Comments on Backwards Masking Unmasked! Who Is Jacob Aranza?

In my case, it was a series of cassette sermons by a preacher named (I kid you not) Marty Tinglehoff. It really turned me on to the idea of subversive subtext in rock music, which I continue to appreciate to this day. I mean, I didn't need some Southern Baptist preacher to tell me what Big Balls was about, but who knew that Hotel California was all about Satanism? And while I grasped Black Sabbath's scare-your-parents schtick immediately, I was still surprised to be informed by Rev. Tinglehoff that the seemingly cheerful, kid-friendly Beatles were peddling sin at every opportunity. Highly interesting.

I immediately went back and listened to all the music I'd just been warned about with fresh ears, listening for clever double meanings and yes, even occasionally spinning something backwards to hear if there really was a hidden message there. From what I could discern from Robert Plant's tortured backwards cries, Stairway to Heaven is not so much a hidden tribute to Satan as it is a paean to the life-giving properties of Echinacea.

I'd say by about the time I went out and bought my first guitar that the strategy had pretty thoroughly backfired.

I love the conversion stories that start with something like, "By the age of nine his heart was already gripped by Satan's claw. Then when he turned fifteen, Jesus-ah found him and everything got better." I don't even know what to say. Nine? and then... FIFTEEN? Fifteen year olds get passionate about one thing and then another. Except if that first thing is Jesus (a widely available drug), they get locked in by promises of eternal salvation and threatened by eternal damnation if they were to change their minds.

Religion should be a 21+ event, I'm increasingly convinced.

Go rock and roll though.

What I want to know is, where is the minister now and does he still find Satan in music today? I sense a larger story here. 429 Bellevue Street...