Hidden message

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A hidden message is a message that is not immediately noticeable, and that must be discovered before it can be known. Hidden messages include backwards audio messages and hidden visual messages.

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Backward audio messages

A backward messages in an audio recording is only fully apparent when the recording is played reversed. Some backward messages are produced by deliberate backmasking, while others are simply phonetic reversals resulting from random combinations of words.

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Backmasking

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Backmasking is an audio technique in which sounds are recorded backwards onto a track that is meant to be played forwards. Unlike unintentional, alleged backward messages, which result from playing normal lyrics backward, deliberate backward messages are usually unintelligible noise when played forward.

Backmasking first became famous with The Beatles. Just before the band's break-up in 1970, DJ Russell Gibb initiated the infamous "Paul Is Dead" urban legend (a rumor that Beatle Paul McCartney had died) by playing certain Beatles records backwards to reveal hidden messages. One album in particular, The Beatles (aka The White Album) was said to contain backward messages. Intentional gibberish at the end of "I'm So Tired" was supposedly "Paul is dead, man, miss him, miss him..." Likewise, the repeated words "Number nine, number nine, number nine..." in "Revolution 9" were supposedly "turn me on, dead man, turn me on, dead man..." backwards.

Probably the most well-known example of alleged backmasking is found in rock group Led Zeppelin's 1971 song "Stairway to Heaven." If a portion of the song is played backwards, then supposedly words beginning with "Here's to my sweet Satan" can be heard [1]. But Swan Song Records issued the statement: "Our turntables only play in one direction—forwards"[2]. And Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant denied the accusations in an interview [3]: "To me it's very sad, because 'Stairway To Heaven' was written with every best intention, and as far as reversing tapes and putting messages on the end, that's not my idea of making music."

Many musicians are known to have backmasked, for purposes including: avoiding censorship; making artistic or social statements; having fun at the expense of critics; and advocating Satanism or violence.

Backmasking was used by Frank Zappa in his earliest albums to avoid censorship. We're only in it for the Money (1968) contains the backmasked message "Take a look around before you say you don't care, shut your fucking mouth about the length of my hair, how would you survive, if you were alive, shitty little person" at the end of side A. This profanity laced verse of the song "Mother People" was not permitted by the record publisher, hence the need for backmasking.

Much of the controversy over backmasking is a result of Satanic messages in heavy metal music. The extent of the link between backward messages and heavy metal is shown in Neal Stephenson's novel Zodiac, in which the protagonist, Sangamon Taylor, comes home to find a series of death threats on his phone's answering machine. When he rewinds the machine's tape, his flatmate enters the room and asks when Taylor started listening to heavy metal music.

Backmasking has also been used to make statements. On Roger Waters' 1991 album Amused to Death, he deliberately recorded a backward message critical of film director Stanley Kubrick, who had refused to let Waters sample a breathing sound from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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Many backward messages are parodies, poking fun at the controversy (see Parody messages). A famous, deliberately recorded backward message comes from the beginning of the Electric Light Orchestra song "Fire on High," where the mysterious deep mumbling reverses to "The music is reversible, but time is not...turn back! Turn back! Turn back!"—ostensibly a shot at the hysteria surrounding "reversed speech" at the time the album was released.

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Phonetic reversals

Some phrases will produce a message when listened to backwards. For example, "kiss" backwards sounds like "sick," and so the title of Yoko Ono's Kiss Kiss Kiss sounds like "Sick Sick Sick" or "Six Six Six" backwards.

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Non-musical messages

Template:Seealso Backward messages also exist in mediums outside of music. In the computer game Doom II, a garbled message played at the start of Map 30, spoken by the "Icon of Sin", can be played backwards to hear "To win the game, you must kill me, John Romero." The player can use the no-clip cheat to enter the brain of the Icon of Sin to see Romero's head impaled on a stake.

A Simpsons episode made use of backward messages. Bart Simpson and The Party Posse (a short-lived boy band) sang a song with the lyrics "Yvan Eht Nioj." Lisa subsequently figured out, once the townspeople were boarding navy buses that the term said Join the Navy. In the end credits of the Cartoon Network show The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy a voice can be heard speaking backwards at the end of the credits. Played backwards, the voice states "No, no, this is the END of the show. You're watching it backwards!"

In the music video for Wierd Al Yankovic's Amish Paradise, one scene required Al to film a small portion of the song while walking and phonetically singing backwards. In the video itself, this scene is played in reverse so it appears Al is walking and singing normally, and the various animals and occurances around him are actually the ones moving backwards.

The grande finale of the stage show The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) by the Reduced Shakespeare Company consists of the comedy troupe performing the play Hamlet backwards. "Oh, yes," one of the performers quips, "and be sure to listen for the Satanic messages," leading to the obvious yelled joke: "Judas Priest is God!" As massive improvisation is an intentional part of the show, however, other celebrities (most notably Frank Sinatra) sometimes find themselves deified instead. Also used is the phrase 'reelect George Bush!'.

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Visual messages

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A well-known conversation topic deals with the claimed similarity between a specially folded United States twenty-dollar bill and the September 11 terrorist attacks.

If the Coca-Cola logo is flipped, the result is supposedly an Arabic word debasing Allah.

Ambigrams can be flipped (and usually read the same as in correct order).

Lucky Strike's old cigarette packaging, when rotated, supposedly shows a burning house, accompanying the Red Dot of Japan's flag and the trademark phrase "it's toasted".

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See also

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External links

fr:Message à l'envers sv:Baklängesmeddelande

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