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Monday 28 September 2009

Stairway to Heaven Played Backwards

Sarasota, Florida



The first time we heard it was an experience. Mrs. Phred and I had just driven 250 miles very fast to Tallahassee from Tampa on a borrowed Honda 750 and arrived at midnight.

We were visiting our dead friend, Ken. He had a completely disassembled Harley 74 on the floor of his apartment and a high-end quadraphonic stereo playing at 4 AM. He was just back from Viet Nam where he had purchased the quad system at the PX.

The quad FM station floating over the gulf from Pensacola starting playing this incredible haunting song about bustles in the hedgerow being a spring clean for the May Queen. Then the guitars kicked in and always made me turn the volume knob to the limit...

20 years later, a Tampa station opened with the promise that they would only play that one song. I listened to it for a week until they reneged and started playing Leonard Skynard and the Eagles.

Much to my surprise, "Stairway" has a satanic verse when you play it backwards. I guess that's because it never made sense of any kind forward although it's a very beautiful piece of nonsense lyrics.

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