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I was once two degrees of separation from Charles Manson. Sort of. I'd better explain that. One February morning, while I was in university, my friend Donald came skipping, skipping down the hall, yelling, "He wrote back! He wrote me back!" And in his hand was a single sheet of yellow notepaper. "What are you talking about? Who wrote back?" I asked. "Charlie!" he exclaimed. "Charlie who?" "Charlie Manson!"
I should point out that my friend had become a little eccentric and obsessive. I think it started with an English project back in high school when we were asked to examine and interpret the lyrics from some of our favorite songs. He dove into the Beatles and returned with his insights into the gibberish that was "I Am The Walrus."
This led him to a topic for his next project, the "Paul is Dead" theory, which held that Paul McCartney died in a car crash sometime in early 1966 and was replaced by a look-alike imposter. That lit up the conspiracy centers of his brain. It was only a short hop from there to the song "Helter Skelter" from the White Album and its connection to a couple of horrific murders committed by the Manson family in August 1969.
It was sometime after high school that my friend started writing letters to Manson at his prison in Vacaville, California. And one day, this letter arrived. I held it in my hand. The writing was spiky, aggressive, and hard to make out. It started running evenly horizontal across the page, but got progressively wilder with cryptic passages about a star rising in the east and there were these odd doodles in the margins.
Flipping it over, the handwriting became even more wild, with the bottom half of the page taken up by some crazy illegible scribbles. And at the bottom, a simple signature. Charlie. I lost contact with my friend years ago, so I don't know what happened to him. But I will never forget that handwritten letter from Charles Manson. In fact, the story of Manson has stayed with me. Over the years, some intriguing stories about Manson, his family, and his music have come to life. So...
Yes, there is a musical angle to all this carnage. And it's time to put these pieces together. I'm Alan Cross, and this is episode 14 of Uncharted: Music and Mayhem in the Music Industry. And this time, it's the musical nightmare that was Charles Manson. The Manson family murders are among the most famous crimes in American history. These actions have been documented over and over and over again.
This program will not be a recitation of what happened. That's been done many times. Instead, we're going to look specifically at how music figures into this story. A music tied in before, during, and after these horrific events. Music had a much bigger part in the murders than most people realize. This is a story that involves the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Neil Young, the Mamas and Papas, a couple of famous record producers, a large discography of Manson-made records,
and a long list of artists who have at least some relationship to Manson and his people. But before we get into all that, we do need to review exactly what happened. Over two nights in August 1969, members of Manson's cult brutally slaughtered seven people. Sometime after midnight on August 9th, four family members, following Manson's orders, drove up to a rented house at 10050 Cielo Drive in the Bel Air area of Los Angeles. Their orders?
Kill them as gruesomely as you can. They killed five people. Actress Sharon Tate, who was eight months pregnant at the time. Coffee heiress Abigail Folger. Celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring. Wojciech Frykowski, an aspiring writer and supplier of drugs. And Stephen Parent, an 18-year-old who just happened to be visiting the caretaker of the house, who lived in a separate building. Before they left, the family members wrote pig on the walls in Sharon Tate's blood.
The very next night, the same four people, along with two others and Manson himself, broke into the home of Leno Labianca, a grocery store executive, and his wife Rosemary in the Las Feliz area of town. And they too were brutally murdered. And we can't forget Gary Hinman. He was a musician and piano teacher who was stabbed in his house weeks earlier, July 31st, 1969. That was about 10 days before the Tate murders. How do we know?
Because when Hinman's body was found, the words "Political Piggy" were written on the walls in his blood. The connection to the Manson family and these murders wasn't made for a long, long time because the LAPD and the LA Sheriff's Office didn't talk to each other. And if you follow the Helter Skelter theory, we'll get into that in a moment, Gary Hinman was the family's first victim. Manson and his co-conspirators were finally arrested in October 1969.
And after the longest and most expensive trial in American history to that point, everyone was convicted and sentenced to death. But because California outlawed the death penalty in 1972, just in time, all the sentences were commuted to life in prison. Manson died at the age of 83 in 2017. Tex Watson, Manson's right-hand man in the murders, is still in prison in San Diego.
