In the early '70s, I got my first job in radio news at a progressive rock station in Houston, where I was both news director and the on-air reporter. Since I had to be 'in-studio' almost all day, it was natural to become better friends with the on-air staff, i.e., the disc jockeys, than was common in other FM radio stations. We did a lot of production work together and even though I was "the new guy," I seemed to fit right in with the rest of the team.

We were all pretty excited, then, when the Beatles' released their White Album, which was a double album; it was much requested by our listening audience, as it was more expensive [ to buy ] than the usual stereo LP recording.

Several members of the on- air staff were very much put off by this new album, and especially by a long and very peculiar track entitled "Revolution 9", also known as Revolution Number 9.

We had high-tech turntables in our studio and production rooms, and in setting up a song to play, it was often necessary to run a track backwards a little, to get the timing right. We were usually very thorough, hoping to play the music our FM audience liked without talking over the beginning or ending of any tracks.

Thus, we discovered that there were "back-masked" sounds and voices in some of the tracks on the White Album. And ... in "Revolution 9" ... there was a phrase, repeated a few times, which said "turn me on dead man". Naturally, this caused an enormous controversy in our little group !!!

Play the track forwards, and it sounds like a stream of free-association, of words that apparently would have little in common with each other. Play it backwards, and the voice saying "turn me on ..." was/is quite clear over the other backwards sounds.

We were astonished. We were not really aware of the concept of using subliminal messages in advertising, as almost every person on the staff was used to working in radio and in radio only !!

We had arguments about whether or not to play "No. 9", at all.

There were so many other great songs on the White Album, that the issue was basically decided that way. Yet almost all of us at the station, then, were deeply concerned by this new 'trick' we had stumbled upon: eventually, we just stopped talking about it because we had so many other things to do !!

To this day, however, the issue of 'back-masking' both irritates me and intrigues me.

And ... was Paul McCartney really replaced by Billy Shears ??