3 Famous Bands That Allegedly Put Dark Messages In Their Songs

via Queen Official/YouTube
There’s always been a bit of mystery and mischief in rock ‘n’ roll. While making an album takes a lot of time and talent, some fans believe artists go the extra mile by slipping hidden messages into their music—on purpose. Whether these supposed secrets are harmless jokes or spooky signals, they’ve sparked some wild theories over the years. Here are three iconic bands that have found themselves at the center of the “hidden message” craze.
The Beatles: Fueling Theories with Backwards Lyrics
It all began when John Lennon admitted to playing around with backward vocals on a Beatles track.
“On the end of ‘Rain’ you hear me singing it backwards,” he told Rolling Stone in 1968. “We’d done the main thing at EMI and the habit was then to take the songs home and see what you thought a little extra gimmick or what the guitar piece would be.”
That little experiment kicked off a wave of fans dissecting Beatles songs for secret meanings. One famous example? A caller to a radio station claimed that if you played “Revolution 9” in reverse, it said “Turn me on, dead man.” That added fuel to the bizarre theory that Paul McCartney had died and been replaced by a lookalike.
Paul later confirmed that the band leaned into the rumors just for fun. “We even put one of those spoof backwards recordings on the end of the single for a laugh, to give all those Beatles nuts something to do,” he told The Guardian. “I think it was a line of a George Formby song.”
Led Zeppelin: “Stairway to Heaven” or Something Darker?
“Stairway to Heaven” is considered one of rock’s most powerful songs—but some listeners believed it contained something more sinister. Televangelist Paul Crouch once claimed it held a hidden satanic message when played backward, including lines like: “Here’s to my sweet Satan…”
Lead singer Robert Plant was baffled and a bit annoyed by the accusations. “To me it’s very sad, because ‘Stairway to Heaven’ was written with every best intention,” he said in a 1983 interview with Musician Magazine. He also found the idea a bit far-fetched: “Who on Earth would have ever thought of doing that? You’ve got to have a lot of time on your hands to even consider that people would do that.”
Queen: Subtle Smoky Suggestions
Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” became a huge hit—but not without controversy. Some listeners believed that when played in reverse, the song revealed a secret message encouraging drug use.
“The music group Queen has a message for you,” claimed Christian radio host Michael Mills, according to Radio X. “In their album A Night At The Opera, they sing ‘Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me.’ In their hit ‘Another One Bites The Dust,’ their hidden message – in reverse – is ‘Some of us smoke marijuana.’”
Compared to the dark and wild theories surrounding other bands, this one sounds fairly harmless.