Backmasking vs Reverse Speech

             The use of backmasking and reverse speech in music has been openly criticized and controversial since its start. Through listening to a song played in reverse rather than forward, as all songs are intended, people have found secret “messages” and references, be them intentional or not. Occasionally, one will hear a song where forwards it only sounds like gibberish yet in reverse the phrases make complete sense. This is intentional backmasking. When the words make sense going forwards, but are then reversed and still seem to make out coherent phrases, this is reverse speech, and it is hard to tell whether this is always intentional or merely an odd coincidence. Oftentimes, these messages are referencing satanic praise and have vulgar meaning, so this adds to the controversy of the whole situation. As this reversal of music became more popular, more and more of these backmasked and intended messages were heard, usually, it seems, parodying the ideas of those who abhorred the “Devil’s music.”         

            Backmasking grew to be more and more prevalent in music when people began to find their own examples, and clearly many of the ones created after all of the dissention regarding this backwards music were flat-out mockery, or very specifically placed in order to be found. Electric Light Orchestra was accused of referencing Satan on their song Eldorado, so later they added messages to their songs as a way of creating a joke. In the reversal of the song “Fire On High” the words say “The music is reversible, but time is not. Turn back! Turn back!” and their album appropriately titled Secret Messages has one point where it says “You’re playing me backwards.” These examples clearly display the backmasking used in the songs. Another blatant demonstration of backmasking can be seen in Choking Victim’s song “Hate Yer State” where played forwards, the whole start of the song makes no sense, and in reverse one can hear firstly a great deal of swearing and then “So stay in school, say no to drugs, oh yeah! Hail Satan! Good night boys and girls, pleasant dreams." Considering all of the accusations placed on artists for corrupting the youth with satanic references, and the fact that this was recorded very intentionally to be heard in reverse, it is safe to say that this example is most likely a mockery of how people can make something out of nothing. Chiodos even put in their album lyrics that the beginning of their song The Lover and The Liar was meant to be played in reverse.     

            Reverse Speech in song is something that people have debated over greatly. Sometimes such as in Eminem’s song “My Name Is” when you play a part of it in reverse one can make out the words, “It’s Eminem” repeatedly, and this was probably figured out through trial to make the words work to be coherent whether they were played forwards or backwards. The same goes for the song “Another One Bites the Dust” where in reverse these words seem to sound a lot like “It’s fun to smoke marijuana.” Presumably this was intentional and listening to it forwards and hearing how specific the diction is makes that more apparent. However in the song Umbrella by Rhianna, people claim that she intentionally uses reverse speech to say “He is taking my faith, he is murdering,” and that it is secretly about being possessed by the devil. This, in honesty, is very hard to back-up as it is difficult to hear. Also, to do something like this without simply recording ones voice in reverse and putting it in the song, but in the forward LYRICS, it takes a deliberate delivery of those words, and she did not write the song. Therefore, how could these “messages” have been delivered properly? This is one situation where it seems as though somebody was reading into the reversed phrases too much.

            Where backmasking is something that is always intended, yet not always crystal clear, reverse speech faces much more judgment. Sometimes it appears that the hype about these hidden messages caused people to hear more than was really there, and to make connections to satanic things when these connections do not truly exist. If the majority of the people we encounter daily do not secretly praise the devil or openly worship him, what makes it justifiable that so many musicians would partake in a satanic faith? A few of the examples may truly be subliminally corrupt and definite references to the devil, but the number of songs and artists that people have discovered, they think, to have done this looks a bit too high. Every human is entitled to their own opinions though, and some simply hear things that others do not. Unless a song clearly says something if the artist owns up to the claims against them, reverse speech and backmasking will always be debatable.