Music Psych 101: Primed Paradolia
By: Ella Bernard
When we are looking for something, we might be more likely to see or hear it within our daily lives. Primed pareidolia is the phenomenon of perceptions that emerge from our brain’s pattern-making tendencies when combined with prior expectations or suggestions. Pareidolia is “assigning meaningful interpretation” to something, when in reality that interpretation is largely a construction of our own. It’s a type of apophenia — we aim to positively affirm patterns we recognize, rooted in our cognitive biases, causing people to see patterns that are in reality based in mere coincidence, or constructed entirely. Our habit of creating patterns results in our seeing shapes in the clouds or Jesus on a piece of toast. Pareidolia is an unconscious practice, but I think we want to believe the things we see and hear.
Like visual constructions, pareidolia also applies audio perception. Pareidolia is the reason some people report hearing voices or melodies within white noise machines. In the same way this may spur us to find gruesome images in Rorschach tests, or think we’ve encountered something paranormal, pareidolia can percolate into our music listening experiences, making us believe we’ve uncovered something that’s not actually there. We’re looking for ghosts within our music that can only be heard if you squint your ears.
Where pareidolia is involuntary, resulting in auditory hallucinations like hearing voices under the hum of a bedroom fan, primed pareidolia is what occurs when we go looking for something to believe in, with a preexistent idea of what we might find. When we are primed to experience something it strengthens the effect of our interpretations, making the listener not only able to hear a murmured phrase, but instead confirming the concoction planted in their head.
Music conspiracy heads, this ones for you.
Pareidolia moves beyond misheard lyrics. The search for primed pareidolia urges us to see a meaning that subverts a piece of work as we know it. Some of the most bountiful sources of musical conspiracies with implied alternative or even sinister ulterior meanings come from primed pareidolia. Here are some of the most famous cases.
Most famously, is Paul really dead? Despite the artist still putting on 3 hour concerts at 82, half of the internet is occupied with all the reasons the real Paul McCartney might be dead and was replaced with a clone. Theories range from his shoeless appearance on the Abbey Road cover to the symbolism on the front of Sgt. Pepper and most fittingly the “turn me on, dead man” which supposedly can be clearly heard when reversing ‘Revolution 9’ from The White Album. The fantastic Paul is dead theory is just one of many ulterior meanings that can be extracted from playing Beatles songs in reverse.
Playing songs in reverse to find embedded hellish messages, referred to as backmasking, was a core method of investigation during the Satanic Panic in the 80s and 90s. This satan fueled hysteria was largely driven by concerned parents, religious groups, and alarmist stories in the news, insisting that rock music and daycare workers alike were indoctrinating the youth into satanism, and that this whole endeavour, of course, was controlled by the media, government, and schools. Paranoia was so severe that the FBI investigated these matters of satanism sweeping America, but by the mid 90s couldn’t find any evidence.
Some bands really did embed messages backwards which added fuel to the fire for satanic alarmists and fans searching for easter eggs or “secret messages,” like Pink Floyd’s cheery messaging in ‘Empty Spaces’ and Slayer’s immersive ‘Hell Awaits’. Robert Fripp of King Crimson’s ‘Hāaden Two’ when reversed goes as far to feature a clip from Monty Python’s flying sheep sketch. The Beatles also intentionally embedded backmasked clips as an experimental way of playing with tapes and “to give fans something to do.”
‘Hotel California’ by the Eagles is one of many tracks with a supposed secret hidden message when played backwards. I sat through all 6 and a half minutes in reverse, and the soundbite in which Don Henley supposedly sings in reverse “Satan he hears this, he had me believe” is flimsy at best. I struggled picking that lyric out, so whoever started this theory, whether as a marketing ploy or for religious motives, was really reaching. The Eagles were said to have sold their souls to the devil for the smashing success of Hotel California, which likely fueled the fire in finding satanic messages within the album. Maybe the Eagles were in on the joke. On the inner jacket of the vinyl, an eerily satanic figure stands above the crowd on a balcony, with what looks like contorted stretched out arms, yet according to Don Henley, this was a “drunk model.” While I don't believe there are satanic lyrics only revealed by playing ‘Hotel California’ in reverse, the figure on the balcony has kept me up at night.
Some claims about backmasked messages are more ridiculous, like that Queen’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ repeats the phrase “it is fun to smoke marijuana, ooh at my house,” that Britney Spears’ ‘Baby One More Time’, released when she was 16, when reversed has the lyric “sleep with me, I’m not too young,” or that Pink Floyd was embedding subliminal military messages in their music. All these stem from people with too much time on their hands looking for something darker. With planted ideas about the darker side of the music industry and media control, they’re sure to find something that supposedly confirms what they set out to do.
And I won’t bore you with the essay’s worth of the many interpretations around what happens if you play ‘Stairway to Heaven’ backwards (but heres a rendition with a complete set of backwards lyrics, if that's your thing). Led Zeppelin is consistently battered with accusations of hiding satanic messages within their music, which is not helped by guitarist Jimmy Page’s temporary ownership of Boleskine House, the manor once owned by Aleister Crowley, one of the most prominent satanists ever. This is just one of many ways Led Zeppelin can be tied to the occult.
How much is really there, and how much do we just want to believe? While primed pareidolia is likely to blame for most all of these “hidden meanings” in music, It still can be an addicting ritual to indulge in.