Runnin’ With the Devil
COVID-19 has given us all plenty of time to pause and contemplate life. I’ve been doing my fair share of both while actively moving forward in areas that have been distant desires for far too long.
During my COVID solitude, I’ve started a few new habits and hobbies. One is resurrecting this blog. Another is the re-creation of the vinyl record collection that I destroyed decades ago due to concern that the devil would gain ownership of my soul through rock-n-roll. (eye roll)
When I was a young teen, my friend Lori sat me down and explained that rock music is the devil’s playground. She tells me that Satan uses backmasking to hide subliminal messages on rock-n-roll records, to recruit child soldiers for his impending hellish reign over the world.
At first, I am confused by Lori’s warning and think for a moment that she is joking. But as she makes her case compellingly, my confusion turns to fear.
Lori’s family has recently left the Catholic Church, and she is learning new things in her new church, which she feels are imperative to share with her friends, lest we all get sucked into the pit of hell. Well, Christ Almighty! Like we adolescent girls don’t have enough to worry about. Now I’ve got to be concerned that the albums I play are laced with demonic messages?!
Lori leads me to her sister’s bedroom and plays a record backward so I can hear a decoded secret message for myself. Though this record doesn’t say anything ugly or demonic, the phrases are clear, yet in an odd and choppy cadence—and a slightly terrifying voice.
My fear becomes more intense when Lori shares some of the horrible messages hidden on rock-n-roll albums, like “Murder your parents” or “Satan is king.”
Growing up Catholic, you hear a lot of talk about Satan. At this point in my life, I’m so terrified of the dark angel God banned from Heaven that I sleep on my parents’ room floor after; God only knows why I watch The Exorcist. That’s an entire story unto itself, but let it just suffice to say that Lori’s revelations about backmasking (and that unnerving voice on the record) leave me as terrified as I was after seeing the movie's possessed protagonist do hideous things with a crucifix and with her own far too limber neck muscles.
I am wide-eyed as Lori exposes the dangers of rock-n-roll. I feel queasy and am suddenly very afraid, wanting desperately to go home.
That night, I go to my vinyl record collection and, with tears in my eyes, take the albums from their sleeves and break them into pieces by shattering them over my knee.
I rip apart the sleeves, tears streaming down my face. I apologize to God for being such an idiot that I did not know the devil worked in this way.
As I pick up my Eagles’ Hotel California album, the lyrics come blaring into my mind, and I’m stopped in my tracks. It’s all right there, clear as day. “In the master’s chambers, they gathered for the feast, they stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast.” Snapping that album over my knee is painful, mostly because I love it so much and because I’m now exhausted from my violent vinyl breaking. I’m bawling at this point.
And Styx, my favorite. But Oh, Mother of Mary! If Charon does exist, he is preparing to laugh his crazy ass off as he carries me across the River Styx to my forever resting place in the underworld. How could I be so stupid?
After a restless night of sleep, the next day, Dad knocks on my bedroom door. “Née Née, may I come in?”
Dad enters my room and proceeds to ask me why all my albums are in pieces in the trash can on the side of the house.
I feel I’ve been caught in the worst coverup of all time. The sickening feeling I had the night before rushes back, tears forming in my eyes.
”Dad, I’m sorry. I had no idea they were evil. I would never have bought them had I known!”
Sobbing, I struggle to gain composure, praying that Dad glimpses my Life of the Saints book open on my desk and realizes that I am a good and decent person, for the most part.
Instead, Dad asks with concern, “Née, why are you crying, and what are you talking about? Why are all your albums destroyed? What happened?”
”Dad, Lori said they are evil and that the devil uses rock-n-roll albums to influence teenagers to turn to him and work against the forces of good. She said the bands make deals with the devil and then put bad statements on their albums that you can’t hear unless you play them backward; things that make people do really bad stuff and become devil worshipers!”
”Good lord. What?! Jenée, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! Gosh damnit! Isn’t Lori some born-again evangelical now? What kind of nonsense is she filling your head with?”
Dad is super pissed, and I realize that maybe even he isn’t aware of this hideous demonic rock-n-roll ritual. He and Mom’s albums are sickeningly romantic, like that gross song, “Having My Baby,” by Paul Anka. Yuck. No wonder he has no idea about this secret devil infiltration.
