Posted on 08/09/2024 10:34:47 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Charles Manson was an aspiring rocker, long before he became known as the mastermind of one of history's most grisly and shocking crime sprees. In fact, as the following list shows, he had a striking number of connections in the music business.
Manson and four members of his so-called Family – Charles “Tex” Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie van Houten and Susan Atkins – were ultimately convicted of murder and given since-commuted sentences of death for their roles in the killing of seven people beginning on Aug. 9, 1969. Atkins and Manson memorably died in prison while the entire group went through a never-ending merry-go-round of parole denials.
Only later did it become clear that Manson had drawn the Beatles into his strange and murderous worldview. He claimed, in explosive court testimony after his arrest, that their songs had inspired him to act – ensuring that the Beatles would remain a part of his troubled narrative forever.
They weren't the only ones. By then, Charles Manson already had notable intersections with the Beach Boys and Neil Young. He'd even released his own album. Later, acts like Ozzy Osbourne looked to Manson for sinister inspiration, while Guns N' Roses infamously covered one of his songs.
The Beach Boys recorded a rewrite of Manson's "Cease to Exist" by drummer Dennis Wilson that was called "Never Learn Not to Love." It became one of the more bizarre moments in a discography filled with them, and it almost got Wilson killed. Young, meanwhile, admits that he found Manson's off-kilter songwriting style intriguing enough that he tried to help with a recording contract. Keep reading to find out more of Charles Manson's often-terrifying music connections.
Charity Shayne
Catherine Share was the rare figure in Manson's circle who actually arrived with a musical pedigree. Long before she fell into his sway, courtesy of a 1967 introduction from convicted Family member Bobby Beausoleil, the woman later known as “Gypsy” had cut a folk-pop single in '65 called "Ain't It? Babe" under the name Charity Shayne for the Autumn label, which was home to Sly Stone, the Beau Brummels and others.
The Beach Boys
In the spring of 1968, Charles Manson befriended Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson – who, in turn, paid for studio time, introduced him to some industry pals like Terry Melcher and allowed Manson to live in his house. Carl and Brian Wilson reportedly co-produced around 10 still-unreleased Manson songs recorded at Brian's home studio. Manson's relationship with Dennis eventually soured after a few months, however, as Manson's quickly growing "family" threatened to take over the drummer's home. “It was a set up,” bandmate Al Jardine later said. “Manson would always have the girls out on the highway, hitch hiking — and Dennis always liked a pretty girl. He picks up the girls, takes them home … and Charlie comes back with a bus, and moves in.”
Neil Young
Neil Young also crossed paths with Manson, and even went so far as to try and get him a record deal. "His songs were off-the-cuff things he made up as he went along, and they were never the same twice in a row," Young later wrote in his autobiography. "Kind of like [Bob] Dylan, but different because it was hard to glimpse a true message in them, but the songs were fascinating. He was quite good. I asked him if he had a recording contract. He told me he didn’t yet, but he wanted to make records. I told Mo Ostin at Reprise about him, and recommended that Reprise check him out."
Dennis Wilson
Credited to Dennis Wilson, "Never Learn Not to Love" took a convoluted journey before appearing as the B-side to the Beach Boys' December 1968 single "Bluebirds Over the Mountain." Charles Manson reportedly offered Wilson a song titled "Cease to Exist," adding that Wilson was free to alter it as he wished as long as the original Manson-penned lyrics remained. Instead, the song appeared with both a new name and new words (and with no credit for Manson) on the Beach Boys' 20/20 album, released in February 1969 – leading Manson to threaten Wilson's life. He went to the drummer's house with a loaded gun, only to discover that Wilson wasn't there. Instead, he gave the housekeeper a bullet and a message. By that summer, Manson was making good on such threats.
Bobby Beausoleil
Later imprisoned for beginning the Family's infamous crime spree by torturing music teacher Gary Hinman to death in 1969, Bobby Beausoleil was once roommates with underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger – an association that led to his jailhouse soundtrack for Anger's well-regarded psychedelic film 'Lucifer Rising.' Beausoleil was also part of an early lineup of the band Love.
