The backmasking allegations against Black Oak Arkansas are probably the most ridiculous of all. Let’s start with a mistake:

The song is actually…When Electricity Came to Arkansas. This type of error, i.e. not knowing anything you’re talking about, is demonstrated by just about every Evangelical Mad Man who joined in the fun. Here is another example:

Still, at least the message is balanced…three Satans, and three…He is Gods. This quote is from Gilbert, Gibby, who we met earlier. The Phil and Bob Comedy Duo in California, the guys who wanted the ridiculously long warning sticker, only to be smacked down by experts who testified that backmasking can’t do what Evangelicals think it can, and who then expressed great concern that Mike Curb would another term if backmasking was reigned it, heard a similar message in the song as Gilbert did, but with a difference!

This is what Gibby heard:

Phil and Bob heard this:

...
So, apparently, somebody can’t count. And notice how the politicians have messed up the balance. Gilbert:

Satan, Satan, Satan…He is God…He is God…He is God.

The politicians:

Satan, Satan, Satan, Satan, Satan…He is God.

The politicians did do something very important…they cited the album. And I will return to that shortly. I briefly mention another Anti-Rock Crusader. His name was Art Diaz, and he was the Youth Group Director at the First Assembly of God church in Ankeny, Iowa. It’s not quite the new Land Flowing With Milk and Honey…yes…Arkansas, but if you’re in Iowa…I recommend Earling... And Mr. Diaz was briefly in the newspapers in 1980. Indeed! He got his brief moment of fame. He stated that he decided to go on a Destruction and Violence Binge after listening to some unnamed, moronic Anti-Rock guy at a church. However, I’m not convinced. It’s one thing to hear about Satan in Rock music and then light a bunch of Nazi bonfires. Why do I have doubts? Well, he went after books too. What books?

Ok, that does make sense. The one form of ignorance goes along with the other. I say…burn that book about the Gemini…I’m a crabby Cancer. However, I don’t believe that he was burning Satanic children’s books. Basically, there is no such thing. But we don’t have titles, so it’s only a suspicion. But one title is provided, and it suggests that there was much more involved than combating perceived Satanic influences. I was amazed by…

Mary Shelley’s classic novel is a rich work that brings various elements together, from the Romantic, to the Gothic, to horror and science fiction. And while Victor Frankenstein’s Ghastly Creation, whose name is not Frankenstein, is a key character…Satan appears nowhere in it. Shelley does use different nouns when referring to Victor’s Handiwork, including demon and devil. Not a real demon, and certainly not the Devil. Now there are different interpretations of the novel…perhaps there are as many interpretations of the novel as the number of people who, instead of burning it, read it. One I find compelling is that Victor Frankenstein, rushing to push scientific methods forward at too fast a pace, treads into the realm of God in his bid to create life. He doesn’t create life, he animates the body parts of the dead. And in preempting God, what he creates is ultimately a monster. Not at first, and it is the wrongs suffered at the hands of people who can’t get past his appearance, that slowly leads him into violence. A turning point is reached when he is shot after rescuing a little girl who fell into a stream. He is, in fact, a victim of people who judge and react violently before knowing anything about their victim. So in a sense, it is a resounding condemnation of people like…. Evangelists…my word, of course. And what ultimately went wrong was the result of man trying to preempt God. So, I find it is strange that if such an interpretation is viable, what better book could you give young, modern people to read if you are a Man of God? As it is, I suspect that Diaz took great pleasure in symbolically destroying a book he almost certainly never read, because he was thinking of cheesy horror movies that essentially ruin Shelley’s story over and over again. Perhaps any novel unfortunate enough to…what kid actually brought Mary Shelley’s novel to destroy along with their Black Sabbath albums? None. It’s like some adult simply showed up with a box of old stuff from her basement in the hopes of watching something burn.

Not all of Diaz’s Christian youth agreed with his sudden descent into violence and destruction. So, they did the appropriate thing by refusing to participate. Diaz then showed exactly who, and what, he was:

If you disagree with him, then you are not fully Christian. Wow. How much did Diaz really know about any of this?

I never cease to be amazed at how oblivious Evangelicals are to how stupid they sound when they are making things up. The peace sign embraced by the counter-culture was designed by Gerald Holtom as a logo for the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The sign itself is the result of combining the semaphore signals for the letters N and D…nuclear disarmament.

