Some readers may remember the “satanic panic” over secular music in the 1980s. On April 27, 1982, at the California Assembly’s Consumer Protection and Toxics Committee meeting in Sacramento, Calif., panel witness William H. Yarroll II claimed that when one played Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” backward, one could hear vocalist Robert Plant talking about “my sweet Satan.” Yarroll claimed that “backmasking,” as the practice was called, had the power to “manipulate our behavior without our knowledge or consent and turn us into disciples of the Antichrist.”
The problem was that Yarroll and others making that claim told the audience the satanic phrases they would hear before they played the songs backward. So people heard what they had been primed to hear, which psychologists call pareidolia. In response to the “Stairway to Heaven” allegations, a spokesman for the group’s record label said, “Our turntables only rotate in one direction.”
Stairway to hell
However, Led Zeppelin did not need backmasking to honor Satan. Founder and lead guitarist Jimmy Page collected notorious occultist Aleister Crowley’s first-edition manuscripts, owned an occult bookshop, and frequently incorporated Crowley’s philosophy into Led Zeppelin’s artwork.
The lyrics of “Stairway to Heaven” are a call to abandon God and follow the devil. After Plant sings “there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run there’s still time to change the road you’re on,” he pronounces, “Your head is humming, and it won’t go, in case you don’t know.
The piper’s calling you to join him.”
You may recall the folk tale, “The Pied Piper of Hamelin,” in which the piper lures away the children of the village, who are never to be seen again. Webster defines a pied piper as “one that offers strong but delusive enticement.” We know that the Bible describes Satan as the “father of lies” (John 8:44) and the “deceiver of the whole world” (Revelation 12:9).
Less obvious snares
While it’s not too difficult to see the satanic messages of a song like “Stairway to Heaven” or, more obviously, the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil,” are these the only types of secular songs that might influence us in the wrong direction?
Let’s take the Rolling Stones, for example. At 73, I remember many of their songs from when they were released. “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Gimme Shelter” are still among my favorites. Although the latter mentions war, rape, and murder, it is a protest song about the Vietnam War and the condition of the world, and is a call to love. I also enjoy many of the Delta blues-style songs on their “Exile on Main Street” album.
However, many of their songs are misogynistic. In “Under My Thumb,” Mick Jagger intones, “It’s down to me. Yes, it is. The way she does just what she’s told, down to me.
The change has come. She’s under my thumb.” “Brown Sugar” talks of the sexual exploitation and abuse of young Black women by slave traders. Even Jagger said he would censor the lyrics today, and the Stones stopped performing the song. “Some Girls” perpetuates racial stereotypes and treats women as transactional commodities.
No sympathy for the devil
I recently purchased a CD of “Hot Rocks: 1964-1971,” a collection of the Stones’ greatest hits. When I play it in the car (yes, my 14-year old auto has a CD player), I enjoy many of the songs, but skip “Heart of Stone,” where Jagger pronounces, “No matter how I try, I just can’t make her cry,” “Under My Thumb,” “Mother’s Little Helper” (about a housewife who depends on “a little yellow pill,” a tranquilizer, to get her through the day), “19th Nervous Breakdown” (whose beat and lyrics seem to encourage one), “Let’s Spend the Night Together” (self-explanatory, as I don’t think the song is an ode to married couples), and “Sympathy for the Devil” (for obvious reasons).
Why do I skip those songs? Because, without any backmasking necessary, they turn my mind away from “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable” (Philippians 4:8).
Silly love songs
When I first asked Jesus into my life in 1978, I threw away all my secular albums and cassette tapes (yes, we had those back then); I later regretted discarding many of them. While I would never want to encourage anyone to do anything that might cause them to stumble, I think listening to secular music is fine if we exercise discernment. For example, there are some great love songs. As Paul McCartney wrote, “You’d think that people would’ve had enough of silly love songs. But I look around me, and I see it isn’t so. Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs. And what’s wrong with that? I’d like to know. ‘Cause here I go again.”
And what’s wrong with some of the wonderful ballads, like Arlo Guthrie’s “The City of New Orleans” or “The Circle Game” by Joni Mitchell? On the other hand, John Lennon wanted us to “imagine there’s no heaven.” Sorry, John, no can do.
So, in my humble opinion, unless you feel the Lord is telling you otherwise, it’s okay to listen to secular music. I think we are safe from any imagined backmasking. Other than that, just use good judgment—and enjoy!
Photo by Eric BARBEAU on Unsplash
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