44 Years Ago, Led Zeppelin Was at the Center of a Government Hearing About Rock’s Hidden Satanic Agenda

In late April 1982, the California Assembly’s Consumer Protection and Toxics Committee held a hearing to discuss hidden Satanic messages in rock music. Some claimed that bands, including Led Zeppelin, Styx, and the Beatles, were using “backmasking” to secretly sing their praises to the dark lord. One assemblyman hoped to pass a bill forcing record labels to put a warning on albums that contained those subliminal messages, much like the explicit lyric warnings that would come just a few years later.

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The inciting incident for this hearing took place in January 1982. That’s when Paul Crouch, host of Praise the Lord on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, introduced the concept of backmasking and its use to infect the country’s youth with Satanic thoughts and ideals to a national audience. During the broadcast, he pointed to the Led Zeppelin classic “Stairway to Heaven” as an example.

[RELATED: The 3 Best Songs From Led Zeppelin’s Legendary 1971 Self-Titled LP ‘Led Zeppelin IV’]

When Assemblyman Phil Wyman called the assembly to propose a law requiring warning labels on albums that contained subliminal messages, he followed suit. According to Atlas Obscura, Wyman and panel witness William H. Yarroll II handed out pamphlets containing the allegedly hidden lyrics. Then, they played the audio for the committee.

According to them, when Robert Plant is singing about a buslte in someone’s hedgerow, he was really praising the devil. Lines like “I sing because I live with Satan. The Lord turns me off. There’s no escaping it. Here’s to my sweet Satan,” were supposedly revealed when one played the recording backward.

The “Danger” of Backmasking in Rock Music

William H. Yarroll II was Assemblyman Wyman’s expert witness. He claimed that a listener only needed to hear a song like “Stairway to Heaven” three times before suffering the ill effects of backmasking. After just three spins, the Satanic word salad hidden in the Led Zeppelin classic would be “stored as truth” in the subconscious mind.

“We have [the message] stored in the unconscious as a truth image,” he explained. “As the creative unconscious side of the brain does, it goes through scanning the unconscious brain to go about and bring those truth image to the surface and make them reality for us.” In other words, one didn’t need to understand the covert devilry of the music. One needed only hear them to be forever changed by the insidious nature of good tunes. These messages, according to one legislative proposal, could manipulate listeners and transform them from everyday red-blooded, God-fearing, tax-paying Americans to “disciples of the Antichrist.”

Wyman’s bill didn’t pass. Several other proposed laws–both state and federal–aimed at hamstringing the hidden Satanic agenda of rock musicians also failed.

How Led Zeppelin and Others Reacted to the Hearing

Led Zeppelin released a brief statement about the hearings and the accusations of backmasking. A spokesperson for their label, Swan Song Records, said, “Our turntables only rotate in one direction.”

According to UPI, other musicians and industry insiders had more to say. James Young, a member of Styx, spoke to the publication. “The whole idea of backward Satanic messages is just a bunch of rubbish,” he told the publication. “It’s a hoax,” he added.

Wyman claimed that their song, “Snowblind,” contained the hidden prayer, “Satan move in our voices.”

Bob Garcia, an executive at A&M Records, also spoke to the publication. “It must be the devil putting the messages on the records because no one here knows how to do it,” he said.

Wyman later claimed that the concern at the heart of the bill he sponsored was raised by his constituents. “I am not a kook,” he said. “So please don’t paint me that way.”

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