I wonder how long it took Diaz to sit around staring at a peace sign as he tried desperately to come up with some way of calling it Satanic. A broken, inverted cross? How about another knowledge test?

Ok, that is from 1980. So, Kiss Phase 1:

Kiss Phase 2:

Kiss solo projects (1978):

And Kiss, Phase 3:

These are the Kiss albums available at the time that Diaz was showing how much he didn’t know. Study the covers all you want! You won’t find a single, Satanic symbol.

I have referred to the Reverend Larry Pyle before. I find this picture to be horrifying:

This is the inside of Pyle’s church. And he has strewn broken records, pornographic magazines, marijuana and liquor bottles all around the altar…as if the results of his well-orchestrated Evangelical Temper Tantrum is some horrid sacrifice to God. Perhaps, god. Well, not a God I know. I’ve never seen such defiling of an altar consecrated to the Christian God. And I would point out that throwing porn around the altar is simply disgusting. And I am unaware of any drug law that allow Clerics, Pyles, or churches to be in possession of marijuana anymore than it does a kid at a Black Sabbath concert. If that is true, then the Reverend is also a law-breaker, in addition to being, a record-breaker.  Perhaps he broke the record at breaking records! And the following comment, which goes along nicely with those of Tedder, shows the Evangelical Commitment to the American Ideals:

There were, and are, regulations that preclude certain things being played on the air…such as obscenity. Hence the famous…Radio Edit. But I have been able to find an American Ideal that states that a nation of free people should meekly hand over what kind of music can be heard to a Self-appointed Theocratic Board of Censorship. What might be a record that Pyle would allow to pass the Board?

Of course it is. There’s no reason why you can’t make money selling your boring album while, at the same time, destroying all the other records you can your hands on. I take a small step back and quote Diaz:

So, Gibby:

Phil and Bob:

Diaz:

If you take Gibby’s Three Satans, and add them to Diaz’s Two Satans….You get Phil and Bob’s Five Satans! Why can’t anyone count? And notice what Diaz said:

Satan, Satan, he’s our God

But Gibby, and Phil and Bob, say that the rest of the message is…He is God. This is so typical of these false allegations! Pay attention for a few moments and we are suddenly confronted by a bewildering number of permutations of the supposed message. I will that painfully, and rather comically, clear shortly. But at least, Diaz gives us a pep squad feel:

Satan! Satan! He’s our God! If he can’t do it, no one can!

Ok, that really doesn’t work. But! They only said Satan…twice! And far be it from me to make a corny joke…which is annoying…but I can’t help but point out:

A double bill! Switchblade Sisters! I hope they weren't some gang of Diabolical Nuns!

I know what you’re thinking…sisters with switchblades…not guns. And a friend of mine asked me…what kind of picture is that to show…really! Oh? Stay out of my essay! And this picture is important. The Beatles have appeared constantly throughout this series. And we all know that the Beatles made a song called…Happiness Is A Warm Gun. That’s an odd title! And it has this very odd lyric:

 
Mother Superior jump the gun

So I stand vindicated...I think. But I return to the strange poster shown earlier...

And I’m sure you have already seen it, but I state the obvious! 6:30? I better hurry! No, that's not it. Shouldn’t it be…666 Drive In Theatre? Diaz says that Black Oak Arkansas was particularly adept at manipulating  subliminal influences. Yes they were! They were so adept, they make one guy here one message, two other guys hear a different message, then Diaz hears something else.

It is time for another attempt to count the number of Satans:

Only one? Although this guy, David Benoit, did point out something important…the song at the center of this is from a live concert. That will make the whole thing unbearably stupid, as I will show shortly. Jacob Aranza:

Hey! One of these Evangelicals got the name of the song right! But aren’t there supposed to be three He is Gods? Finally, someone tells us what the forward lyrics are:

Ah yes! And how clever it is. Natas, written backwards, is Satan. However, that works well when writing, but not when speaking. Or singing. 

There are three main problems here. The first problem involves the Evangelical Guys ignorance about Rock music. Consequently, they grossly exaggerated the prominence of Black Oak Arkansas within the rock world.  In fact, they had only 2 singles that charted…Jim Dandy to the Rescue, which hit Number 25 in 1973, and Strong Enough to Be Gentle, that hit Number 89. By the time of the backmasking allegations, they only had 3 gold albums. The last was certified in 1976. They released 9 more albums that did not certify, up to 1976. In 1977 and 1978, the band released two albums under the name Black Oak, which sold poorly. So, by 1980, the remnants of Black Oak Arkansas were not relevant in the Rock music business.

