It takes a lot of ingredients to make a toxic, deadly brew. One that can poison the culture of an entire generation. One such ingredient is games…toxic, deadly games that prove to be, in the end, harmless. But it so very easy to transform the harmless into the toxic. This is particularly true when you are looking for the toxic…need the toxic…will settle for nothing but the toxic. So, a toxic brew boils and bubbles.
There can be no doubt that we need another ingredient. And I found one! It’s an easy ingredient to find. You don’t have run to the store to find it. You need do nothing more than sit and wait for it to appear. Well, you must listen…but I assure you, that’s all you need do. Of course! I speak of strange sounds. No, not Strange Noises…I reserve the word “noises” for something very specific…very, very specific; indeed, something very special. Attic Noises made by Attic Man. Attic Noises that even Chris MacNeill could hear. Still! I would have finished my Chris MacNeill journey through the dark Upper Sphere despite Carl’s rude, yet timely, interference. I cleaned out the old closet in the unused bedroom upstairs! And while doing so, I stared up at the hatch leading up into the attic. Then I noticed that it was slightly ajar. So that was the cause of the draft that kept that bedroom chilly.
Lots of things make strange sounds. This essay will be presented in several parts. And this, for what it is worth, is part one. Certain Rock musicians make sounds…some ordinary, some extraordinary, some cool and some not so cool. And the Religious Extremists and Cultural Terrorists who attack such things as strange games and strange sounds play their own games and make their own strange sounds. Malevolent? Whose sounds are malevolent? One must decide that for oneself. Still, I have my opinion on that matter.
The Beatles made two big mistakes in 1966; mistakes that helped set the foundation for the animosity directed at Rock music by American Religious Extremists. They also made a monumental step forward for Rock music, and I have referred to this in other posts on this website. John Lennon introduced backmasking. This involves recording musical parts, but also vocal tracks, then playing them backwards while making the final recording. The gibberish sounding parts sound exactly like….gibberish. You cannot have your cake and eat it too…just ask Marie Antoinette. It is impossible to say something forwards that is clear and intelligible and at the same time, have that very same thing say something different backwards that is clear and intelligible. If I were to say:
Religious Extremists have Rocks in their heads
And I record it, then play it backwards…you will hear something totally different. Gibberish. The whole backmasking phenomenon, to be convincing, cheats. Cheats worse than a stuffed tiger seeking to prove that he is, in fact, smarter than Calvin. He need not prove that he is smarter than the President…that is manifest. Cheat? Yes…cheat. The Great Liars don’t simply play a song backwards for you and then ask what you heard. Oh, no! They tell you what you will hear…they tell you what you heard. Why? Because if they played it backwards and left it to you to decide what you heard, you would say…I heard gibberish. An example:
Wait…I reversed things. This is a snap-shot of an excellent video on YouTube. If you are interested in backmasking, I would start here. This video allows you to hear Rain backwards. Since the forwards beginning is the backwards end, and the forwards end is the backwards beginning, the first thing you will hear is the chorus to the song…forwards. The rest of the song is backwards and is gibberish. Since Lennon added the backmasking to the end of the song, when listening to the video, you will clearly here it. But…hats off to the rather brilliant person who made this video…he doesn’t tell you what you will hear or what you have heard. There’s no need…you will hear it very clearly. If lyrics backwards are gibberish but others want you to think otherwise, you get:
Ah, yes! You will only hear this if you are told to hear it. This presentation saves you from having to hear, to think:
And I’m a bit surprised by the question…is he great? If I were using backmasking to seduce listeners into Devil-worship…I wouldn’t leave it up to the listener’s mind to decide whether or not Satan is great. Satan is great!!!! That makes more sense. The Beatles’ track Revolution #9 sits at the center of an LSD-induced, either literally or metaphorically, insane conspiracy theory. The track can be annoying. It features Lennon muttering “number 9” over and over again. And that’s what you’re told that you are hearing…forwards. Then:
And this must needs be done. Otherwise, you will never hear what they want you to hear. If the backmasking is so clear that no one need tell you what you are hearing, and the same is true of the tedious Revolution #9, then no prompting, in either direction, is needed. And if one pays just a little bit of attention, then what I’ve said many times is clear…supposed backwards messages never make any sense. The chorus of a song makes sense! Well, as far as it being intelligible English. Supposed backwards messages never do. Turn me on dead man? Satan, is he great? And in totally, ineligible English.
