Updated October 14, 2019 6.9K votes 2.0K voters 191.2K views
It's a recording trick known as backmasking, whereby words and phrases are reversed and inserted into songs, so that when played backwards the secret messages with hidden meanings can be heard. Backmasking was "exposed" by right-wing Christian groups in the '60s, '70s, and '80s as an attempt by major recording artists to convert unwitting people to the Devil, insisting that the reversed lyrics seeped into a person's subconscious and altered their minds (also known as subliminal messaging, which doesn't at all work like that).
Here are notable examples of music with backwards lyrics, most of which are purely imagined, though some are real and intentionally inserted into the songs.
Two minutes and fourteen seconds into the song, when played backwards you can hear a voice say "A God with hooves, a God with horns." This instance of backmasking is clearly intentional.
Old school Norwegian black metal group Darkthrone are all about knocking Christianity by bolstering Satan. "As Flittermice as Satans Spys" appears on the group's third album, Transilvanian Hunger, and was written by noted murdered, arsonist, and white supremacist Varg Vikernes. The end of the song has a decidedly anti-Christian reverse message: "In the name of God, let the churches burn."
Given the name "Satan" in the song's title, it's not hard to assume the message is intended as Satanic.
At the beginning of the song, there at first appears to be gibberish, but when reversed, a voice clearly says, "You think you're alive, motherfucker? You're just the walking fucking dead, you're a fucking sheep, stepping on my back to stay alive. West Coast, East Coast, you're all just a bunch of fucking fools, you and the rest of this greedy fucking world. Kill yourself! So stay in school, say no to drugs, oh yeah! Hail Satan! Good night boys and girls, pleasant dreams." Another intentional instance of backmasking.
Floridian death metal heretics Deicide love them some Satan, and, given the band's name, attacking organized religion (Christianity in particular) at every available opportunity. The beginning of "Satan Spawn, the Caco-Daemon", from the band's second album, Legion, opens with a reversed utterance of the song's pro-666 chorus, "Satan spawn, cacodaemon, cacodaemon, cacodaemon, satan spawn, cacodaemon, cacodaemon, cacodaemon," accompanied by the braying of an aggrivated sheep.
The lead off, and title, track from Slayer's second record, Hell Awaits, contains a backwards Satanic incantation. Voices repeat the phrase "join us" 45 times, before intoning "Welcome back" (all backwards and hard to understand, of course). According to Slayer vocalist and bass player Tom Araya, the message was intended to be an invocation of Satan, and the "welcome back" an indication that the invocation worked, and Satan walked among the living.
He also admitted it was added to bolster the album's Satanic imagery, not because the band has any genuine interest in conjuring Satan.
This song contains "The Lord's Prayer" in reverse (meaning, if you play the song in backwards, you will hear a voice reciting the prayer. This isn't so much a hidden Satanic message as a direct one: reciting "The Lord's Prayer" backwards is apparently a custom in some Satanic rituals.
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