From: dmac@julia.math.ucla.edu (saki)
Subject: Re: Backwards messages
Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 20:32:15 GMT

In article <ujazzer.721428383@mcl> ujazzer@mcl.ucsb.edu (D'aaron Noswal) writes:
>In <1992Nov4.101718.4621@verifone.com> kent_f1@verifone.com writes:
>
>>> (Lisa Dick) writes:
>>> We need to know where to find the backward masked message
>>> paul is dead. (daed si luap)
>
>>Forgive me for shouting but... THERE IS NO SUCH THING!!!!!
>
>Yes there is, sandwiched between the songs "I'm so tired" and "Blackbird"
>on the White Album.  The backwards message by John mutters "Paul is dead,
>man, miss him, miss him, miss him..."  Whether the message is intentional
>or simply a freak of nature is another question altogether.

But that's really the important question. The "backwards message", such
as it is, *seems* like "Paul is dead, miss him, miss him" to those who
already know what they should be hearing...but play it for someone outside
the whole "Paul Is Dead" context and it can sound utterly incomprehensible.
Or it can sound like another sentence or phrase altogether. Try it on
a non-Beatles fan sometime and see what they think they're hearing. It's
very revealing.

There is nothing to support the contention that this is a deliberately-
placed message audible only to those clever souls who take their turntable
out of gear and spin the record backward. And as futile lawsuits have
indicated, there is no viable theory that the human mind decodes such
allegedly suggestive clues upon hearing them played backward. Just in
case you were worried about that one. :-)

Backwards masking is a term applied inappropriately in this case, though
by association with the Beatles it seems to have taken on a portmanteau
meaning. There's an audiophonic phenomenon that occurs when a softly
recorded passage is followed by a loud one: the louder note, word or
lyric has the measurable effect of masking the preceding audiophonic
element to some extent...masking the soft element *in a backwards
direction*, in other words. But the term is often applied to the
alleged use of hidden messages, which are supposedly only understandable
once the backwards element is played forward.

I'll admit that some of the Beatles' oeuvre sounds good in reverse. When
I was first listening to them in early 1964, I used to enjoy using a
tiny, cheap-but-unbreakable tape recorder to capture their music off
the AM airwaves, perhaps assuming that I would never need to invest
real money in their tangible vinyl discs. I recall that "I Want To Hold
Your Hand" sounded particularly attractive when played backward on this
machine, audible since the play heads were too primitive to disengage
from the tape surface and the full beauty of the song came forth at
regular play speed...just backwards. I don't recall at the time hearing
any hidden messages.

Although maybe they were there after all! Perhaps that explains the 
tenacity of my latter-day Beatlemania. :-)

--
"What makes this foursome's history quite unprecedented is the fact that
two of the boys write (with an output rate which is prolific-plus!) all
the songs which The Beatles take to the top of the hit parade."
-----------------------------------------------saki (dmac@math.ucla.edu)