For tonight
God is a DJ

– Faithless, God is a DJ

From time to time, a self-declared prophet proclaimed the end of the world, gathered some followers, and then they went to a mountain and waited for the end to come. If they did not commit suicide, they lived to see another day. Others watched out for signs. Whenever a river turned red, for instance, when a factory spills chemicals, they said, ‘Look what is written in the Book of Revelation. This is the end.’ And then the Sun went under and rose again. They did not observe the more obvious omens:

• The exponential growth of human impact on the planet is about to end. That might be the end of our way of living.
• As long as nation-states and tribes exist, there will not be enduring peace, and weapons of mass destruction can end us all.
• Eternal life may soon be possible, and humans may soon enhance themselves with technology. That could be the end of humanity.
• The world has become interconnected to the point that ideas can unite us all. That might be the end of history.
• And finally, we may discover that we live inside a virtual reality created by an advanced humanoid civilisation for entertainment.

Signs may have popped up in places where people did not look. Some Christians think there are messages from Satan hidden in pop music you can learn by playing tracks in reverse. So, where would God put Her secret messages to create the maximum possible surprise? Of course, pop music! And to add some more to the level of surprise, you can hear them by playing them in the usual fashion. Who would have thought that? And to make the surprise even more stunning, God put a message in a song suspected of containing satanic communication. As always with discussing signs, you must go along with the idea. And here is the idea: God sent Her prospective husband a message via pop music to prepare for the end times.

An incident at secondary school relates to this discovery. I had the poorest grades in my class for explaining literature. It was about guessing the hidden intentions of authors. I considered guessing other people’s motives and uncovering them in texts a waste of time. Authors often marvelled at what literature experts found out about their motives from the books they had written. And I was not good at this type of speculation. Before the final exam, I prayed to God that the grade would not be too bad. But then my result on the final exam turned out to be the best of everyone, only matched by a girl who flaunted her interest in art and literature. The book The Virtual Universe discusses this incident in more detail. Decades later, I found out about these possible messages in pop music.

From Almelo via Enschede to Eurovision

Ilse DeLange’s fourth studio album The Great Escape could hold an order from God for Her husband to prepare himself for his task. Remarkable coincidences surround DeLange and the album contains some remarkable lyrics. DeLange was born on 13 May 1977 in Almelo, a town in the region of Twente in the Netherlands. Almelo was also the home town of Herman Finkers, a comedian who wrote Kroamschudd’n in Mariaparochie, a short animation picture on the possibility of Christ coming from Twente, the region where I grew up.

On 13 May 2000, the 23rd birthday of Ilse Delange, a fireworks plant in Enschede, also in Twente, exploded, killing 23 people. And it was exactly 11 years after I moved to Enschede to live on the campus of the university where I came to know the Lady. The recurring of 23 is a bit odd too. On the day of the accident, the Eurovision Song Contest was held. When the seriousness of the situation became clear in the course of the evening, the Dutch broadcast of the Eurovision Song Contest was discontinued.

The night before the fireworks accident, my wife dreamt about a large fire. On the day itself, she visited a friend who had a baby. Some other friends of hers were also present. One of them came from Enschede. Just after Ingrid had told her friend from Enschede about the dream, this friend received a text message asking her whether she was all right. It was only then that they learned about the accident.

In 2014, Ilse Delange herself took part in the Eurovision Song Contest together with Waylon as The Common Linnets. They came in second after Conchita Wurst, a transgender Jesus look-alike. That is remarkable because of the possible sex change Christians applied to God and the hatred against LGBTQ people that exists amongst the most conservative adherents of the Religion of Love.

The Great Escape was also the name of the fourth album made by the English rock band Blur. It was released on 11 September 1994, a remarkable date considering the coincidences surrounding the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. The total length of this album is 56 minutes and 56 seconds. Compressing these numbers results in 11:11 as 5 + 6 = 11. And, 56 + 56 = 112, while 112 is the European emergency telephone number. The lead song, The Great Escape, lasts 4:01 minutes while I moved to Enschede to live in room 112 of dormitory 401.

The Great Escape

Viewing the lyrics as a medium used by God to ask Her prospective husband to prepare for his task brings up some remarkable finds. That was not the intention of DeLange. Unwittingly, she became a medium for this communication. Mediums make misses alongside accurate guesses. The supposed messages thus blended into the lyrics, while other parts of the songs are not part of the message. The book The Virtual Universe explains how mediums can make uncannily accurate guesses together with many misses.

In the first song, Reach For the Light, She says that She remembers and that he does not. Supposedly, the reincarnation of Adam does not remember being Adam:

I know my name but who’s the same
When everything you knew is lost
I’m filled with hope that echoes loud
Inside a forgotten mind.

– Ilse DeLange, Reach For The Light

In the second song, The Lonely One, she appears to tell him that She used Her powers to make his life disagreeable. It is not hard to guess who can order the sun not to shine.

I told the sun, not to shine and stay away
I told the lake, to go dry and wash away
…
Asked the sky, to fall down on you
Asked the night, to be solid proof.