Terry Melcher
Manson had met with early Byrds producer Terry Melcher the year before, trying to get some of his music published. Melcher turned Manson down — but not before inviting Manson over to his home at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles. That house was subsequently leased to Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate, becoming the site of a grisly Manson Family rampage on Aug. 9, 1969. Five people were murdered inside the home, including Tate. Family member Susan Atkins wrote "pig" – something Manson later connected to the Beatles' White Album song "Piggies" – in blood on the front door as they left.
The Beatles
On a second night of unspeakable violence, Manson Family members killed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in their home. This time, police found the words “Rise” (an apparent reference to the Beatles' "Revolution No. 9") and “Death to Pigs” (another reference to "Piggies") written on the living room walls, along with “Helter Skelter” misspelled in blood on the refrigerator. Manson hoped that these murders would be blamed on African-American activists, sparking an apocalyptic race war which would in turn allow Manson to rise to power. Stranger still, Manson testified that his ideas were informed by secret messages in the White Album, released in November 1968.
Ringo Starr
At the time, Manson's strange connection with the Beatles wasn't immediately known. Still, the violence hit home for Ringo Starr. “It was upsetting,” Starr later said. “I mean, I knew Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate – and, God, it was a rough time. It stopped everyone in their tracks, because suddenly all this violence came out in the midst of all this love and peace and psychedelia. It was pretty miserable, actually, and everyone got really insecure. Not just us – not just the rockers, but everyone in L.A. felt, 'Oh God, it can happen to anybody.'” Later, a member of the Manson Family claimed they kept a celebrity "death list" that included Steve McQueen and Elizabeth Taylor, among others.
'Lie: The Love and Terror Cult'
Manson finally got his music released – but only after he'd been taken into custody in connection with the Tate-LaBianca murders. Lie: The Love and Terror Cult was issued by his friend Phil Kaufman's boutique label Awareness on March 6, 1970, just months after Manson was featured on the cover of Life magazine. He used the same photo and typeface for his album, but switched out the word "lie" for "life." Among the 13 included tracks were the original version of "Cease to Exist," presented without Dennis Wilson's changes, along with "Sick City," "People Say I'm No Good," "Ego" and – most curiously – "Don't Do Anything Illegal." Various other tape recordings made inside prison have surfaced over the ensuing decades.
Black Sabbath
Ozzy Osbourne has credited Charles Manson with smoothing the way for Black Sabbath's turn-of-the-'70s brand of creepy doom rock – and later wondered aloud whether they would have struck up a friendship. "The Manson murders were all over the telly, so anything with a dark edge was in big demand," Osbourne said in his autobiography. "Before he turned psycho, Manson had been a big part of the L.A. music scene. If he hadn't gone to jail, we probably would have ended up hanging out with him."
'The White Album'
Only during his 1971 trial did Manson's peculiar obsession with the Beatles become clear. His horrifying testimony included a series of violent misinterpretations of White Album songs like "Helter Skelter," which Paul McCartney had written as a raw-boned rock tribute to a popular U.K. fairground ride. For Manson, however, lyrics like “it’s coming down fast” meant something else entirely. "'Helter Skelter' is confusion," he testified. "Confusion is coming down fast. If you can’t see the confusion coming down around you fast – you can call it what you wish. It is not my conspiracy. It is not my music. I hear what it relates. It says ‘Rise.’ It says ‘Kill.’ Why blame it on me? I didn’t write the music."
'On the Beach'
After Manson orchestrated this string of 1969 murders, Neil Young made a musical exercise out of getting inside his head. The result was his chilling song "Revolution Blues," which appeared on 1974's On the Beach and featured his former Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young bandmate David Crosby. Told from the perspective of a homicidal lunatic, the song includes the lyrics: "I see bloody fountains and 10 million dune buggies comin' down the mountains. Well, I hear that Laurel Canyon is full of famous stars, but I hate them worse than lepers."
