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Helter Skelter question

Old 02-02-10, 10:02 AM
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Helter Skelter question

I'm currently reading Helter Skelter and while reading this book a question has popped up. How did the Beatles feel about their White Album being used by Manson as a venue for messages for his murders? I'm about 90% through the book and there hasn't been any mention of what McCartney or any of the other Beatles thought about how their album influenced Manson.
Has anyone ever heard what the Beatles thought about influencing Manson with their White Album?
Old 02-02-10, 11:55 AM
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Re: Helter Skelter question

I'm sure they were thinking what the rest of us were thinking. Damn, that is one crazy bastard.
Old 02-02-10, 12:02 PM
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Re: Helter Skelter question

I'm sure they were thinking, "Next time Dennis Wilson introduces us to a friend, run."
Old 02-04-10, 02:20 PM
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Re: Helter Skelter question

Here's what google told me.

Originally Posted by http://lifeofthebeatles.blogspot.com/2008/06/never-ending-song-helter-skelter.html

"I don't know what I thought when it happened. I just think a lot of the things he says are true, that he is a child of the state, made by us, and he took their children in when nobody else would, is what he did. Of course he's cracked, all right."
-John Lennon, (December 1970)

Lennon found Manson's interpretation of "Helter Skelter" absurd. Manson's zealous reading of lyric sign and symbols was typical of Beatle fans, but - also typical, Lennon said - he came up with a message that simply did not exist in the song.
Old 02-05-10, 01:22 PM
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Re: Helter Skelter question

Here's something from the Helter Skelter book by Vincent Bugliosi:
After the Manson verdict of death was announced,

pp. 593 reads, Later Life Magazine ran an article entitled " The Manson Jury: End of A Long Ordeal"
Ironically, there appeared in the same issue an article entitled " Paul McCartney and the Beatles Breakup."
That there had been irreconcilable troubles within the group became apparent, McCartney said, while they were making the White Album.

That is the only Beatles quote in the book. Although I don't think the two events are related, Manson's death verdict and the Beatles breaking up, it is kind of ironic that things happened that way. Interesting to say the least.

Last edited by JOE29; 02-05-10 at 01:28 PM.
Old 03-25-10, 03:02 PM
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Re: Helter Skelter question

Manson thought the messages in the Beatles songs were ordering him to kill, and that the Beatles' song "Helter Skelter" foretold an uprising in which blacks would murder a third of the world's white population. Like many white convicts, Manson was a racist. However, at some point in 1968, fear of black revolution began to pervade his delusions. Manson's own ultimate domination of the black race became a primary element of the apocalypse he would orchestrate. It would be Helter Skelter. It was also the name his followers used for the murder spree.

"At the end of each song there is a little tag piece on it, a couple of notes. Or like in "Piggies" there's "oink, oink, oink." Just these couple of sounds. And all these sounds are repeated in "Revolution 9." Like in "Revolution 9," all these pieces are fitted together and they predict the violent overthrow of the white man. Like you'll hear "oink, oink," and then machine gun fire...."
- Charles Manson

The song Helter Skelter was, of course, written by McCartney about a children's slide in a British park ("When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide, where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride")

" I was in Scotland and I read in Melody Maker that Pete Townshend had said: 'We've just made the raunchiest, loudest, most ridiculous rock 'n' roll record you've ever heard.' I never actually found out what track it was that The Who had made, but that got me going; just hearing him talk about it. So I said to the guys, 'I think we should do a song like that; something really wild.' And I wrote Helter Skelter."
- Paul McCartney

"He's balmy, like any other Beatle-kind of fan who reads mysticism into it. We used to have a laugh about this, that or the other, in a light-hearted way, and some intellectual would read us, some symbolic youth generation wants to see something in it. We also took seriously some parts of the role, but I don't know what 'Helter Skelter' has to do with knifing somebody. I've never listened to the words, properly, it was just a noise."
- John Lennon 1971 Rolling Stone interview

"All that Manson stuff was built around George's song about pigs and this one [Helter Skelter], Paul's song about an English fairground. It has nothing to do with anything, and least of all to do with me."
- John Lennon, 1980


'It was upsetting. I mean, I knew Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate.......Thank God they caught the bugger.'
Ringo Starr, Anthology

"Everybody was getting on the big Beatle bandwagon. The police and the promoters and the Lord Mayors - and murderers too. The Beatles were topical and they were the main thing that was written about in the world, so everybody attached themselves to us, whether it was our fault or not. It was upsetting to be associated with something so sleazy as Charles Manson."
- George Harrison, Anthology
Old 03-26-10, 11:47 AM
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Re: Helter Skelter question

Originally Posted by JOE29
I'm currently reading Helter Skelter and while reading this book a question has popped up. How did the Beatles feel about their White Album being used by Manson as a venue for messages for his murders? I'm about 90% through the book and there hasn't been any mention of what McCartney or any of the other Beatles thought about how their album influenced Manson.
Has anyone ever heard what the Beatles thought about influencing Manson with their White Album?
"He's balmy, like any other Beatle-kind of fan who reads mysticism into it. We used to have a laugh about this, that or the other, in a light-hearted way, and some intellectual would read us, some symbolic youth generation wants to see something in it. We also took seriously some parts of the role, but I don't know what 'Helter Skelter' has to do with knifing somebody. I've never listened to the words, properly, it was just a noise."
- John Lennon 1971 Rolling Stone interview

"All that Manson stuff was built around George's song about pigs and this one [Helter Skelter], Paul's song about an English fairground. It has nothing to do with anything, and least of all to do with me."
- John Lennon, 1980


'It was upsetting. I mean, I knew Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate.......Thank God they caught the bugger.'
Ringo Starr, Anthology

"Everybody was getting on the big Beatle bandwagon. The police and the promoters and the Lord Mayors - and murderers too. The Beatles were topical and they were the main thing that was written about in the world, so everybody attached themselves to us, whether it was our fault or not. It was upsetting to be associated with something so sleazy as Charles Manson."
- George Harrison, Anthology


The song Helter Skelter was, of course, written by McCartney about a children's slide in a British park ("When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide, where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride")


" I was in Scotland and I read in Melody Maker that Pete Townshend had said: 'We've just made the raunchiest, loudest, most ridiculous rock 'n' roll record you've ever heard.' I never actually found out what track it was that The Who had made, but that got me going; just hearing him talk about it. So I said to the guys, 'I think we should do a song like that; something really wild.' And I wrote Helter Skelter."
- Paul McCartney


a helter skelter

Last edited by shakti; 03-29-10 at 05:09 PM.

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