This is posted for my fellow music geek friends.\u00a0 Here are my selections since I was unable to attend this month’s gathering.<\/p>\n
My selections were more mental connections rather than literal connections, but they mostly involve backmasking, playing music backwards to find hidden messages.<\/p>\n
It started earlier in the month when I was cleaning up my hard drive and found the track I had reversed from Pink Floyd’s The Wall.<\/p>\n
Pink Floyd – Empty Spaces<\/a><\/p>\n In the left channel you were hear some backwards talking.\u00a0 I discovered this when originally listening to the album when I was\u00a0 high school.\u00a0\u00a0 I had a reel-to-reel tape recorder at the time and I was able to listen to Empty Spaces in reverse.\u00a0\u00a0 The sample below has just the left channel isolated.\u00a0 When I was a kid, I also ran the audio through a graphic equalizer.<\/p>\n Empty Spaces reversed<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cCongratulations. You have just discovered the secret message. Send your answer to Old Pink, care of The Funny Farm, Chalford, UK.\u201d Roger Waters is interrupted by a man who says \u201cRoger\u2026 Carolyn\u2019s on the phone!\u201d<\/p>\n Old Pink refers to Syd Barrett, an early member of Pink Floyd who had a mental breakdown and left the band.\u00a0 I came across this song by Syd which lampoons Bob Dylan. It’s interesting when listening to this song, I hear things that remind me of later Pink Floyd albums, long after Syd had left.<\/p>\n Syd Barrett – Bob Dylan Blues<\/a><\/p>\n The whole concept of putting backwards messages into music seems to start with The Beatles, although I don’t think they ever intentionally inserted any backwards messages into their music.\u00a0 It started with the hoax<\/a> that the original Paul McCartney died in a car accident and was replaced by a look-alike, and there were clues scattered around in the lyrics and album covers.<\/p>\n The Beatles – Strawberry Fields Forever<\/a><\/p>\n For example at the end of Strawberry Fields, someone says,\u00a0 in the left channel, “I buried Paul”. (Note the backwards percussion in the left channel at times.)\u00a0 A DJ at WABC AM in New York broadcasted the following in the middle of the night in 1969 perpetuating the rumor:<\/p>\n From WABC-AM<\/a><\/p>\n As a kid, this whole thing surrounding Paul McCartney’s death was very intriguing and I thought it was all plausible. But now, as I re-examine some of this stuff, I think a lot of people were imagining things (which given the psychedelic culture at the time doesn’t surprise me).<\/p>\n Here are a couple of clips from the Officially Pronounced Dead<\/a> website which supposedly offer some clues (the site has over 300 clues).<\/p>\n Revolution 9 Forwards: Number nine.<\/span> I’m So Tired<\/a><\/p>\n Forwards: Unrecognizable mumbling.<\/span> So with everybody hunting for clues and playing music backwards, musicians started inserting backwards messages in their music.\u00a0 In 1975, Electric Light Orchestra<\/a> inserted a couple of backmasked passages in their Face The Music<\/a> album.<\/p>\n Electric Light Orchestra – Fire on High<\/a><\/p>\n The reversed portion of the song:<\/p>\n
\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nBackwards: Turn me on, dead man.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nBackwards: Paul is dead man. Miss him, miss him, miss him!<\/span><\/p>\n