Aug
31
The Worst Song Misinterpretations
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I’ve been coming across a few “far out” song interpretations out there on the internet, and I thought maybe you’d be curious as to how far some people have traveled from the general consensus. I hope you will find this entertaining!
3. Stairway to Heaven song meaning by sunsetwestproductions.com
The writer there believes that the song Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin is about Christianity. His reason for beginning on this train of thought begins with this: he says,
“many times when I perform “Stairway to Heaven” I feel the Holy Spirit. Could it be that somehow God used another heavy metal band, Led Zeppelin, to glorify Jesus Christ and Heaven for masses of teenagers. It seems that British school boys know a lot more about Christianity than their American counterparts.”
To further his intuition, he also supplements his reasoning with this by pointing out the lyric “because you know sometimes words have 2 meanings”. He or she goes on to argue that even though Led Zeppelin is a band full of sinners, that the song is not evil. Here, we see an appeal to the Christian community, but not the general community. Therefore, to me it is not convincing even from his first statement. There is no context of Christianity here.
“Isn’t it funny that every year since it was new, Stairway to Heaven has been the number one rock song every time that a rock radio station plays their all time greatest, most requested songs. That’s pretty amazing, in fact it’s a miracle! Truly it is. I mean, do you think God would let Highway to Hell be number one? Well, maybe if God wanted to use it as a warning. But God, being a good, friendly, and loving God would rather do a little positive reinforcement and use a positive song after all…. “
So now, with the conclusion, he or she thinks that God caused the song’s success for his glory. Here is an excerpt for lyrics interpretations, line by line. To read the complete interpretation breakdown, visit http://www.sunsetwestproductions.com/forever/stairway.htm
There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold
And she’s buying a stairway to heaven. (she is tithing)
When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for. (The bible is the word of God, with the bible, she can get into Heaven.) Revelation 3:8
Ooh, ooh, and she’s buying a stairway to heaven. (She is tithing and she she thinks that will get her into Heaven)
There’s a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure (points out the significance of the next line, hint hint)
‘Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings. (parables, which the bible is full of, and the words in this song have two meanings)
In a tree by the brook, there’s a songbird who sings, (reference to John the Baptist and Jesus)
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiving.
Ooh, it makes me wonder, (think!)
Ooh, it makes me wonder.
To read more, visit http://www.sunsetwestproductions.com/forever/stairway.htm
2. Judas Priest interpretation by various plaintiffs (mothers of boys who committed suicide)
Perhaps some of you may have heard of the suicides of teenagers from listening to Judas Priest albums. In court, it was claimed that subliminal messages were found in the album when it was played backward, and this activated suicidal impulses. Yeah, I know, doesn’t make sense.
In one example, in the song “Better by you Better than me” they say the words “do it”, and these words urged the boys to kill themselves. It would take somebody already suicidal to receive encouragement from these words without taking account the surrounding lyrics.
Judas Priest wasn’t the only rock band under trial, but these cases are important in legal history because it will influence the future of free speech, crack pot science, and the views on the subliminal perception.
So far as I know, there was no success in the trial for the plaintiffs (whew!!!) But in the past there has been a lot of precedence for crack pot science… such as in 1986, a Philadelphia jury awarded a woman $900,000 because a CAT scan ruined her psychic abilities. (New York Times, March 29, 1986). And of course, an “expert doctor” was there to support her case. Anyway, that’s a whole ‘nother story.
1. Helter Skelter by Charles Manson
This is probably the worst misinterpretation out there in the history of Rock ‘n Roll. Charles Manson and family took the Beatles’ album and read it as a prophecy. Manson thought that the Beatles were sending them a message about “Helter Skelter”, where the blacks would rise up and destroy all the whites. The family was supposed to go to this underground city while this was happening, and come back out to rule the blacks when it was over. They were also supposed to initiate the Helter Skelter, by murdering a bunch of people.
Charles Manson was the lead interpretor, and he infused the Beatles’ lyrics with the book of Revelations from the Bible. Manson also believed that he was the second coming of Christ.
Here is a sample of the interpretation taken from Wikipedia:
The song Rocky Raccoon:
Rocky Raccoon means “coon,” vulgar term for a black man
Of all the Beatles songs known to have been connected with Helter Skelter, this is the only one that mentions the Bible. (It is possibly the only Beatles song at all that mentions the Bible.) A play on the Gideons International practice of leaving Bibles in hotel rooms, the references are to a Bible left in the room of the title character by a “Gideon”:
So one day [Rocky Raccoon] walked into town/ Booked himself a room in the local saloon/ Rocky Raccoon/ Checked into his room/ Only to find Gideon’s Bible… Now Rocky Raccoon/ He fell back in his room/ Only to find Gideon’s Bible/ Gideon checked out/ And he left it no doubt/ To help with good Rocky’s revival.
