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Even Singing Frontwards, Williams is Still
Squirrely
BY BRAD BARNES, Staff Writer
5/31/02
There's a song on the new album by Chapel Hill songwriter
Joe Williams that'll make you laugh.
Actually there's probably about five songs on there
that'll make you laugh. At least, as long as you're not too attached
to squirrels. More on that later.
This song called "Led Zeppelin Backwards,"
though, lasts all of 24 seconds. Its lyrics: "Last night I
was flippin' through my records/I thought I'd play a little Led
Zeppelin backwards/Oh Lord have mercy, Satanic verses/I can't be
sure, but I could've sworn I heard, it says: Shneeeeeer naaap. Shneeeeeer
naaap en itzip anidz aiiyen."
Here in the Bible Belt, probably not a lot of folks haven't heard
the rumors about hidden backwards messages in Zepp's classic rock
staple "Stairway To Heaven."
In the '80s, a Christian radio station in my hometown tried to convince
listeners that when Robert Plant was saying forward, "Yes there
are two paths you can go by, but in the long run there's still time
to change the road you're on," what he was saying backward
was: "Here's to my sweet Satan, the one who made a path,"
yadda yadda yadda.
Using big rubber bands and two side-by-side record players, said
station had rigged up a turntable to spin backwards. And, well,
to be honest, when they were telling us what to hear, it did kind
of sound like it.
I found a Web site the other day that has audio samples of the song,
and a bunch of other alleged cases of backwards masking. When I
listened to the "Stairway" clip some 18 years after that
first time, it sounds more like Plant's singing "soyt-en"
--- like the Three Stooges' "Soyt-enly! Woo-woo-woo!"
--- than it does "Satan."
In their eagerness to prove that artists, or evil spirits possessing
them, are recording these backwards messages, proponents are actually
shooting themselves in the feet with their ridiculous examples.
One site (www.reversespeech.com) says the chorus of Bonnie Raitt's
song, "Something to Talk About" says backwards, "Grab
our butt and whip us/Squeeze it/Grab our butt and whip us."
Which is basically what she was implying with the forward lyrics
anyway.
One claims that a Jewel song contains the backward line, "You're
glamorous and you live with a Nazi." Maybe there's a rule that
if your compliment is going to be given backwards, it should also
be backhanded.
Bottom line is, people misunderstand lyrics all the time, even when
they're listening to them in the direction in which the songs were
recorded in the first place. I'm soyt-enly not going to put too
much stock in what I hear backwards.
As for forwards music, check out Williams' disc. If more people
wrote folk music like he does, more people would like folk music.
PETA alert: His song "Three Squirrels" recounts an ill-fated
road crossing by the little animals. My friend Vicki wouldn't care.
"Rats with poufy tails," she calls them as she devises
new ways of keeping squirrels off of her bird feeder.
There's also an ode to "The Lone Cow of Pittsburgh" ("Muy
grande/Muy mooey") and a song that uses a dad's La-Z-Boy as
a metaphor for the apple in the Garden of Eden.
You can download some songs and order the album at the upstart independent
label Banzai! Entertainment. It's www.thebanzai.com.
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