Monday, February 22, 2010

Ramblings of a Sleep-Deprived Person

[I swear to God, every time it's my day to post a blog, I can't think of anything to write about until after I post some random crap, at which point I have the most brilliant ideas ever.* I really ought to invest in a pencil to write them down with.]

Supposedly, a part of "Stairway to Heaven" sounds like a hommage to Satan when played backwards. Supposedly, John Lennon laments Paul's "death" inbetween tracks on the White Album.

Personally, I think all of this is a wheelbarrow of bullshit.

Firstly, humans have the unique abilitiy of being able to convince themselves to believe almost anything. Someone wants a theory to be true and you can bet they'll find "evidence" supporting themselves. Trouble is, you can find "evidence" for virtually anything, so a lot of it gets disregarded in the larger picture.

Secondly, these "backwards" things are usually pretty difficult to understand. Perhaps it DOES sound like "I love you, Satan" or whatever, or maybe... if you listen to it with your other ear... it sounds like "Don't vote Ralph Nader." WHO KNOWS?

Thirdly, the song lyrics are not outrageously farfetched when read in context with the rest of the song; it doesn't seem like the artist went out of their way to find some random string of words that would have a mysterious message when played backwards.

Fourthly, who came up with these theories in the first place? Did some guy just sit at home, playing all of his records/CDs/whatevers backwards until he found something interesting?

That said - and maybe it's because it's 10:00 pm and I'm ridiculously tired (seriously, my eyes are watering right now) - but even as I was reading that, I found myself thinking, "What if Paul really IS dead?" What if there really WAS a replacement Paul jamming with The Beatles all those years? Creeeepy. Extremely unlikely, yes, but the mere thought that such a thing could be a tiny bit possible is vaguely unsettling.

This reminds me of a crazy mind-trip I had a few weeks ago while I was trying to fall asleep. I suppose extreme fatigue brings about a sort of delirium; I guess I was experiencing a milder version of that. (I was tired, but come on now. My life isn't THAT hard.) Basically, as I lay there, I started imagining that a shark was about to burst through my bedroom floor and/or wall and tear me to pieces.** You've seen Jaws? Neither have I, but you know that one scene where the shark drags the guy off the boat? It was like that, except less graphic and the shark was jumping and flipping and performing all sorts of tricks. As far as imaginary sharks go, it was quite talented. Brutal, yes, but talented.
I'm not particularly frightened of sharks (although I'm sure I wouldn't be all hugs and giggles if I were in the same general ocean space as one) but I actually started to get a little freaked out, in that "FUCK knows what I'm thinking right now" sort of way.*** Ah, sleep... you're such a tease, aren't you?

I have to go do French and sleep and God knows what else, so this is where I leave you, I suppose. "Best wishes," as John Green would say (hahahaha...).

* Relatively speaking.
** Mind you, I live in the non-coastal part of Maryland. Also, I'm on the second floor, i.e. not the ground floor, i.e. not sea level...?
*** I'd also like to take this opportunity to point out that I am not, and never have been, under the influence of any hallucinogen type things.

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