Aug 24 2005
Listening To It Backwards
This is hilarious: Stairway to Heaven backwards and other tunes, including Hotel California, Imagine, and the only one I knew about that supposedly had a backwards message, I’m So Tired by the Beatles. From Stairway to Heaven:
It’s remarkable how you can hear what’s written; otherwise, it’s garbage if you didn’t know what to hear for. Well, it’s garbage anyway, but funny garbage.
There are, of course, websites devoted to songs played backwards, including Reverse Speech, which provides mp3 samples of backward tunes, including clips from AC/DC, Eric Clapton, and even Britney Spears.
Wikipedia’s entry about Backward messages mentions deliberate backward messages, including the one from Pink Floyd’s Empty Spaces on The Wall, which when played backwards states:
hyead seeyah nooohvah.
I remember saying that into a recording, then reversing it. Wow, big fun that was.
I remember trying to play Revolution 9 backwards on my record player, cringing at the damage I was doing to the record player’s needle and the record; but it was fun to try and hear.
I did was Sol did (though I can’t figure out what the hell his backwards phrase is). I recorded an entire song backwards — played the guitar progression in reverse, and sang the words so that when played backwards they sounded like real words. The result was so bad it wasn’t funny. A true work of genius.
We did the Stairway thing in high school when we scraped together a 4 track Tascam; you can flip the cassette and just play the two L/R tracks on a side. All I could hear clearly was, “I wish it would snow,” and just sort of make out, “Here’s to Mister Peyton” (my Calculus teacher).
Yvan eht nioj.
(hope this didn’t submit twice, first try timed out)
Philip: Sol’s comment is: Have a nice day!