Ah yes! We all know that song. But we must be told what we are hearing forwards, then:
Finally:
See! You need not even listen. Now I will show you truly deceptive, scheming, and out-right lying TV evangelists pulling a con:
This guy has a reel-to-reel copy of Stairway to Heaven. What he has just done is told us to listen for:
My sweet Satan
We’re told upfront what we will hear. And then:
Ta-da! Now you hear it! And why the phone number at the bottom of the screen? If I were to guess, that is the number you call to give them your money. I think someone should play the TV guy backwards. If you did, you might hear
I’m a liar
Perhaps I’ll give it a try.
I love the whole thing with the Bible on her lap…it gives the charade such a religious touch. Why give Led Zeppelin your money when you could give it to them?
Evangelicals and other assorted critics would diligently attempt to find backwards messages in Rock songs. The most noted example is still the ridiculously stupid attempts to find backwards messages in Stairway to Heaven. By the release of that song, the messages that were sought were supposed to be Satanic messages, or in the later cases of Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne, exhortations to commit suicide. That is a strange thing for Rock musicians to do, seeing how it is pretty standard among that crowd to enjoy the lifestyle that owes much to making large sums of money. Dead people do not buy albums…or concert tickets. With Rain, the backwards part is at the end of the song, which is the chorus as it sounds…backwards. This was discussed at the time, and so there was nothing secret about it. This comment ran in the Sydney Morning Herald on 6/19/1966:
And this comment ran in the News Journal (Mansfield, Ohio) on 6/22/1966:
I have encountered nothing that would suggest than anyone accused the Beatles of any malevolent intentions relative to the effect created in Rain. This may owe much to the fact that it is so very obvious, as opposed to hidden, and the belief, for the few people who would have given it any thought, that it was simply intended as a sound effect in a Rock song. The reference to the song Paperback Writer in the above article is important. That song was the single released on May 30, 1966. The recording of the album Revolver ran concurrently with the recording of Paperback Writer, and the single’s B-side song…Rain. Neither song was on that album. Rubber Soul was released in 1965. On June 20, 1966 the Beatles released Yesterday and Today. That album was made up of songs that had appeared on the Beatles’ British albums, but not on American releases. 3 songs on the album were to be included on the next British album, along with two songs that were back-to-back on a single. Revolver would be released on August 8, 1966 in the US, to be followed by Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on May 26, 1967. The latter featured the Beatles’ in their Psychedelic Manifestation, and this would be very obvious with Magical Mystery Tour, released on November 27, 1967. Sgt. Pepper’s is interesting in that the cover of the album features face-shots of various persons, one of whom is Aleister Crowley:
He was a famous and infamous occultist, and insane to boot, who would appear again with Led Zeppelin, and also with Ozzy Osbourne. He has been frequently accused of being a Satanist. I will discuss Crowley in a later installment.
The Beatles were definitely masters at being able to fire-off albums and singles, often times with two or more per year. As Rock music developed, more than one album per year would be the exception, not the rule. This owed much to the fact that Rock performers had to continually tour in support of albums…touring became a key way to remain relevant in an industry that had an ever-increasing number of choices from which to choose. Double-live albums became the key to some bands’ actual success in the Rock music business, including Kiss, Peter Frampton, and Cheap Trick. Paperback Writer and Rain did not appear on an album until Hey Jude in 1970.
