could make out was "our drummer is gay" and something later on about a woman named "stella". Please elaborate if you can.

BlackCladLizard said:

Oh, I checked them out! I just hadn't commented yet because there's a shitload of info to absorb!

BlackCladLizard said:

Its been a while, but I'll tell you what I remember:

"Darling Nikki", towards the end of the song, says "Hello. How R U? I'm fine, 'cuz The Lord is coming soon. Coming, coming soon" followed by robotic laughter

"Girl" features a female's voice, run backwards throughout the song, basically reciting the lyrics to the song, but substituting "boy" for "girl".

"Baby, I'm A Star" has a backwards mask at the beginning and end of the song that says (and I'm paraphrasing here. Its been ages since I heard it) "Fuck them man! What the fuck do they know? Yeah man, what the fuck do they know? C'mon baby, let's go".

There's a backwards message played before "The Beautiful Ones" on Prince & The Revolution Live. I don't know what it says, but you can't miss it.

At the beginning of "However Much U Want", the duet P does on Mayte's Child Of The Sun CD, there is a backwards conversation between them. Something about Prince diggin' her set, and needing to give some love to the fans or some shit. I really don't remember, 'cuz it was kinda stupid.

The so-called reversal on "Let's Go Crazy" is, in my opinion, total BS. First off, all the other backwards messages he's ever done were engineered reversals, whereas this one would be phonetic. Its gibberish that some think says "I was gay until Stella" or "Our drummer is gay until Stella" or some such shit. Ultimately, its just backwards words that sorta make out some comment about being gay. Its a stretch, to say the least.

BlackCladLizard said:

Foward: There is something else...the afterworld. Reverse: When I was a faggot. There was a girl named Stella.

blackguitaristz said:

That's a little different than what I was told was supposed to be on there. I'll have to take a new listen to it. I still think its a phonetic accident. Whatchoothink?
[Edited 2/25/05 12:58pm]

blackguitaristz said:

The "I was gay untill Stella" is harder to hear, but it's right after "When I was a faggot". After that, you can tell something is being said as far as the words "gay" and "drummer", but "named Stella" is very clear. Nothing Prince does is unintentional.

blackguitaristz said:

This is true, but I'm still not entirely convinced on this one. If it was more intelligible, and didn't sound phonetic, I'd probably think P had deliberately done this.

Now, its highly likely that P is at least aware that his vocals sound like they are saying this, and left them alone just to jack with people! He does have awarped sense of humour!

The confusing element is, Prince programmed the Linn drums on "Let's Go Crazy", so the drummer could be himself.

JediMaster said:

Nah, I've had phonetic accident's occur in my music, which was very cool and quite creepy. BUT, with Prince's "when I was a faggot" and " a girl named Stella", "gay drummer", etc., it's TOO much there that's in the same theme. P knew that by placing the super obvious mask on Darling Nikki, folks would be checking elsewhere on the album and they would find this.

U hip to the mask in Madonna's "Like A Prayer"?

blackguitaristz said:

I do kow madonnas Like a Prayer satan thing. Its when she says "Life is a mystery" you play it backwards and it says oh satan something.

I was playing the Lets Go Crazy backwards but he was talkin too fast so I had to slow it down. I still couldnt get it to sound right. I did heat the word "gay", "stella" and "drummer". I do belive that he did do all his backwards things very intentionally. Can someone elaborate on wether he was a follower of Crowleys.

BlackCladLizard said:

It's never been admitted publicly, but you can totally tell P has checked Crowley out. The Golden Dawn alone tells me that P is hip to that.

blackguitaristz said:

Yeah, also on that same album, listen to the track "Act of Contrition". P is acting up on the guitar. It's a grip of backwards stuff on that. Same "oh, satan" shit that's on Like A Prayer "life is a mystery".

blackguitaristz said:

From what I understand. P has more of a second-genereation Crowley influence. The backwards-masking thing he got from Zepplin and The Beatles, who themselves got it from Crowley.

I know that "Dawn" stuff, sounds like Crowley too, but its thematically failry different. Prince's "Dawn" is connected to God, while Crowley's is one of Hedonism.

okaypimpn said:

I posted this a couple months ago, but of course, as usual, the search isn't working...

Neversin.

Aw pur-LEEEEASE!



This Backwards Messages stuff is mostly just BS.



There are a few isolated examples - The Beatles did it very deliberately and if you hear the relevant songs backwards, there is NO room for doubt. But, some of these examples sound nothing like what they are meant to be saying!


Another One Bites The Dust = It's fun to smoke marijuana / Decided to smoke marijuana ...As if! Practically every lyric in the history of music would sound vaguely like these words if you played it backwards. This is just a case of people wanting to find messages, so they find them where they don't really exist.

JediMaster said:

I just got the Dez Dickerson retrospective & the Prince produced song "Modernaire" has some backwards messages on it as well.

JediMaster said:

Yeah, P did get that from The Beatles and Zeppelin. I wrote a thread on Crowley awhile back, and I spoke on this. Yes.

blackguitaristz said:

Gotta link to that thread?

JediMaster said:

Nah, it was quite awhile back. Maybe Anxiety can pull it up.