turn back, turn back...

[greedy_lars]

backwards that is...

did you know that the ELO album face the music has some backwards vocals just as the first song is warming up, play it backwards and it says "turn back, turn back". clever.

not sure when exactly i became facinated with backwards elements in music, prolly around when i discovered the secret message on the wall. but since then, ive found many vocals, guitar licks, drums and more, that sometimes leave me in awe.

take for example the Brian Eno song Tzim N'arki. quirky, catchy little piece, right away noticed the vocals in the entire piece are backwards, make no sense, and work with the melody as such that they were ment to be. imagine my suprize when i spun it backwards and found that not only are they the lyrics to another Eno song, Kings Lead Hat, but their sang almost exactly the same way they are in Lead Hat, yet in Tzim they sound perfect, played backwards. amazing. im thinking he structured the song around those lyrics played backwards, but is just a guess.

Adrian Belew has a song called Big Electric Cat that has backwards drums and guitar pieces all through it, and its beyond cool. Robet Fripp also has some fantastic leads that are backwards. or Phil Manzanara for that matter. or Daniel lanois.

its my understanding that in some cases how they get the lead they want, and play it backwards is this.

first, come up with the lead you want in the song, then tape it. then play the tape backwards, learn to play the lead backwards, then record it being played backwards, then when you again reverse the tape, you have your original intended lead, but being played backwards. frikin cool.

in most cases, instruments being played backwards and working well are more interesting to me than vocals. but vocals themselves have their trippy moments.

went through a faze some years back, where i hunted out backwards vocals in any music i could find. there was plenty to choose from within my collection, and i got busy flipping tape, and listening. in many cases, it was just some cute, or clever thing they did to be cute or clever. but at other times...

in the Beatles song Revolution #9, they say "number nine, number nine" over and over, but it sounds more like "numbred niiiieeeennn(roll the r) and when played backwards it sounds like paul is dead. for the hell of it, i recorded myself saying number nine as closely as they did, and when i played it backwards, again it sounded like turn me on dead man. weird.

something that kind of blew me away was theres a song on ELO - Eldorado, that sounds normal enough, but when you play it backwards, some of the passages have a differant message backwards. whole sentances that are whole sentances backwards. trippy.

anyone else find this stuff interesting?

[Ramona_A_Stone]

Terribly.

You also realize of course that King's Lead Hat is an anagram, don't you?

Thela Hun Ginjeet, anyone?

(...if god had listened to my story
none of this ever would have happened
if god had listened to my story
none of this would have ever occured...)

[ONEMANBANNED]

stairway to heaven when you play the lp backwards at the line ...... theres still time to change the road your on = my sweet satan