Led Zeppelin's rock song “Stairway to Heaven” is one of the most controversial songs for its hidden verses – it is alleged a backmasked message is present in "Stairway to Heaven"." It occurs during the middle part of the song where the lyrics start as “If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now…”.

A backmasked message means one that is hidden beyond the perception of regular consciousness – i.e. a subliminal message – so when you play the verse backwards you hear different words. Here is the stairway to heaven subliminal verse in full:

• Oh here’s to my sweet Satan.
• The one whose little path would make me sad, whose power is Satan.
• He will give those with him 666.
• There was a little toolshed where he made us suffer, sad Satan.

The controversy all started when a Baptist preacher blasted the song on his radio show in 1982.

This brought on lots ofcontroversy and several people analyzed the song including the Consumer Protection and Toxic Materials Committee. Neuroscientist William Yarroll supported the fact that the song contained messages when played backwards.

Led Zep mostly ignored these criticisms and for years and years the only statement about the issue was from Swan Song Records: "Our turntables only play in one direction—forwards". Sound engineer Eddie Kramer got angry at the critisicm, calling the claims "totally and utterly ridiculous". Why would they spend studio time doing something so dumb?" Led Zep Writer Robert Plant got extremely frustrated with the accusations: "To me it's very sad, because 'Stairway to Heaven' was written with best intentions, and as for reversing tapes and putting messages on the end, that's not my idea of making music.

Here is the infamous video, so you can decide for yourself. Visit our blog for more subliminal songs.

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