Rob Zombie
Manson's work didn't immediately connect with a public still stricken with horror over the Tate-LaBianca murders. In fact, Lie: The Love and Terror Cult reportedly sold only 300 copies when it was issued on Awareness. Kaufman then signed a deal with ESP-Disk, hoping for wider distribution. Eventually, it fell into forgotten collector's item status, until interest was reignited years later within the punk and metal scenes. GG Allin released a new version of "Garbage Dump" in 1987; "Cease to Exist" was covered by Rob Zombie and the Lemonheads – the latter of whom also included "Home Is Where You're Happy" on 1988's Creator. Evan Dando memorably referenced "Big Iron Door" on 1990's Lovey.
Psychic TV
Redd Kross also covered "Cease to Exist" on their 1982 debut, and Black Flag referenced Manson. Subsequent British bands linked to him included Cabaret Voltaire and Psychic TV – the latter of which was founded in 1981 by one half of the then-newly defunct Throbbing Gristle. Psychic TV memorably recorded “Roman P,” a track named after Sharon Tate's husband that featured actual recordings of Manson's rantings. Weirdly, "Roman P" was later featured in a '90s-era Volkswagen commercial.
'No Rest For the Wicked'
Ozzy Osbourne later recorded the Charles Manson-inspired song "Bloodbath in Paradise" on his 1988 album No Rest for the Wicked, specifically mentioning "helter skelter." The opening verse begins, "You're coming home / There's blood on the walls / When Charlie and the family make house calls / If you're alone / Then watch what you do / Because Charlie and the family might get you."
Nine Inch Nails
Trent Reznor actually moved into Sharon Tate's former residence on Cielo Drive in 1992, apparently looking for disturbing inspiration for the upcoming Nine Inch Nails album The Downward Spiral. He built a studio inside the home, and ghoulishly nicknamed it "Pig" in honor of the Manson Family's ghastly message. Reznor said he meant it to be morbidly fun, but was shaken into a realization about the larger emotions at play when he ran into Tate's still-grieving sibling. "When she was talking to me, I realized for the first time, ‘What if it was my sister?’" Reznor said later. "I thought, 'F--- Charlie Manson.'"
'The Spaghetti Incident?'
Axl Rose apparently had no such qualms, releasing a version of Charles Manson's "Look at Your Game, Girl" on the 1993 Guns N' Roses covers album The Spaghetti Incident?. (He even whispers "Thanks, Chas" at the end.) Originally found on Manson's Lie: The Love and Terror Cult, this new version was actually tucked away as a hidden track but it garnered Guns N' Roses their share of negative reaction anyway – including from their own record-label head. Quite frankly, even the band seemed cool to the idea: Only Dizzy Reed joined Rose on the track.
Marilyn Manson
The former Brian Warner, who famously came up with his pseudonym by combining Charles Manson's last name with actress Marilyn Monroe's first name, covered Manson's "Sick City" in 2000. (An early protege of Trent Reznor, he labeled the Charles Manson update "an impromptu Valentine's Day gift to fans.") All of that probably led to one of the weirder moments in rock, when Charles Manson wrote a completely unhinged letter to Marilyn Manson from his jail cell. "Ghost dancers slay together and you’re just in my grave Sunstroker Corona-coronas-coronae – you seen me from under with it all standing on me," Charles Manson writes. "That’s 2 dump trucks – doing the same as CMF 000007."
Sick music industry
I was so surprised to see this post. This is what I wrote on my own Facebook page tonight.
