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Secret Backwards Messages
in Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”
For years people
have discussed secret backwards messages in rock music. For some reason, these backwards messages all
tend to be satanic in nature. This just
fuels the misguided notion that rock & roll is the music of the devil. In fact, bands such as the Beatles and Electric
Light Orchestra put “backward masks” in their music. A backward mask is a word or phrase recorded
forward, then played backwards and recorded into a track. The more sinister messages seem
unintentional, and are normal words when played forwards. When played backwards, however, they appear to
be “secret” messages.
One of the more
sinister backward messages is supposedly in the classic Led Zeppelin anthem: “Stairway
to Heaven.” The character of Led
Zeppelin as a band helps to contribute to the hysteria because of their legend,
the intentional satanic references in the songs, the curse that seems to follow
them, and guitarist Jimmy Page’s fascination with the occult and Aleister Crowley. During the height of the “backward messages” hysteria
in the early 1980s, a group of “experts” testified to a committee of the
California State Assembly that there were secret messages in “Stairway to
Heaven.” During the CBS Evening News on
So, listen for
yourself. This is a .wav file of the
offending passage played backwards: backwards.wav
The actual lyrics of this section
are: “If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, Don't be
alarmed now, It's just a spring clean for the May Queen, Yes there are two
paths you can go by, but in the long run, There's still time to change the road
you're on…”
Here are a few
interpretations of what the backwards lyrics are:
“I sing because I
live with Satan. The Lord turns me off –
there’s no escaping it. Here’s to my
sweet Satan, whose power is Satan. He
will give you 666. I live for Satan.”
or
“Here’s to my sweet
Satan. The one will be the sad one who
makes me sad whose power is in Satan. He’ll
be with you, Satan, Satan, Satan [or 666]. So follow him with worship, bring me
yourself, my sad Satan.”
or
“Oh here’s to my
sweet Satan. The one
whose little path would make me sad, whose power is Satan. He’ll give you give you 666. There was a little tool shed where he made us
suffer, sad Satan.”
These messages
begin at about second 12 of the .wav above.
Personally, I think the lyrics sound more like:
“Oh, here’s to my
sweet Satan. The one
whose little path would make me sad, whose power is Satan. He’ll give you give you 666. So follow him with worship, bring me yourself
[or your soul], my sad Satan.”
Some parts sound
very clear, such as, “my sweet Satan” and “sad Satan.” Supposedly, at the end of the song where the
actual lyrics say: “And she’s buying the stairway to heaven,” it sounds like, “Play
music backward, hear words sung.” If you
can, slow the .wav by half, and the song sounds like freaky satanic organ music
with a demonic voice from Hell, although some of the words sound clearer, some
of them become a bit less clear.
Links:
Karbo, Karen, “Stairway To Heaven: Is This the
Greatest Song of All Time?,” http://www.superseventies.com/stairway.html
.
Milner,
Jeff, “Stairway to Heaven Bacwards,” http://www3.telus.net/jefmil/stairwaybackwards.htm
.
Sources:
Patterson, Gary R.,
Take a Walk on the Dark Side: Rock and
Roll Myths, Legends, and Curses, (
Pickover, Cliffors, “The
Paradox of Led Zeppelin,” Chapter 16 of The Paradox of God and
the Science of Omniscience, (