Paperback Writer and Rain included elements that would become increasingly important in Rock songs, which may have complicated matters in the minds of Evangelicals. Once a palpable mistrust and out-right suspicion of the intentions of Rock musicians had set in, and not making any attempt to understand things, these elements only added to the protracted animosity. What is that? Special Effects. The vast majority of strange things in Rock songs, often misunderstood by critics, are meant as special effects intended to make the songs sound cooler. The Kiss song God of Thunder utilized various effects, including audible vocalizations by producer Bob Ezrin’s children, David and Josh. They used walkie-talkies and microphones. Listening to the song, one will get all kinds of ideas about what the kids are saying, but a pitch-down version of the song available in YouTube would seem to indicate that what I thought the voices were saying…is not what they’re really saying at all. Their words are not part of some attempt to hide malevolent, Satanic messages in this song, which is all the more important since this is the classic song utilizing Gene Simmon’s Demon Manifestation. There are also various types of effects that were totally successful in creating the eeriness of the song. The song is heavy, but it moves at a pounding, slow pace, with a unique back-beat that almost pulls back on the tempo of the song. Some of the drum parts were played in an elevator shaft, allowed to echo to the top floor of the building, and then recorded. As in Rain, the Ozzy Osbourne song Crazy Train (1980) features a strange vocal effect at the end of the song. Unlike Rain, it is clearly not backmasking. What is known about the effect is that involves words spoken into an oscillator, apparently the words being a reference to eggs. Suicide Solution was the cause of the famous lawsuit against Ozzy. This focused on a supposed subliminal message…Get the gun…shoot, shoot, shoot. The isolation of the relevant part of the song clearly indicates that what is heard beneath the rest of the track is Ozzy’s classic, maniacal laugh, and the line…get the flaps out. The master of the use of sound effects and vocal tracks that are difficult to understand is Pink Floyd, who used sound effects to create the rich world of The Wall. Audible vocalizations, such as dialogue from a TV, can be clearly heard, although all the words typically can’t be made out. Pink Floyd appear to have had a considerable amount fun doing this, and fans have had a considerable amount of fun trying to make out the background voices. With computers, this is easy to do. With all of the effects utilized by Pink Floyd, there was only one instance of backmasking. It occurs in the song Empty Spaces, where the following back-masked message appears:
Congratulations, you have just discovered the secret message.
Please send your answer to Old Pink,
Care of the Funny Farm, Chalfont, UK
There is then a message inside the message:
Roger, Caroline’s on the phone
A classic example of Pink Floyd’s use of TVs playing in the background appears in the song…One of My Turns. The groupie gets into the singer’s room, and the TV is playing in the background. Listening to the album, and trying to make out the words, one fails. Computers, of course, allowed for renewed attempts to solve the puzzle:
I’m sorry sir, I didn’t mean to startle you.
Just let me know when you’re entering a room!
Yes, sir! I was wondering about dinner.
Yes?
When do you and your guests want to dine? I have to inform the kitchen staff.
Yes, I’m aware of your duties, Dobbs.
Yes, sir.
I’ll have to find out from Mrs. Bancroft what time she wants to eat. As for her maid, needless to say, she can have her meal with the kitchen help.
Very good sir. If you’ll just let me know as soon as you can when you and Mrs. Bancroft want to eat.
Mrs. Bancroft will be dining alone.
Why? I don’t understand sir.
I won’t be staying for dinner.
I’m surprised to hear that, sir, since you just arrived.
Yes, I’m a little surprised about it myself.
That is a reconstruction. Parts of the dialogue are impossible to hear given the fact that the groupie’s dialogue blots some of it out. The claim has been made that this dialogue is from the movie The Dam Busters. The problem is that there is no character named Bancroft in that movie, which is a war movie. And if the name Dobbs is correct…there is no “Dobbs” in The Dam Busters either. This “movie” has not been identified…and that is the game…try to identify it. There is, of course, another possibility. What is that? There is no such movie, and Pink Floyd simply created a fictional movie with fictional dialogue to entice people into trying to identify it. Reference is made to a man’s “guests” and the timing of dinner, but those eating dinner are further defined as “you” and “Mrs. Bancroft.” The statement to the effect that the maid can eat with the kitchen staff…there’s a maid, a butler (a manservant), and kitchen help, so Mrs. Bancroft is wealthy. We don’t know the man is a “Mr. Bancroft.” The fact that he arrives, only to be surprised that he has to leave…suggests that he is not Mr. Bancroft. And it seems unnecessary to declare that the maid would eat with the kitchen help, since maids didn’t eat with the well-to-do. Roger Waters, one of the band’s most famous members, claimed to not know where this dialogue comes from, but bids us to keep trying to figure it out. Hey, Roger! You guys made this up…didn’t you? Later, there’s:
Well, we’ve got an hour of daylight left. Better get started.
