Pastor and Plant

Jason M. Thornberry

I first heard Black Sabbath in 1984. I was thirteen, a seventh grader at Inland Christian School. A pastor who taught there played the song “Iron Man” for me and the small student body: eighty-six inquisitive teenagers. “Something’s wrong with Ozzy Osbourne, you see,” he said from his seat on the chapel stage. “He seems possessed. I mean, listen to his voice.”

We’d been sitting quietly in the pews. The chapel was an important place, and we knew what the pastor wanted to talk about must be significant. I leaned forward, smiling when he announced classes were canceled. Today, he said, we would study the demoralizing effects of rock and roll music—particularly heavy metal—on fragile young psyches. This was devil’s music. And he believed the best way to confront this music was for us to listen to it. All day. So that’s what we did. We started with Sabbath.

With outrageous rock lyrics flickering on a white vinyl projection screen, the pastor slid black vinyl records from heavy-weight paper sleeves, laying them on the turntable beside him. And as he played record after record and our customary study hours crept by, students around me grew visibly intrigued by sounds they’d never been allowed to hear. Forbidden fruit. Fortunately, my parents surrounded me with music. Nothing was off-limits. I’d grown up with Led Zeppelin, whose “Stairway to Heaven” the pastor played several times, visibly restraining himself from rocking out. And as Robert Plant sang the last lines a cappella, the pastor emphasized how detrimental this song was to our spiritual well-being. “This is music for outcasts. Nothing good comes of this stuff,” he said. “But check this out.” Placing an index finger on the record, he ran the eight-minute song backward through columns of precariously leaning speakers stacked on the stage like Stonehenge. He wanted us to appreciate the lengths to which Led Zeppelin went, layering subliminal messages into this, their most famous song.

What did a famous song played backward sound like? It was familiar and foreign because everything was inverted: invisible fingers un-plucked guitar strings, and the chords began amid their departure—fading and stretching and then suddenly rising in your ears as percussion stuttered and hiccupped, cymbals passing through speakers like running water. But the vocals were the weirdest part. The pastor explained: “It’s called backward masking.” He described the elongated consonants and vowels fusing, creating an evil new language.

The pastor said Lucifer employed this method to hijack young minds, enlisting us in his new army. “Now,” he said, “really listen.” And then he ran “Stairway to Heaven” backward again, slowing the song to a thundering crawl, asking us if we could hear Robert Plant singing: “Oh-my-sweet-Satan.” We stared silently, so he played it again. “Hear it now?” Then again. “How about now?” We still heard nothing. “Okay,” he paused, cranking the volume. Some plugged their ears. Others gritted their teeth. “Now?” On the sixth or seventh go-round, a few nodded their heads, and he returned the record to its sleeve, smiling, slapping his thigh. “That’s just it, boys and girls. With a little help from the band, Satan has infused his malevolent spirit into the grooves of this record—and all the others I showed you today. And he wants to do the same to your innocent hearts.”

I turned to my friend James, remarking on the quality of the pastor’s record collection. I already owned a few of these albums, but the rest were now on my Christmas list. Every record he’d railed against was neatly filed in a milk crate beside the stool where he sat. Along with Sabbath, Styx, Judas Priest, AC/DC, and Kiss, there was also Queen, Prince, David Bowie, E.L.O., and assorted new wave artists he believed promoted deviant sexuality—like Duran Duran, Soft Cell, Wham, and Culture Club. He played them all, first frontward, and then slowly backward. “Don’t be tempted by their faces either,” he said, aiming a finger at the screen, where Boy George pouted down at him. “This—this—this person up here’s gonna lure you into dropping your spiritual defenses. That’s right. And once you’ve done that, it’s over. The devil captures your soul. And believe me, he’s never giving it back.”

At the day’s end, we filed from the chapel, talking excitedly. That Saturday, I begged my stepmother to take me to the record shop so I could get a copy of Culture Club’s Kissing to be Clever on cassette. The pastor was right—they were great.

Jason M. Thornberry is a disabled writer whose work appears in JMWW, Letters Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. His first novel and a memoir are currently being considered by publishing houses. He teaches creative nonfiction at Seattle Pacific University. Jason lives in Seattle with his wife and dog. Find him @thornberryjm. You can read more of his work on his website.