– Ilse DeLange, The Lonely One

What She is saying about Herself could even make Louis XIV blush, if he was still alive:

I am the only princess, I’m indestructible
I am winged victory, I am so breakable
I am the distant planet, I am the golden sun.

– Ilse DeLange, The Lonely One

The Great Escape is the song that gives the album its name. In the autumn some force pulls him into the shadow world.

The leaves will fall again
The wind comes crawling in
The rain with all its sin
Captures me again
…
Questions to embrace
Feelings that you’ll face
In this holy land
A desert made of quicksand
Streets that lead you there
Places of your fear
Some force pulls you in
The shadow world.

– Ilse DeLange, The Great Escape

There is not much left to guess here if you go along with the idea of it being a message. The shadow world is a holy land in disguise and She comes from heaven.

By the time I made the great escape
I was falling, falling falling from heaven.

– Ilse DeLange, The Great Escape

Then comes the song Carry Hope. God appears to tell him that he should prepare himself.

The power is in your hands
The dust will fall to sand
Got to make this land your own
…
And faith calls out your name.

– Ilse DeLange, Carry Hope

And even Louis XIV in all his vanity would not have dared to say:

When I let go of hope
There’s no one left to follow
There’s nothing but the power to believe in me

– Ilse DeLange, Carry Hope

The song Was It Love suggests that She did it for love. Perhaps Jesus fell for that too.

Is it possible to see with every moment over
What the reason was for me
Was it love, was it love

– Ilse DeLange, Was It Love

The song also suggests that God doesn’t care much for religious people:

And they’re locked inside belief
But they’re not inside of me

– Ilse DeLange, Was It Love

Other songs don’t seem to be part of the scheme. That can be expected. DeLange came from Twente just like me. And the lady who appeared to be God was born in Enschede.

Slippery slope

There are a few other lyrics that might contain messages but these could easily be attributed to chance if there is chance. This is a slippery slope. There may be no chance so it might be justifiable to go down this path, at least for a while. The following lines come from Queen’s song Gimme The Prize.

Here I am, I’m the master of your destiny,
I am the one the only one, I am the god of kingdom come

– Queen, Gimme The Prize

The God of kingdom come could be a Queen, a queer joke. The song Joga from Björk is about accidents, coincidences and connecting the dots. It could be about a love affair. But who can make these accidents happen and make someone else see the connection?

All these accidents
That happen
Follow the dot
Coincidence
Makes sense
Only with you

State of emergency
How beautiful to be
State of emergency
Is where I want to be

– Björk, Joga

Stairway To Heaven of Led Zeppelin allegedly contains satanic messages that you can hear by playing the song in reverse. The artists claim this is just a coincidence.¹ What has escaped the attention so far is that playing the song in a regular way might reveal a message that is hidden in plain sight.

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul.
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold

– Led Zeppelin, Stairway To Heaven

The lady we all know could be God. The song is named Stairway To Heaven after all. The album, Led Zeppelin IV, which includes Stairway To Heaven, also includes the song Going To California. It has the following lines.

To find a queen without a king,
They say she plays guitar and cries and sings… la la la
Ride a white mare in the footsteps of dawn
Trying to find a woman who’s never, never, never been born

– Led Zeppelin, Going To California

The woman who was never been born could be Eve. The Infant King is a song of The Nits from their album Adieu Sweet Bahnhof. It could refer to a king who is going to meet his bride. In a sense he might be an infant compared to his bride.

Wheels on steel go rumbling through the night
“Away, away” they seem to say
I tip-toe tip-toe through the sleeping train
An infant king who meets his bride

…

Someone said the other day
“The border’s closed, there’s no way in or out
Pack your bags, make up your mind
You can leave your memories behind”

…

Someone said the other day
“The world is cracking up, it’s plain to see”
Overheard two people say
“Some gold works wonders when you want to go”

– The Nits, The Infant King

Woman Cactus is on the same album. It may describe a psychotic love affair of an indecent nature:

This is not comme il faut
It’s no respectable affair
I know I lost my head
I’m burning bridges everywhere

My heart, my head, my brains
My senses don’t make sense at all
The bar sign prints your name
Over and over on the wall

And I can’t take it anymore
Chime little bells, big bells
I try to touch a woman cactus
Chime little bells, big bells
I try to touch a woman cactus

The needles and pins might refer to pain or voodoo:

I know it hurts to touch a woman
With those needles and pins
I know it hurts to touch a woman
With those needles and pins

And then there is the painting She made on the wall:

Nothing like cubism
To bring about a woman’s shape

– The Nits, Woman Cactus

There may be more to say, but it is a slippery slope, so at some point, the explanations become far-fetched and, if you go further, perhaps even delusional. I do not intend to go down that path as I try to stick with the plausible.

Latest revision: 12 April 2022

1. The 10 Wildest Led Zeppelin Legends, Fact-Checked. Rolling Stone (2012). [link]