Is it unsafe to travel at night?
That is real…it’s from Gunsmoke:
The song Paperback Writer features the use of STEED..Send Tape Echo Echo Delay. This is a technique that uses a delay effect based on tape loops and echo chambers. The Beatles used this in their 1964 song Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby. There is nothing controversial about this type of sound effect, or any sound effects used in Rock music. Paperback Writer also features a far more prominent amplification of Paul McCartney on bass. And! The Beatles made a color “video” for the song:
As far as Rock videos go…most are terrible. This one is actually better than most. And the video for Rain was shot in the same context, although there was a secret message!
See the Devilish Soul-stealing message? Way out! And the Beatles were way-out…man. And this is a Diabolical Rock Music Video because it not only had a Devilish secret message on a clearly visible sign, there was a demon who appeared and disappeared in the video!
Back right, if you look real hard:
Ringo’s friend! Wearing a blue jacket! Someone suddenly walks by, although it is only a split-second, and very difficult to see. There he is again!
Back left…Ringo’s right…the Blue Demon! And both videos were shot in the same location…Chiswick House. Now back to Paperback Writer:
Back left…Paul’s right. Look hard…is that the same demon? He’s not a demon…sorry to say. He was just some guy. So, it is clear that the song Paperback Writer was the big impetus for the use of technology in Rock music, and pioneered many elements that would become staples of Rock music going forward.
The same is true of Rain. The rhythm parts were recorded at a faster speed. When played back, the effect was to make the rhythm sound slower. Doing the opposite with the vocals, the vocals had a higher than normal pitch. Reference has already been made to the backwards-masked vocals, which did not occasion any concerns. Certainly not at the time…nor, apparently, ever since. But backmasking as it related to the Beatle’s was transformed in 1969, when a man claiming to be a student at the Eastern Michigan University, declared that the songs on the White Album included back-masked messages. These messages were linked to a crazy rumor that originated in Britain that claimed that Paul McCartney had died in a car accident on the M1 motorway, an accident caused by icy conditions. The February 1967 edition of The Beatles Monthly Book included a response to this rumor. It has been pointed out that Sgt. Pepper’s represented a major change for the Beatles. A veritable transformation from the Old Beatles…the fun-loving mop-tops who recorded light, feel-good, bouncy songs, to Hippie Beatles…Counter-culture Beatles…weed and acid Beatles. And this interpretation of Sgt. Pepper’s is correct. The supposed death of Paul McCartney was covered in volume 43:
Inside:
But just a few years later, the bizarre claim was circulated that Paul McCartney was dead, that his death was covered up, and a look-alike took his place. Then the Beatles’ littered their albums with all manner of clues for the truly stoned to find. The chronology:
5/30/1966: Release of Paperback Writer and Rain
6/20/1966: Release of Yesterday and Today
8/3/1966: DJ Tommy Charles of WAQY in Birmingham begins the Ban the Beatles crusade
8/8/1966: Release of Revolver
8/12/1966: first performance date of the Revolver tour
8/29/1966: last performance date of the Revolver tour, held at Candlestick Park
January 7, 1967: the date of the supposed car accident on the M1
February 1967: The Beatles Monthly Book responds to rumor
5/26/1967: release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band
But as far as the new rumor goes, there was a change in date. The story that emerged was that McCartney left a recording session on November 9, 1966 and wrecked his car, resulting in his death. What should be added to the chronology above is that Paul had a moped accident…a mop-top moped accident, on December 26, 1965:
His chipped tooth was clearly visible in the video for Rain:
So, the date of November 1966…yet another date. The date of the auto accident and the moped accident are certain. What happened with Paul’s car is now known. November 1966 simply adds another date.