Manson made the connection. In the period before his trial, he was visited at the Los Angeles County Jail by David Dalton and David Felton, who were preparing a Rolling Stone story, about him, that appeared in the magazine in June 1970. In an article in the October 1998 issue of the periodical Gadfly, Dalton, recounting the visit to Manson, relayed the remarks Manson made to Felton and him about “Rocky Raccoon”:
“Coon,” said Charlie. “You know that’s a word they use for black people. You know the line, ‘Gideon checked out/ And left no doubt/ To help good Rocky’s revival.’ Rocky’s revival — re-vival. It means coming back to life. The black man is going to come into power again. ‘Gideon checks out’ means that it’s all written out there in the New Testament, in the Book of Revelations [sic].”
To read more, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helter_Skelter_(Manson_scenario)
These bad interpretations come mainly from insanity. If these people knew anything about the bands listed here, their interpretations would not make sense. Another thing is that there is no context for their interpretation - it’s just that they saw what they wanted to believe.
Technorati Tags: the worst song misinterpretations, helter skelter, stairway to heaven, judas priest, charles manson, christianity
Aug
7
Propellerhead’s Reason software is a virtual studio rack that comes equipped with a drum machine, 3 synthesizers, a few sampling machines and a whole lot of effects. Basically it’s awesome. The one drawback to Reason though is it’s lack of ability to record non-synthesized audio into it. A example would be I can’t plug my guitar in to my recoding pre-amp and record directly into Reason. Thankfully this is where Reasons Rewire technology comes in.
With Rewire you can “connect” you multi-tracking program(such as Cubase or Adobe Audition) with Reason. This way you can take full advantage of Reason, but still add non-synthesized music as well with out having to do a bunch of exporting and slicing.
I mainly use Cubase SX at the moment and can still remember back when I had no Idea how to use Rewire what-so-ever. I especially remember how difficult it was to find out how exactly to Rewire Cubase with Reason so I decided to make a video tutorial for all of you. This way you wouldn’t have to go through all the pain I did. I plan on releasing many more tutorials like this so if you have any questions or suggestions drop me a line and I’ll see what I can come up with to help you out.
Enjoy!
Technorati Tags: reason, rewire, cubase, sx, video tutorial, tutorial, multi-tracking, synthesized, adobe audition
Aug
2
Show off Your Gear
Filed Under Music | Leave a Comment
Do you have a killer axe, or maybe a awesome Amp you love to play out of? Well this is the place to show everybody what you got. All you got to do is drop some photos* off below and leave a comment about your gear. I’ll take care of the rest. I’ll get the ball rolling by showing you what I use at my home studio and rehearsal space. Happy posting everyone.
*Maximum of 2 photos
J. Winter
Amps
- B-52 100w all-tube guitar head w\ Marshall 4-12″ cab
- Ashdown Mag 300w solid state 2-10″ bass combo
Guitars\Bass
- Ibanez AEB10EBK acoustic electric bass
- Squire P-Bass w\ upgraded Seymour Duncan SPB-3
- Squire Strat w\ upgraded Seymour Duncan SHR-1 Hot Rails
- Hohner HW 640 acoustic guitar with Fishman Neo-D Pick-up
Recording
- Mackie Onyx 400F Firewire Studio Recording Pre-amp
- 2 Event Project Studio 5 monitors (100w each)
- Grado Labs Sr-80 studio headphones
- Art Opl Tube Mic pre-amp
- 2 Anam dynamic mics
Recording Software
- Steinberg Cubase SX 3
- Propellerhead Reason 4.0
- Adobe Audition 1.5
Website: CRmusic.info
Jones P.
Amps
- Line 6 Spider HD Amplifier Head 150w Solid state
- Line 6 Spider II cab
Guitar
- Ibanez GSA60(nice and inexpensive)
Recording
- Edirol FA-66 Studio Recording Pre-amp
- 2 Condenser Mics
Recording Software
- Audacity 1.2.6
Technorati Tags: gear, amps, guitars, software, amplifiers, recording software, recording, bass
Jul
21
Download: Single Track Flash Mp3 Player
Filed Under Music | Leave a Comment
A while back I made a small flash animation for my band site to showcase a single off of my album. In reality the flash animation was actually a single track audio player. I spent a while trying to just download one from other sites but I couldn’t find one anywhere. So to save you some trouble you can download mine here for free. I am not a flash pro, but I did manage to program all the buttons and animations to my liking. Here is a example of the player.
- There are only two things you need to do to customize the player
- Add your music track to the “Music” layer in Adobe Flash.
- Adjust the other layers frame counts to match the length of your audio file.
That’s all there is too it! Text would be a easy add to the player as well, but isn’t completely necessary. You can download my original flash file here.
Single Track Flash Mp3 Player - File size: 5.7mb
*Note the file size of you final .swf file will be only slightly larger then your audio file. The .Fla file is larger because it isn’t encoded like .flv and .swf files.
Enjoy!
Technorati Tags: mp3, flash animation, mp3 player, download, free, music
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