”Dad, Lori played one of her sister’s albums backward for me, and it was filled with voices repeating unambiguous sentences. When she learned about this horrible practice, she told me that her family played their rock albums backward, and some of them said things like, “Murder. Murder.” The devil uses rock music to make people do bad things, Dad!”
Dad listens to me, wide-eyed, allowing me an opportunity to make my case. He forces a calm tone and says, “Okay, well, that’s absolutely ridiculous, and I can’t believe you destroyed your records over this. Why didn’t you come to talk to Mom and me about this so we could explain to you that it’s all nonsense?”
”I was embarrassed that I didn’t know about it, and it’s not nonsense, Dad,” I wail emphatically. “You should have heard her talk about it. It was so scary. And that voice on the record she played backward made me sick to my stomach. It sounded like the devil talking. You don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s not nonsense!”
Dad points out that playing anything in a direction it’s not intended to be played will likely sound pretty hideous. But I won’t let him convince me. I am confident that the only thing I can do is no longer listen to rock-n-roll music.
”Okay, well. I hate to tell you this, but you didn’t have to shatter those albums. You’re going to realize that at some point. The devil can’t harm you that way, Née. Gosh damnit. Did you destroy your whole collection?”
”Yes,” I respond hesitantly, “everything but Barbra Streisand and Fenwick the Christmas Elf.”
Dad drops his head and takes a deep breath. His mood shifts back to calm, and he sits with me and does his best to help dispel my fear while reminding me that all this could have been avoided if I’d talked with him first.
My album collection is in a heap in the trash can beside the house; the garbage collectors will be here in a few days to retrieve the records I’ve spent my hard-earned allowance to purchase and will take them to lie forever in a landfill. This realization nauseates me about as much as my fear of Satan gaining a stronghold on me through rock-n-roll.
As Dad leaves my room, shaking his head in disbelief and saying something under his breath about Protestants, I somehow feel a little better. Until I look at the empty milk crates where my entire album collection used to be and think, “What have I done?”
Decades later (in the last few months, actually), I’ve rebuilt that collection with the help of my new friend, The Vinyl Cowboy, who sells an assortment of original vinyl on Facebook Marketplace. I’ve even taken to eBay to win bids for a few rare mono pressings.
Years ago, my friend Brian was selling high-fidelity sound systems in Austin. He sat me down in his showroom and placed a pair of headphones on me, saying, “Listen to this.”
When he places a needle on a record, I hear Miles Davis begin to play. I can hear every inhale between notes. It is pure magic to my ears. I close my eyes and listen, feeling like Miles is only a few feet away from me. I sit entranced as I am serenaded by the entire Side One of the Kind of Blue album. It is a spiritual experience for me. I am grateful to Brian for his gift of pure sound to this day.
My current vinyl collection includes a copy of Kind of Blue and several other Miles Davis albums. Though my turntable and sound system are nowhere near the quality of Brian’s, I close my eyes and listen as if I am a veteran audiophile. I laugh every time I put on one of the classic rock albums from my adolescence, thinking about having smashed a version of it over my knee, and wonder how Mom and Dad survived four self-determined children and all of our outlandish ideas.
I no longer believe in an actual entity named Satan. I think that is a name someone long ago gave to the power of the collective attributes of fear n a time when it was easier to assert that evil and darkness came from something outside of us. Today, I realize that fear is our most significant enemy individually and as collective humans. Where love exists, ultimately, fear cannot. Even Jesus said that—in His own parabolic words, of course.
So as we all do our best to stave off worry and fear during this uncertain time in which we live, please take reasonable care as we continue to navigate this pandemic. I suggest starting a hobby. Get out in the sun every day–it’s a natural remedy for isolation blues, and the vitamin D hit to your immune system will help keep COVID-19 at bay. Wear a mask indoors or in crowds, even if you are a naysayer about this virus. Do it out of respect for others, if nothing else. And if you have an opportunity to listen to the mono version of Bob Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde album or get the chance to allow Miles Davis to showcase his brilliant talent in high fidelity, do it. You won’t regret it.
I’ll be back next week with a hilarious blog post about my girlfriend. You know the one. She wrongly interprets poop emojis as baby owls and once ingested Efferdent thinking it was blueberry Alka Seltzer.
Until then, rock on! And enjoy that Van Halen Runnin’ With the Devil earworm!