It should be noted that the bigotry of Tommy Charles and the Ban the Beatles crusade, which will be discussed later in detail, spread across the United States, and became much larger than the Beatles believed it would. This controversy was actually the second controversy in 1966, which was essentially a bad year for the Beatles. The original cover of Yesterday and Today, which had to be pulled almost immediately, almost resulted in a Ban the Beatles crusade in June 1966, only 2 months before the WAQY development. The U.S. radio industry was already souring to the Beatles. The concert at Candlestick Park was a major disappointment. The stadium seated 42,500 people. Only 25,000 tickets were sold. The band was taken to the airport in an armored car, and George Harrison said that he was leaving the group. He was persuaded to stay on after being promised that the band would stop touring.
The rumor did not appear in the headlines until 1969, when an article titled “Is Beatle Paul McCartney Dead?” was published in the student newspaper at Drake University. It was written by Tim Harper. The rumor did not appear to be linked to the rumor in England in 1967, since the source for the rumor was said to be secret messages in the Beatles’ songs and imagery in the artwork for the albums. In particular, a backwards-masked message in Revolution #9 on the Beatles’ White Album. It’s odd that kids were listening to the Beatles’ albums backwards. I can’t locate any example of the use of backwards-masked songs between the release of Rain, and the surfacing of the Paul is Dead rumor in 1969. Perhaps it was a growing awareness of the technique used in Rain that set-off a search of other such messages in other Beatles’ songs. And there must have been a connection between the 1967 rumor and the 1969 rumor, since the final form of the rumor claimed that Paul had died in a car accident. The moped accident may also have contributed to the story. A review of newspapers in the U.S. in August 1969 indicates that there was no such rumor that close to September 1969. This ran in the Morning News (Wilmington) on 8/29/1969:
This ran in the 8/14/1969 Miami News:
These were the main story-lines in the United states in August 1969. There is no evidence of the knowledge of a Paul is Dead story in the U.S. prior to its sudden appearance in September 1969. Given the saturation coverage of the rumor in the U.S. media once it did appear, the lack of any such coverage in August in 1969. A later source would declare that Paul McCartney has admitted that they planted the rumor. However, the way that the rumor finally appeared in the media, and the silly clues that supposedly proved it was true, argue against this.
Tim Harper’s article appeared on September 17, 1969. But it should be noted that the article he ran questioned the “present state of Beatle Paul McCarthy,” listing the following three possibilities:
1. Paul was insane
2. Paul was “freaked out”
3. Paul was dead
So, the rumor than appeared in the media listed other options for Paul’s situation other than death. That does not support the idea that the Beatles planted the rumor. The fact that it surfaced in a nondescript college in Michigan, the state where the Stamp Out the Beatles movement would originate, argues against this as well. But Harper made the very interesting point, alluded to above, that St. Pepper’s represented the transformation of the Beatles. I contrasted Old Beatles with the New Beatles. Harper put it differently: the Sgt. Peppers album, obviously, signified the “death” of the old Beatles. He then begins enumerating the evidence of something having happened to Paul.
1. On the Cover of Sgt. Pepper’s, a “mysterious hand is raised over his head.
There is, in fact, a hand over Paul’s head:
How do you get from this fact an indication that Paul is dead? Harper:
The sign many believe is an ancient death symbol of either the Greeks, or the American Indians.
That’s strange, since there is no connection between Greeks and American Indians that could even possibly allow for this “ancient death symbol” to derive from possibly the one, or possibly the other. In short, the suggestion is preposterous. So, another explanation was offered:
As though he were being blessed by a priest before being interred
There is no priest among the faces on the album. The next suggestion…the hand belongs to Stephen Crane, who definitely appears on album, directly behind Paul. Crane was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. He died at the age of 28. Why is this important? He wrote a short-story called The Open Boat, in which he and three other men found themselves in a lifeboat after the ship they were on sank. The lifeboat turned over, and one of them drowned. So, one of four men died.