“Yesterday I wanted to watch a movie. I chose Once Upon a time in Hollywood. Kind of a fun movie. It brought me back to those days. We had just moved to Phoenix in August of that year. Phoenix was a lot different then. Being so close to California there were a lot of influences here of California and the Phoenicians were begging newcomers to not ‘Californicate’ Phoenix. I wanted to go home to New York but so young and dependent there was no way. The movie made me smile with those songs that do not age for me, those clothes I would still wear. It made me contemplate those days, and all over the news not long after we got here was the shocking Manson murders. Back in that time I only looked upon it as another weird story and for the time was most unusual but I was busy acclimating to the very different place I was cast into. As the years have passed I have seen it like a great many others as the end of those more innocent hippy days. Seeing the movie I felt bad once again for them all but so relatable the girl from the movie, Valley of the dolls, Sharon Tate. Young pregnant and horrifically murdered. I thought of her all day today though I was never very familiar with her. I just wish it had gone like the movie. She partying with the Mamas and the Papas at the Playboy mansion, making a movie with Dean Martin. Promising life. Those more carefree times. So, just now I ran across an item surprisingly showing the door to 10050 Cielo Drive from that day with the word “Pig” on it, as painted in Sharon’s blood by Susan Atkins had been auctioned off last year. Like some sort of gravestone of the event. It mentioned the date of the murders. Just after midnight, August 9. Today. Struck me as strange”.
Kind of comforts me, to see your post. That someone else remembers. Reading all those stories, Ringo. I never have read any Beatle reaction but I knew it would be something like that. He knew them personally. As always the Beatle had heart. Some of the rest of these musicians were clueless and in my opinion immature. The tragedy was real.
I imagine those families, friends, ones who are even still around are thinking of it tonight.
Though I didn’t know a one of them, it still hurts.
And it was long ago tonight, August 9, 1969
There are also stories of Manson attending parties at “Mama” Cass Elliot’s house in L.A.
Manson was after Terry Melcher that night.
If Melchers girlfriend, Candace Bergen hadn’t broken up with him, which led them to move out and lease the house to Polanski and Tate, it would have been Melcher, Bergen and Mark Lindsay who were slaughtered.
Of course you don't see it when you are young, as disguised as it is.
But being old and having it force-fed in the workplace day in and day out at pretty loud volumes, one raises antibodies to it.
The middle-aged and older people who talk (nay brag) about the concerts they currently attend, and people traveling to see acts: Pathetic.
The only thing good to say about rock is that it actually has melodies and harmonies, and that it generally progresses to a mercifully quick end to each song.
Unlike millenial and later wimp-rock which drones on monotonously for hours, preaching surrender and cuckism in its feculent lyrics.
People today whine about the 100,000 per annum deaths from fentanyl and the culture of pierced and tattooed druggies that fills our sidewalks. Tattooed grandmothers and pretty much everyone with skin being tattooed.
Is it that hard to see the connection?
So the link between a monster like Manson and various rock luminaries is not surprising.
And the pantheon of dead rockers is full-up.
Lots of pathology.
There has been a long-term concerted effort to control what is publicly known about Manson.
Agree 100 per cent!
I remember reading, after the Beatles released their first song in the US (I want to hold your hand), that their music was a bad BAD influence for America.
I was one of the few not influenced by them. All the rest of the students in High School fell for them like a rock.
home is where you’re happy cover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI5HJGxP7ck
People Say Im No Good (Cover)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKcL9qltF58
Mark Lindsay, the guy from Paul Revere and the Raiders?
How so?
Charles Manson And The Beach Boys - Never Learn Not To Love (Cease To Exist)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ERIssUYV8g
CM seems like a person who had little to no affirmation as a child. This tends to stop the natural transition from seeing yourself as the center of the world to recognizing that you are a part of a bigger picture.
Most of what one sees and hears is of an evil man who led a small cult that savagely murdered an actress and her family.
It tends to stop about there. Only rarely do we get content like this article.
Yeah. I was fortunate to be in his band for a while. He told us the story. Charlie had shown up to their house for a few parties and Mark said he was just a really weird dude.
Most of these aren’t really connections. Like the tying of Ozzy and Sabbath they do is like saying anti-war songs are “connected” to Viet Nam.
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