Secret Messages Hidden in Music

Surely you’ve listened to a song and felt that, deep down, it was sending you a coded message. Don't worry, you’re not going crazy (well, maybe a little). As it turns out, the music world has been obsessed with hiding secrets for centuries.

The Ultimate Trick 
"Backmasking" (Or Recording Backward)

This is the classic of all classics. In the 70s and 80s, rock stars got into a bizarre trend: recording backward phrases inside their songs. If you spun the vinyl in reverse with your finger (risking your mom hitting you with a slipper for breaking the turntable), you would discover some mind-blowing things.

• Led Zeppelin and "Stairway to Heaven": Urban legend says that if you play it backward, you can hear satanic praises. Truth be told, it sounds more like a strange, creepy EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon), but nobody can strip away the myth now.
• Queen and "Another One Bites the Dust": Played backward, it was rumored to say "It's fun to smoke marijuana." Coincidence or just wanting to party? We'll never know.
   

Taylor Swift 
The Queen of Modern Espionage

If you thought hidden messages were just a thing for old, long-haired rockers, you don't know Taylor Swift. She has elevated the art of mystery to CIA levels.

Taylor loves leaving what we call Easter Eggs. In the lyric booklets of her physical albums, she used to capitalize random letters that spelled out secret words (usually the name of the ex the song was aimed at). Nowadays, her fans (the Swifties) analyze her nail polish color, the exact time of her social media posts, and the number of buttons on her jacket to guess when her next album will drop. Now that is marketing masterclass; everything else is child's play!

Classics with a Double Meaning 
(And a Touch of Math)

Long before amplifiers even existed, classical composers were already absolute hackers.

The Bach Code: Johann Sebastian Bach himself was so proud of his last name that he turned it into music. In German musical notation, the notes B-flat, A, C, and B-natural are written as B-A-C-H. So, the smooth operator hid his "musical signature" across tons of sheet music. The original 18th-century graffiti!

The "Fear" of Hidden Frequencies

Sometimes messages aren't words, but sensations. There is something called infrasound, which are frequencies so low that the human ear can't hear them... but the body can definitely feel them.

Some horror movie directors and experimental music bands slip these "invisible" sounds into the background to make your hair stand on end without you knowing why. Evil? Just a little bit.

The next time you listen to your favorite song, keep your ears wide open. Whether it’s a desperate message of love, an inside joke from the band, or a clue about their next concert, music is full of secrets just waiting to be discovered.