Songs Dummies Think Are Secretly Satanic

Actual backwards lyrics aren't nearly as creatively evil as anti-rock moralists would have you believe. Usually they're just jokes or simply the same lyrics you already heard, played backwards. True creativity lies in the backwards messages that people only think they hear. Even the most twisted rock and roll poet couldn't have concocted gems like the following...

Nobody knows what Stairway to Heaven is about, probably not even the guys who wrote it. So, naturally, some over-thinkers have concluded it's about Satan, because who else but the Dark One would be so invested in Heaven? According to televangelist Paul Crouch in a 1982 sermon/rant, he absolutely was, using Robert Plant as a vessel to reach out to his evil little followers. Apparently, if you play the "bustle in your hedgerow" part backwards, you get, "Here's to my sweet Satan/The one whose little path would make me sad, whose power is Satan/He will give those with him 666/There was a little toolshed where he made us suffer, sad Satan."

It's not clear what's worse: the implication that Led Zeppelin was comprised of devil worshipers, or that they would actually write such putrid devil worshiping prose. Satan's power is Satan? He had a little toolshed? Satan's sad? None of this makes sense, and if you hear it at all in the actual recording, it's only because you read the words beforehand and decided to hear them. Even the worst goth poet in the world would've paid tribute to the Lord of Lies in a less clumsy manner.

The Beatles, according to legend, suffered a setback in 1966, when Paul McCartney died in a car crash. Rather than bury and mourn him, the remaining Beatles apparently threw him down a well, hired a replacement lookalike, and told us he died via ridiculous clues hidden in their music. That's an awful lot of work to expect from the guys who once sang "beep beep, m'beep beep YEAH."

Perhaps the most ridiculous, yet creepy, hint came during the sad-sack "Revolution 9." Amongst the beeps, boops and other assorted pointlessness that bafflingly replaced actual music, we heard a voice monotonously utter "number 9, number 9" time and again. Because it's the Beatles, and of course that had to mean something, people tried playing the song backwards to decipher it. There, they discovered that "Number Nine" in reverse sounded like "turn me on, dead man." And since nobody has ever died other than McCartney, clearly this line was about him. Mystery solved! Or, a coincidence brought on by phonetic reversal, either or.

Of all the bands you'd never expect to be tied to subliminal Satanism, the Electric Light Orchestra and their cellos are about eight of them. And yet, their song Eldorado still managed to make people's Satany Senses tingle. Apparently if you reverse the line, "I'll sail away on a voyage of no return to see / if eternal life is meant to be," you get, "He is the nasty one. Christ, you're infernal. It is said we're dead men. Everyone who has the mark will live." On a pure verbiage level, that's slightly better than Sad Satan and his little toolshed, though not by much.

Head Electric Lighter Jeff Lynne defused the charges by calling them "skcollob" (bollocks said backwards, which is pretty damn revelc). ELO further mocked the pseudo-scandal by inserting actual backwards messages into their next album. But, as is the case with most actual backmasking, it was pretty tame: "Music is reversible, but time? Turn back, turn back!" Okay, it really only appears tame. Because honestly, the image of a madman running through the streets screaming at passersby to turn back time before it's too late is like a Twilight Zone outtake. So even when trying to be cute, ELO winds up creepy. Just like a SATANIST might.

To many, the Eagles are evil simply for existing, though according to one creative reading of their biggest hit "Hotel California," they're also evil for bringing the Fallen Angel into impressionable young Eagles fans' lives (all four of them). In the 1983 book Backward Masking Unmasked, youth pastor Jacob Aranza insisted "Hotel California" contained secret "occultic" messages (his made-up garble word, not ours) such as "Yes, Satan organized his own religion" in place of the opening verse. Good to see a group of middle-aged, laid-back demons getting right to the point. Then, later on, if you reverse the line "in the middle of the night, just to hear them say-ayyyy," you supposedly get "yeah, Satan hears this, he had me believe in him." It would appear that, despite Don Henley singing about how "this could be Heaven or this could be Hell," he knew exactly where he was visiting. Or not...the Eagles clearly don't play devil rock, because no way would the Devil listen to anything even half as boring as "Take It Easy."

Don't think only classic rockers can craft lyrics that weirdos decide are secret odes to Beelzebub. Check Justin Bieber, whose breakthrough hit "Baby" apparently hinted at the pure evil that little Bieber always had inside him, but didn't show until he hit puberty and decided he was gangsta. As transcribed by the Tumblr mediaexposed (the '80s had Tipper Gore, we have Tumblrs), the reversed words to the chorus in "Baby" are way more interesting, if only because it isn't "baby baby baby ooooh" over and over again. Instead, it's, "Acknowledge my Lord, Lord. He's here. I'm the evil one. Satanic new world, new world, new world, new world. I want it. Let me in, let me in, yeah war. Let me in, let me in, let me in, yeah war." Yeah war, indeed. Yeah.

One of two possibilities exist here: this is yet another example of us taking perfectly innocuous music and screwing with it until our ears play tricks on us and insist evil's afoot, or it's that damned Illuminati striking again. It can't be the latter though, not unless we've got other evidence out there.

Oh.

Yes, as also unveiled by mediexposed, it would appear that everyone's favorite person, Beyonce, is absolutely a tool of Satan. Her song "Sweet Dreams," when reversed, morphs from a gorgeous love song to an ugly ode to Old Scratch: "Hail Satan. Hail Satan. I am worthy. I am worthy. Satan. I am sorry for the end of your sins cuz they're going to live in hell, cuz they're going to live in Hell. Hail Satan. I am worthy. I am worthy. I follow Lucifer. Hail Satan, cause they're going to live in Hell. I follow Lucifer." As of today, Beyonce has yet to comment on this revelation, presumably over her fierce love of privacy, and because it's incredibly stupid. For one thing, the words are really hard to understand in reverse, even if you know what you're supposed to be looking for. For another, we all know how Beyonce works. If she wanted to channel the Devil, she would do so as bluntly and openly as she tackles every other issue in her songs. And we would all fall in line. Because she is Beyonce, and she is worthy. We are not.