Backmasking Satan

Backmasking: Satan, Marijuana and Cheez Whiz

By: Melanie Glover

In place of Led Zeppelin's alleged satanic lyrics and Pink Floyd's soundtrack to the Wizard of Oz, this generation has found its own fascination with supposed hidden messages in more recent music. Now we have Britney Spears telling us, backwards, in "�..Baby One More Time": "Sleep with me; I'm not too young."

While the validity of these hidden messages varies, old and new, have no logical evidence in most cases, thousands of websites and media publications contain suggestions of subliminal messages in songs and films.

Backmasking - playing songs backward to find new "secret" lyrics - became popular in the 1970s when DJ Russell Gibb started the rumor that Paul McCartney had died after claiming that Beatles song "I'm So Tired" off The White Album played backward contained the hidden message "Paul is a dead man. Miss him, miss him, miss him."

Decades later, backmasking is still a topic popular on the Web and among music fans.

"It's music meets conspiracy theory," said Jeff Milner (of jeffmilner.com).

---

Jeff Milner's backmasking page

---