Playing Songs Backwards

I'm a genuine believer in coincidence. I also know that we have the ability to see things in places where there is nothing. Combine the two, and we have the ability to see faces, hear voices, and essentially humanize all kinds of things that happen by chance. Music is no different, and one of the classic claims that takes advantage of our gullible nature is the idea that there are hidden messages in songs. Granted, there are some songs that have hidden tracks and the like, but that's not what I am referring to here. As the title may have suggested (read: given away), some people claim that if you play certain songs backwards, you can hear hidden messages. They supposedly refer to Satan or something sexual. I personally think it's all just coincidence though.

Here's a fun little flash thing that I got from this site. It's a great way to test your intuitions about these "hidden message" claims. I honestly couldn't guess what they were supposedly saying until I checked the "hidden message" lyrics, but maybe you'll hear it on your own:

How did you do? Were you able to hear it before you checked the lyrics?

...Now what do you think would happen if an artist actually planned backwards lyrics? Or a wrote a whole entire song that is meant to be played backwards? Enter Radiohead, and the songs "I Will" and "Like Spinning Plates".

These two songs are actually the same song, except one is forward - "I Will" - and the other backwards. While Radiohead was recording, they found that the melody line in "I Will" sounded really great played backwards, so they decided to make a song out of the backwards version of the song! They then listened to the backwards vocals and tried to choose words that matched the backwards sounds...and that's how the lyrics were born. So technically, the lyrics to "Like Spinning Plates" should sound a lot like the backwards version of "I Will". What makes this even more interesting is the fact that the backwards version - "Like Spinning Plates" was released first! It took them another few years to release "I Will", the forwards version of the song. Fun stuff.

Here's a version of the two songs, one playing backwards and one playing forwards in sync to each other. The first half is "I Will" played forwards with "Like Spinning Plates" played backwards at the same time, followed by a switch: