What the hell (literally) is the tie between the song and Charles Manson?

Why did they use that song for the movie?

What's the deal?

If you ever see the movie, they do a good job of explaining the connection. Anyway, Manson thought the Beatles were speaking to him through songs on the White Album. Most famously, Helter Skelter and Piggies. He took them as being the four horsemen or angels from the bible that bring on the Apocalypse or something to that effect. And he was the fifth angel. According to him, Revolution 9 was refering to Revelations, chapter 9 in the bible that talks about the angels and so on. He was trying to start a race war that he thought they spoke of in certain songs, (Revolution 1, Blackbird, etc.) that would end up, I think, with people looking to Manson to save them and he would become almighty. Or something like that. It's mental. Anyway, his disgusting family members wrote the words Helter Skelter and Piggies on the walls of their victims using thier own blood. I think they mispelled Helter as Healter or something. Sick. It's too bad they had to be associated at all with such a mindless tragedy. I hope no one's offended at me stating the facts about what happened. If I got them wrong, sorry. I'm going by memory of what I've read and from what was presented in the movie. Anyway, I'm sure if you do a search, you'll find plenty of info on it. It's quite insane.

yeah I saw some of the movie once.

They wrote something like "PIG" or something like that.

In my opinion, Manson was a complete nutcase and anything would have set him off. If it wasn't the White Album, it would be any album from any band.

Mairi's pretty much right. The Revelations 9/Revolution 9 thing, Manson believed that the Beatles were telling him of a Holocaust of sorts that was imminent. Helter Skelter was 'coming down fast', political Piggies needed to be snuffed, Blackbird was the uprising and ensuing power of the Black Power Movement/Black Panthers, and he was going to take his followers out to the desert (Spahn Ranch), wait until everyone pretty much killed each other off and would take over power from there. They took the blood of the LaBianca's and scrawled 'Piggies' and 'Helter Scelter' (sic) on the wall and carved 'Pig' in Leo LaBianca's skin.

Interesting detail: The Beach Boys recorded at least one song that Manson wrote.

"Never Learn Not To Love" (from the "20/20" album) was written by Manson as "Cease To Excist". It is credited to Dennis Wilson, but he has more than once admitted that Manson actually wrote it and that he just slightly changed the lyrics.

"Be With Me" and "All I Want To Do" (both from the same album) are also rumored to be (co-) written by Manson, but that's never been proven.

Yeah, I heard that too, BP. Iit was the b-side to some hit... so technically Manson had a top ten song. Or something like that.

He scavenged off of Dennis Wilson for awhile. I think he may have lived at the house for a short time. Terry Melcher, Doris Day's Son, was involved in that whole scene as well. Its a fascinating book. Vincent Bugliosi is an absolute genius putting together the whole case from nothing.

Quoted from juniorsfarm

He scavenged off of Dennis Wilson for awhile. I think he may have lived at the house for a short time. Terry Melcher, Doris Day's Son, was involved in that whole scene as well. Its a fascinating book. Vincent Bugliosi is an absolute genius putting together the whole case from nothing.

Terry Melcher used to live in the house where the first Manson murders took place. So some think that they were really after Melcher. Manson also showed up at Dennis Wilson's house with a gun once, but Dennis was on tour.

Quoted from Mairi

Yeah, I heard that too, BP. Iit was the b-side to some hit... so technically Manson had a top ten song. Or something like that.

It was the B-side of "Bluebirds Over The Mountain", which wasn't a huge hit, but it did get Manson into the charts...

And I must say that I think "Never Learn Not To Love" is a pretty good song... Weird, creepy, hypnothizing... Not bad at all.

Guns and Roses did one of his songs on the "Spaghetti Incident".

I've heard that "Helter skelter" inspired him to kill, at least he told this. Which is quite ridicolous from a phychotic person.

That was just his exuse to kill if anything. Just like the dog that told Son of Sam to kill. They need something to justify their sick urges I guess. Manson was in and out of prison from a very young age. I think he was even said to have killed already a few times by then. The movie was very well done, it expalains a lot about what was going on and why this actually happened. I remember my parents had the book when I was a kid. I think I read bits of it when I was like 10. The pictures where a bit much though. Bugliosi was a gifted D.A. Too bad he wasn't around for the O.J. case.

I remember hearing something about one of the beach boys promsing manson a record deal and he never got it so he went pretty nuts,, something along those lines

Manson actually did record some songs at Brian Wilson's home studio. Dennis Wilson was impressed by his music.

Wow, that's kind of scary. Imagine if he had made it as a musician. Kind of like Hitler and art.

Then there's the weird link with Charles Manson and Marilyn Manson, on Marilyn Manson's debut album ("Portrait Of An American Family" which, for Beatle buffs has 4 mini statues of the fab 4 on the cover itself!) they actually recorded some songs in Beverly Hills in a house Manson had been related to at that nasty time, and a song on the album actually was borrowed from a Charles Manson song called "Mechanical Man", Marilyn Manson actually took a whole verse of lyrics from the aforementioned song.

So there's some more to the mix lol

Plus Marilyn Manson uses Charlies last name too for the "shock" value.

And he used Marilyn Monroe's first name. Wonder why he did that, lol...

he said it was the contrast of beauty and vulgar of American icons.

Or something like that, I dont have my book handy.

Huh, interesting. Y'know, I'm not a fan of his music, but I was watching him on Bowling For Columbine and he seems like a pretty smart guy.

Actually he is a very smart guy. The best answer to "What would you say to them if they were alive?" and he said "I wouldn't say a thing, I would listen which is what nobody else did." or something like that... what a reply!

He is actually a VERY smart guy, don't let the image fool you, he is very clever. I would even recommend the book "Long Hard Road Out Of Hell" written by Marilyn Manson and Neil Strauss. It's a biography of him up to 1998 I think and very very insightful. Not full of weird stuff like most would associate, very educated words and well written. There are some parts that might seem a little squeemish to some people but not much.

Recommend that to read, would help to understand the man behind the mask so to speak. What made him who he is today.

Hope nobody minds me bumping this three year old thread but this is a subject in which I have some interest. If it's place is on another topic then please feel free to move it.

I didn't know too much about the Manson case until about five years ago. Of course I'd heard of Charles Manson and the crimes he and his followers had committed but the details were somewhat vague. When my present partner came into my life I was surprised, but undeterred, to know that she was very interested in serial killers. Now I know what you're all thinking - I probably wake up in the night to find her standing over me with a carving knife, mumbling 'You dirty birdie' but you couldn't be more wrong. She's actually the sweetest and most harmless person I know.

But I digress - I have a habit of doing that!

She hopes to one day become a criminoligist and she has an extensive library on serial killers all over the world. She recommended Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter to me, which I read and couldn't put down. He outlines in vivid detail how Manson interpreted the lyrics of the White Album for his own ends, and manipulated, by pure charm and charisma, a group of impressionable kids into committing murder. Helter Skelter, to Charlie, was judgement day. The blacks would kill the whites and take over the world while Charlie and his followers were hiding in a 'bottomless pit' in the desert, but because the black man was used to following orders from 'Whitey', Charlie would emerge as supreme ruler of the world.

All absolute bollocks as we know, and pretty effing disgusting at least from a race view. Charlie knew it too, but underneath the charm and charisma he projected, nobody could see what a sick bastard he was.

I personally think he used the Beatles as an excuse to shift the blame from himself. It's easy to generate ambiguous theories and interpretations from songs (reference the Paul Is Dead theory) and that's what I think Manson did in this case. The Blackbird reference (RISE written in Leno LaBianca's blood) is tenuous at best, I would hardly call Sharon Tate and the people killed on Cielo Drive pigs because it's obvious that George was referring to the Establishment in the song 'Piggies' (well, it is to me anyway!) and nowhere in Helter Skelter are instructions given for a race war.

Charlie Manson is one clever cookie - clever enough to make people see and hear things that aren't there. The fact that he used the Beatles to incite and commit murder is disgusting.