Actually, the hand over Paul’s head belongs to the comedian Issy Bonn. These later explanations for the significance of the hand are not present in Harper’s article. The explanation found there is nonsense. Something more along the lines of what Hitchcock did with Norman Bates at the end of Psycho would have been cooler:
Now that’s cool!
2. There is a left handed guitar on the grave…Paul was left-handed. So, what?
3. On the back cover, Paul’s back is turned to the camera:
So, what? George is pointing to a line from the song A Day in the Life:
The song George is supposedly point toward is She’s Leaving Home:
Wednesday morning at five o’clock
As the day begins
The reference to he blew his mind out in a car, is from A Day in the Life. So, Harper has quoted the wrong song. But following the logic…a woman died. Gaining the world and losing the soul? Whatever.
3. Paul is wearing a black arm-band:
A black arm-band is a symbol of mourning. This isn’t an arm band. In fact, it is this:
The Ontario Provincial Police. Sorry! I know that it just became so much more ordinary. The article then reports bizarre opinions about the imagery on the cover of the Magical Mystery Tour, equally lame. It’s when he gets to Revolution #9, that we get our supposed backmasking:
What we find here is the Great Achilles Heel of the claims about backmasking. In verifiable incidents of this effect, what you hear when you reverse the vocal track, makes sense. In Rain, it is the song’s chorus. In the Pink Floyd example cited above, we’re congratulated for finding the message, and told where we can send it. The surest sign that a purported message is not a message at all is when it is, as is the case with Stairway to Heaven and Better By You, Better Than Me…out-and-out gibberish.
Turn me on dead man
That is gibberish. Cherish the dead? Even if we are to accept this…the three-word phrase doesn’t have any inherent meaning that Paul is dead. There are no videos on YouTube that I can find that purport to find Cherish the Dead in Revolution #9. Is that significant? Yes. There is no end to the posted videos purporting to find an endless array of backwards messages in the Beatles’ songs. So, the silence is deafening. He also cites lyrics in Glass Onion. These are regular lyrics, not backwards messages. He cites:
Well here’s another clue for you all,
The walrus was Paul
On the cover of the Magical Mystery Tour album, all four members of the band are wearing animal costumes. Three are gray…one is black, and it is a walrus.
What does Harper say about this?
That one confuses me! This is the reference:
These are two different versions. It doesn’t say that Paul is the Walrus. The character Little Nicola says no you’re not...
So Little Nicola says that John wasn’t the Walrus, and Glass Onion tells us that Little Nicola was, indeed, correct.
The walrus was a Viking symbol of death? Wow. And Harper wonders why:
If there are only 4 Beatles…then why are there 4 or 5 magicians?
John
George
Ringo
Dead Paul
Live Paul
Even if Paul was dead…there were still only 4 Beatles at any given time. Maybe Little Nicola was the 5th Magician! Stop the presses!
John
George
Ringo
Paul
Gayle
Sorry, that’s getting ahead of myself. I think that the “4 or 5 magicians” isn’t hard to understand, if you let the LSD wear-off first. Here are 4 magicians:
John
George
Paul
Ringo
That’s simple enough. But what about 5?
John
George
Paul
Ringo
Billy Shears
And it would become part of the hoax that the replacement for Paul McCartney was, in fact, William Shears. Harper also cites:
1. Paul has a brother Michael
2. Paul was involved with Jane Asher, then he married Jane Eastman
3. At the Isle of Wight performance of Bob Dylan, 3 Beatles were there. Paul wasn’t.
Having a brother named Michael…that’s good enough for me. And it strikes you as strange that Rock stars go through several lovers? And you don’t even know about all the others that aren’t mentioned in tabloids and copies of Datebook? But who is Jane Eastmann?