"Secret Messages" is a song recorded by

Electric Light Orchestra The Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) are an English rock band formed in Birmingham in 1970 by multi-instrumentalists Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood and drummer Bev Bevan. Their music is characterised by a fusion of pop and classical arrangement ...

(ELO) and is the title track (and opening track) of the 1983 album '' Secret Messages''. The song begins with strange effects and a backmasked voice (saying "welcome to the show") followed by a burst of

morse code Morse code is a telecommunications method which Character encoding, encodes Written language, text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code i ...

, before the song proper begins with a

staccato Staccato (; Italian for "detached") is a form of Articulation (music), musical articulation. In modern notation, it signifies a note of shortened duration, separated from the note that may follow by silence. It has been described by theorists and ...

keyboard part followed by drums and drum machines and guitar. The song and album were recorded in response to the backmasking controversy at the time, in which certain groups were claiming that rock artists were including hidden subliminal messages on their songs and albums. Music journalist John Van Der Kiste described the song as " Buggles-like pop." Writer Barry Delve said that the "soft, laid-back vocal contrasts effectively with the brisk performance to create a suitably enigmatic opener o the album" The single peaked at 48 in the UK Singles Chart and at number 14 in the

Irish Singles Chart The Irish Singles Chart is the Republic of Ireland's music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) and compiled on their behalf by the Official Charts Company. Chart rankings are ...

. Parts of the music video featuring a radio telescope were filmed at

Jodrell Bank Jodrell Bank Observatory ( ) in Cheshire, England hosts a number of radio telescopes as part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio astron ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

Chart history

References

1983 songs 1983 singles Electric Light Orchestra songs Song recordings produced by Jeff Lynne Songs written by Jeff Lynne Jet Records singles {{1980s-rock-song-stub