10 Weird Backwards Messages In Rock Songs

Around the top of the list of rock stars that parents couldn't stand, you had Ozzy Osbourne. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see why either. When you call yourself the Prince of Darkness, you're bound to get some complaints from concerned moms and dads to tone things down a little bit. Even when the Ozzman did go down the backwards rabbit hole, he at least had a sense of humor about it.

Right around the time that Ozzy was making the album No Rest for the Wicked, the Exorcist was known as one of the scariest movies of all time, with a demon literally taking over a child's body. Though Ozzy was originally planning on using a direct quote from the movie backwards, he did try to at least censor himself a little bit when it came time to record it.

So rather than saying that your mother is...doing something in Hell, the backwards message here is "your mother sells whelks in Hull." Compared to the demon persona that he keeps advertising again and again, this is the kind of humor that you don't get to see nearly enough from Ozzy these days, especially when he's become the go to dad of heavy metal. Then again, if the man can make a clever bit of wordplay that is worthy of the Monty Python troop, some praise is definitely in order.