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Carrion Luggage
Carrion Luggage
 
Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem.
This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it.
It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans.
It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier."
I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination.
March 17, 2026 at 10:43am March 17, 2026 at 10:43am
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Here's a musical one from Mental Floss:
People "believe" lots of things; that doesn't make them true. Also, I question the phrasing "from 'Stairway to Heaven' to 'Bohemian Rhapsody.'" There is other music besides epic anthems from British bands in the 1970s. Usually, phrasing something like that implies some sort of diverse spectrum, not just Led Zeppelin and Queen.
I will acknowledge, however, that British bands in the 1970s put out the second-best music ever recorded, exceeded only by the stuff Springsteen released in that decade.
As for "meaning," well...
Musicians have also always been the subject of wild rumors and conspiracy theories, and their songs are no different.
My favorite conspiracy theory of that kind involves another British artist, Phil Collins, then a freshly-minted solo artist. He missed the 70s by a year or so, depending on how you calculate it, but the song "In The Air Tonight" generated an urban legend that circulated by word of mouth long before the internet was a thing. The rumor was that Collins had witnessed a bunch of kids drowning another kid, and when he played the song in concert, the kids felt guilty enough to confess.
It was a semi-plausible "theory." It even fit the lyrics, sort of. Problem is, it's not true. Collins almost always wrote the music first, fitting the lyrics in afterward (which seems backwards to me, but he has musical talent and I don't, so whatever). Collins himself denies it,  which of course only means he was part of the conspiracy. That's how this stuff works, right?
Humans seek patterns: faces in natural rock formations, the future in tea leaves, recognizable shapes in inkblots and paint splatters, invocations of Satan in backwards-played music, and, more relevant to this discussion, unintended meanings in poetry and song lyrics. As another example, I spent decades trying to find meaning in Springsteen's "Blinded by the Light," until I saw a video where he said he'd been sitting on his bed with a guitar and a rhyming dictionary, just trying to make words fit.
Anyway, point is, it's natural for humans to find meaning where none (or a different meaning) exists.
Each one of the following songs has sparked rumors, conspiracies, and enduring speculation about possible deeper meanings buried within their iconic chord changes and vocal riffs.
And let me just point out that all but one of the artists featured here are British. The odd one out? German.
âStairway to Heavenâ - Led Zeppelin
Few songs have been the subject of more conspiracy theories than Led Zeppelinâs epic masterpiece, âStairway to Heaven.â This 1971 song is known for its incredible guitar solo as well as its mystical, enigmatic lyrics, which have given rise to a great deal of speculation about their meaning.
The song became something of a clichĂŠ, but it's popular for good reason. But I think part of its popularity is people projecting their own meaning onto the lyrics. Me? I once wrote a whole lyrics analysis of it, laying out the reasons why it's a song about abandoning organized religion for a more personal spiritual connection to nature.
Countless other analyses exist about the songâs lyrics, but one particularly extreme conspiracy theory about this song centers around the idea that if played backwards, the track holds Satanic messages.
You know the worst idiocy of that "theory?" It's not the Satanic bit; it's that there is not, and has never been, any evidence whatsoever that we can understand back-masked recordings, even on a subliminal, subconscious level. In other words, I could say "kill your parents, eat your dog, rape a child" and play it backwards, and it would sound exactly like nonsense and not somehow hypnotize the listener into becoming a psychopath. To hear the message, you'd have to reverse it again, and then you'd be like "what the hell, Waltz?"
Don't believe me? Think about it. If back-masking subliminally affected behavior, every single advertisement would use it.
What is true is what I said above: we seek patterns. So it's entirely possible that there's a specific combination of sounds in a backwards-played song that serves as a kind of auditory illusion.
And one good thing came out of it: we got the wonderful joke, "What happens if you play country music backwards? You get your truck, your wife, your job, and your dog back." Or, as I riffed on it, "What do you get when you play jazz backwards? Music."
âBohemian Rhapsodyâ - Queen
One major theory about this song that might actually have some substance to it is the idea that it might have been Mercuryâs way of coming out as queer.
Or, you know, maybe he was just expressing his internal frustration with a world that adored his work yet wasn't ready to accept his sexuality. Hell if I know. I do remember reading about his struggles with getting the perfect sounds for the song.
âStrawberry Fields Foreverâ - The Beatles
The belief that Paul McCartney is dead and has been for a long time is one of musicâs most common conspiracy theories. While this theory is widely unfounded, as McCartney continues to release music and make public appearances today...
Obviously, that's the original Paul's doppelgänger. Obviously.
Which would make Ringo Starr the only surviving Beatle, thus proving that the Universe is fundamentally flawed.
Look, the "Paul is dead" thing sold records and got people talking, but there's absolutely no evidence for it beyond a few trolling lyrics.
On the other hand, I've always had a hard time believing that the same guy who co-wrote "A Day in the Life" also came up with the vapid twattery that is "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime." Which, by the way, is another McCartney song that's generated conspiracy interpretations.
âWind of Changeâ - Scorpions
While they may be best known for their song âRock You Like a Hurricane,â the band Scorpions also had a hit with the 1990 ballad âWind of Change,â which describes the fall of the Soviet Union and became popular in Eastern Europe as the iron curtain fell. However, the songâs success and political message also sparked a conspiracy theory that the CIA may have written it to further push a dissolving Soviet Union over the edge.
Oh, come on. The CIA has even less musical talent than Scorpions. They're German, and the Berlin Wall had just come down. Seriously, folks...
âFive Yearsâ - David Bowie
I'm not even going to dignify this one by quoting it. I'll just say: Bowie (who, by the way, was actually Davy Jones, but there was already a Monkee by that name so he had to use a different one, and that's not a conspiracy theory) was brilliant and talented, but he wasn't a time traveler.
Space traveler, maybe.
âEmpty Spacesâ - Pink Floyd
Pink Floydâs âEmpty Spacesâ is one rare case wherein a song, when played backwards, actually does contain a hidden message. When you play the songâs audio in reverse, you can indeed hear the words, âCongratulations. You've just discovered the secret message. Please send your answer to Old Pink, care of the funny farm, ChalfontâŚâ
None of which, I'll reiterate, made any sense until someone played it backwards. Pretty sure that wasn't the only back-masking Pink Floyd ever used, either; but they used it for its sound effect, not for nonexistent subliminal messaging.
If you don't recognize the song, by the way, don't feel bad. I don't think it ever became a "single." You'd have to be completely obsessed with Pink Floyd to even recognize the title. You know, like how I used to play the album it came from over and over, or how I've seen the movie based on it more often than I've seen any other movie.
Anyway. Point is: just because you think something, or see a pattern, that don't make it so. All in all, it's just another brick in the wall. |
© Copyright 2026 Robert Waltz (UN: cathartes02 at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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