So, in 1979, you could see Black Oak Arkansas along with another band for $3.00. That was only fifty cents more than the Chinese Acrobats, and the same amount for a ticket to the Demolition Derbies. Most galling would be the fact that tickets to see the band cost $1.00 less than the Tractor Pull.

$6.00, and you also get Wet Willie, Roadmaster, and Santa Claus. And another bummer:

Their last concert was held on a farm. And they want to be paid for tickets they didn’t sell.

The second issue is the fact that the song in question…the version of the song in question, is from a live album. Backmasking is done with studio recordings. You record something forwards, play and record it backwards, and incorporate it into a song…and it will be heard backwards. That doesn’t happen with a live album, which is nothing more than an album of songs recorded live. That is why we get the comical…Natas, Natas, Natas. In other words, we are being told, not that a normal vocal tract was added into a song backwards…no! We are being told that the singer actually sang the words backwards!

The third issue flows directly from the second issue. We have been told what the word Satan sounds like backwards. If I shout…Natas! And record it. When you play it backwards, you will hear…Satan! And this couldn’t be more important. Why? Because if you take two other supposed examples of backmasking that contain direct references to Satan, i.e. Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin) and Snowblind (Styx), you can then read over the lyrics. The word…Natas, does not appear in the lyrics to either song. Or, you can simply listen to the two songs…and you will not hear the word…Natas. But! If the allegations against Black Oak Arkansas are to be believed, then if we don’t find Natas in other songs, then there is no backmasked reference to Satan in those songs.

By the time of the allegations, I doubt that many Rock music fans remembered who Black Oak Arkansas were. And I’m certain that nobody knew who they were during the long decades that Harvey Jett was still sticking the name Black Oak Arkansas next to his. And how can you reach back to an album, one album, from 1975, and then, with absolutely nothing else alleged against the band…well, as far as backmasking goes, and find in Black Oak Arkansas the cutting edge of Satanic Backmasking? No one was even listening to them in 1982. And when you tell the world about what you found in an old song by an, at the time, obscure band, one that shouldn’t even have been listed with the likes of Led Zeppelin and Styx, and then you can’t agree on what the message that you supposedly found…actually says, it seems very odd that anyone to this seriously. How hard is it to know whether the name Satan was used once, twice, thrice, or an amazing 5 times? He is God…or He’s our God? I must say that this point alone shows just how little, which is to say…nothing, that the Satanic Backmasking Guys really knew about Rock music. So why was anyone listening to the live version of When Electricity Came to Arkansas backwards? Here is my answer…the accusations made by Tedders, along with the accusations made by ex-guitarist Harvey Jett, would lead to the band being put at the top of the list of prospective Satanic Backmaskers.

My last point is this. If you listen to the live version of this song, which does not contain any lyrics, but does contain a bunch of whooping and hollering, you will, at one point in the song, hear the following:

Watash…watash…watash

So did Satan also go by the name…Hsataw? Of course not. So what is meant by watash? The singer Jim Dandy said this in 2012:

So anyway, what I said on that record was Watash  — a Navaho word for Hello — a greeting. 

I can’t say for sure. But I searched Navajo greetings, and did not find this word. I extended my search to include the main Native American languages and did not find it. I did find a different explanation for the meaning of watash:

Jim Dandy says WATASH, not natas. Watash was what the Sioux Indians called their Great Spirit

Again, I can’t say for sure, but when I searched for the name used by the Sioux, and other nations, for the Great Spirit, I found the name Wakan Tanka. Other names include Gitchi Manitou. There are a fair number of different names, but I could not find not find Watash. I did locate a source that indicates that there was a legend of a great Susquehannock Native American hunter named WaTash. Waylon Jennings was given the nickname Watashi by Hank Williams Jr, but that wasn’t until 1979. So I think that another suggestion can be given for the meaning of Watash. What is that? Nothing…it means nothing. It was just one nonsensical vocalization among many. But once the accusation was made that watash was really Natas, which is Satan’s name backwards, a word with a supposed meaning might have been more desirable.