Playing Songs Backwards and Super Secret Hidden Messages

As a kid growing up in the 80s, I always made fun of the whole backwards music stuff. With a record, you couldn't spin it in reverse well enough to hear anything (plus it's bad on the needle) and regular tapes can't be played backwards.

You would need a fancy turn table for mixing/spinning records, or a reel-to-reel tape player to even hear anything played backwards. The idea that there were hidden messages in songs always seemed silly to me.

Some of you might remember "Bunchie" that weird green llama GIF file from 2003.

But what you might not know, is that there's a super secret hidden messages when you play the GIF backwards!

Fast forward to modern times, and playing music backwards is not a complicated task at all. In fact, there are many open source tools that can play any audio in reverse. Audacity is the first that comes to mind. I've used it for around 20 years for a number of audio editing tasks.

Back around 2016, there was a list of songs in an article, where some parts of songs actually did sound like they're saying something when played backwards. And you don't have to “listen closely,” it's actually pretty clear.

Being a skeptic. I downloaded these songs to see if I could hear the same thing, when reversing the audio using Audacity.

Here's what I found:

• Britney Spears "...Baby One More Time" - It sounds like she's saying, "Sleep with me I'm not to young."
britainy spears - baby one more time - backwards.mp3
• Missy Elliot "Work It" - She says, "I put my thing down, flip it and reverse it" twice. (This song is widely known for this, as it was not "hidden."
missy elliott - work it - backwards.mp3
• Pink Floyd "Empty Spaces" - It says:
  –Hello looker...
  –Congratulations, You have just discovered the secret message.
  –Please send your answer to Old Pink, care of the Funny Farm, Chalfont...
  –Roger, Carolyne's on the phone!
  –Okay.
pink floyd - empty spaces - backwards.mp3
• Queen "Another One Bites the Dust" - It sounds like he's saying, "It's fun to smoke marijuana."
queen - another one bites the dust - backwards.mp3

I'm sure there are more songs out there, but these were some where you could more easily hear the wording. Some backwards words are definitely in there on purpose. The one from Pink Floyd, and the Missy Elliot song are obviously not "hidden." But the others are much more likely to be coincidental.

I brought up the reverse music after seeing a Substack Note about the Supertramp album "Breakfast in America." Where there were some theories that perhaps the cover made references to 9-11 and the Twin Towers coming down. It made me think of the super secret hidden messages in songs.

Here's a link to the file Barbara was referencing.

My first question was, "Who has time to listen to all this music backwards, just to see if there's something hidden in it?" Or, perhaps some people can hear the backwards messages the first time they hear the song.

I've never known anyone that could pick up on backwards speech hidden within a song, but maybe some of you have?

What are your experiences with this?

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