Judas Kiss

[PiedPiper]

I'd be interested to see if anyone on this board has any information on the back-masking which preceded Judas Kiss. When I was a teen, with the help of a friend we were able to listen to this in reverse to hear, "Why are you looking for the Devil, when you oughta be looking for the Lord." Does anyone have any information about why this was done, etc... I know back-masking was used at least as far back as the 60's, but didn't know the history specific to Petra.

[Jonathan]

My guess is that it was an answer to the people who proclaimed rock and roll was the devil's music. It was a challenge to stop pointing out how terrible you perceived someone to be, and instead pursue God. I believe Bob touched on it in the MP2Y devotional, but I don't have that handy right now.

[CatNamedManny]

Yes, it was done in direct response to the anti-backmasking craze, which had been used by Christians against secular rock music for some time but had begun to be used against Petra and other Christian bands. The meme died out pretty soon after Petra did that, though correlation may not equal causation.

[brent]

I'd be interested to see if anyone on this board has any information on the back-masking which preceded Judas Kiss. When I was a teen, with the help of a friend we were able to listen to this in reverse to hear, "Why are you looking for the Devil, when you oughta be looking for the Lord." Does anyone have any information about why this was done, etc... I know back-masking was used at least as far back as the 60's, but didn't know the history specific to Petra.

Actually, there were several ignorant, moronic, backwards, stupid, sensationalist, "evangelists" making a living, touring the country, pimping their erroneous books about rock music and Christian rock music. At that time, people were looking for what was wrong with Christian rock, assuming that it was full of the same stuff that secular stuff was, and it could not be used by God because God listens to pianos, organs, and southern gospel only. God don't listen to any music by the devil.

Anyway, the Wilkersons used to hit the churches playing tapes of music spun backwards. They would condition the crowd, telling them to listen hard for "x, y and z". Then they would make up lies about bands, their names, their album covers, etc. The problem is that we do not hear things below a certain threshold in a music mix. It is hard enough to get a good mix as it is. We hear and process linearly. So we would have to hear a fully isolated voice (like JDB had John Slick on the record), hear the whole phrase, flip it around, and then comprehend it. MORONIC. This is scientifically proven to be impossible time and time again. How many of you were able to listen to it forward and then understand it? None. We all had to spin it backwards. These preachers gave the devil more credit than he was due. Backward masking was done for marketing purposes, to sell records. It was all about cash.

Petra was tired of being witch hunted. At the concerts Bob would put on a mask, so the face was on the back of his head, and would then turn around. Someone in the band would yell out, "What about backward masking?" Then Bob would give a speech about it and looking for the good instead of looking for the bad.

[brent]

BTW, I never really cared for Judas Kiss. But, it is a standard, so I endure it.

[ErioL]

BTW, I never really cared for Judas Kiss. But, it is a standard, so I endure it.

I don't understand why they played it so freakin slow on the record. I mean, really?? But awesome guitar riff, totally classic.

[separateunion]

Blood-n-Fire's version was better.

[CatNamedManny]

BTW, I never really cared for Judas Kiss. But, it is a standard, so I endure it.

I don't understand why they played it so freakin slow on the record. I mean, really?? But awesome guitar riff, totally classic.

Yeah, it's much better live.

[SCJ-7]

Petra played Judas Kiss here in Puerto Rico in 2002 and is true, the "Live Version" is better than the original version. But I understand why Petra recorded Judas Kiss in that form. Remember, the year was 1982. At that time, any Christian Music with hard rock tunes was categorized as "evil" by some fanatics of that era...

[Jonathan]

I never heard the live version when it first came out, but I think Judas Kiss is almost perfect. I can't find my "Top 100 Christian Rock Songs" thread, but I think I had it number one, or close to it. When my band covered it, we put a cut time coda on the end of it before bringing it back down (That was before I heard the 1BP version). Had to headbang a little bit...

I know, cool story.

[knotodiswrld]

I once rented a video (on VHS) entitled "Penn & Teller's Cruel Jokes For Good Friends". Most of the jokes actually use the video, so for it to really work you need to buy the silly thing. (Penn & Teller may be atheists, but they are very clever businessmen.)

Anyway, for one of the jokes, you were supposed to tell your friend that you had discovered "backwards masking" in this evangelists broadcasts. You were supposed to then convince you friend that your VCR could play tapes in reverse. You had the tape queued up to the right spot already of course.

When you hit play, it has this preacher preaching at a pulpit, and at first you can't make out anything he's saying, it' just a bunch of garble. But then a few words start to become clear. And then a sentence here and there. And eventually, you can make out everything he's saying.

Of course, the "backwards" masking of this "evangelist" goes on to advocate devil worship, suicide, murder, etc. I remember one line "Or kill your parents and THEN kill yourself. I don't care."

In 1990, it seemed funny.

Additionally, I remember one card trick they had on the video where they taught you to do a "force" (i.e. get your victim ... I mean "volunteer" ... to pick the card you want them to) and then, of course, you try to guess their card several times and get it wrong. And then, as the video is playing in the background, you direct their attention to it, and Teller holds up a giant card that matches the card your victim picked and Penn says, "Is this your card."

That was quite a mind-blower.

[prem]

I know Petra had been particularly singled out by some of the anti-C-rock crowd as having backmasking in their Never Say Die album...specifically, they said that if you spun the song 'Praise Ye The Lord' backwards just so, you could hear the words 'Hail Satan'.

I remember taking the digital track and reversing a few years ago it to see what they were talking about...if you zero in on the part where the guys are singing 'Jesus is Lord' a capella and the guitar breaks in, you can sorta make out something in that few seconds of reversed audio that an individual on a real witch hunt might somehow mishear as 'Hail Satan' on a particularly gloomy day...but it takes a lot of 'creative listening' to hear that.

Of course, they are singing 'Jesus is Lord' forward within that very same section, which brings to mind 1 Corinthians 12:3.

So, while the purposeful backmasking at the beginning of Judas Kiss can be construed as a general response to the anti-C-rock crowd, some theorize that this was a specific response to the specific backmasking charge leveled at Petra back in the day.

[brent]

Creative listening is exactly it. It takes more evil to dream up this bullpuckie stuff. Petra was quoting something in the bible. Do we really think that God intended everything in the various English translations of the bible to say something forward and reverse? Next people are going to tell me there is a code in there....

[Jonathan]

The music is reversible...turn back...turn back...

[knotodiswrld]

Creative listening is exactly it. It takes more evil to dream up this bullpuckie stuff. Petra was quoting something in the bible. Do we really think that God intended everything in the various English translations of the bible to say something forward and reverse? Next people are going to tell me there is a code in there....

I find that many of the same people who practice "creative listening" also contend that "God only wrote one Bible", and by that they mean "The Authorized Version of 1611", i.e. The King James. They will tell you that the "various English Translations" are a work of the devil himself, and that you will burn in hell for so much as opening one up.

The real Bible, they say, is preserved only in the King James 1611 version.

I have even heard some go so far as to say that once God produced the King James (their words), He stopped preserving the Hebrew and Greek, and thus the Greek and Hebrew texts we have now cannot be trusted. They believe that the one and only place in which God preserves His Word is in the King James Bible of 1611.

And thus, many of them really do believe that there are codes to be found in the KJV. And that other versions may very well have satanic messages "backwards masked" in the text itself.

The King James Bible was not released until 1611 ... less than 400 years ago as of this writing.

As someone born and raised in the state of Virginia, I find it interesting that Jamestown, Virginia was colonized in 1609. Thus Virginia, as a political entity, is older than the book that some claim to be the one and only preserved Word of God.