Susan Atkins, who was present at both murders and did plenty of stabbing herself but also offered up evidence against the Manson family, died in prison in 2009. Patricia Krenwinkel is still in jail. Linda Kasabian was given immunity for flipping on the family. She died in 2023 at the age of 73.
Leslie Van Houten, who joined in for the LaBianca murder, has been out of jail since July 2023. And Clem Grogan, the other person at the LaBianca house, was released from prison in 1985. Alright, so what does any of this horror have to do with music? Like I said, a lot. An awful lot. Let's start with Charles Manson himself as we piece this all together. Standing on a 5'6", Manson came from a broken home in Kentucky.
He was a pretty miserable kid who tried to set his school on fire when he was nine. He became a petty thief, arrested many times, and sent to juvie and jail on multiple occasions. He eventually ended up in prison in Washington state. To pass the time, he took guitar lessons from a guy named Alvin Creepy Karpis, the leader of the Barker Karpis gang, a group that robbed a lot of banks and kidnapped a lot of people. He was the longest serving inmate in the history of Alcatraz.
Manson was apparently a quick learner and told Karpis that he was going to be bigger than the Beatles. By the time Manson was released in 1967, he was 32 years old. He'd spent half that time in juvie and jail. He moved between San Francisco and L.A., getting involved in hippie and drug culture and even dabbling in Scientology for a bit. And he became a fan of the Beatles.
Even though he often expressed jealousy when it came to their fame, he became convinced that the band was speaking to him through their music and their lyrics. One song allegedly really spoke to him. Helter Skelter from the White Album. Helter Skelter.
The story is that Helter Skelter foretold a coming race war where the black man, perhaps led by the Black Panthers, the radical political group, would rise up against the establishment, murdering the entire white race. Only Manson and his followers would be spared. They'd escape the carnage of Helter Skelter, this black-on-white mass murder, by heading out into the desert and living in a place known as the Bottomless Pit, something that was mentioned as the Abyss in the Bible in Revelation 9.
All this was detailed in the book, Helter Skelter, The True Story of the Manson Murders, written by Vincent Bugliosi, the assistant district attorney in Los Angeles. He became famous for prosecuting Manson and his people, and his Helter Skelter story has become the background narrative of the entire Manson epic. Now, hold that thought, because we're going to come back to the whole Helter Skelter thing, because it may not be what we have been told.
In fact, this theory may be completely discredited because it was made up. But like I said, we'll come back to that. Manson became this weird spiritual figure for some people. They began to follow him. And this was the beginning of what Manson called the family, a collection of hippies and runaways and petty criminals and lost souls who would do anything for their leader. And I mean anything.
On April 6, 1968, Dennis Wilson, the drummer for the Beach Boys, was heading back to his place on Sunset Boulevard when he saw two women, Patricia Krenwinkel and Ella Jo Bailey, hitchhiking. He gave them a ride. About a week later, the same thing happened.
Wilson was a hard-partying dude who also had spiritual wishes, following Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of Transcendental Meditation and the same guru the Beatles would visit in India. The women told Wilson about their own guru, Charlie. Everyone lived together at Spahn Ranch, an old movie set once used for Western movies and TV shows.
Krenwinkel and Bailey introduced Wilson to Manson, and over the coming weeks, they all began to show up at Wilson's home. At first, Wilson found Manson interesting. The drugs and the women he offered up for sex were interesting too, but Manson had ambitions. He wanted to be a rock star, and Wilson, as a member of one of the biggest American bands of the 1960s, was his ticket.
Wilson agreed to set up a recording session or two through the Beach Boys record label, Brother Records. The sessions were held at the home studio of Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys' mastermind songwriter. There was also a recording session in a rehearsal studio on September 11, 1967. These songs were demos, circulated in hopes of getting Manson a record deal. They sounded like this. Here's a track called Devilman. ♪ But Devilman swings blue ♪
Philip Kaufman was a record producer who worked with the Rolling Stones, Joe Cocker, Frank Zappa, and others. But before all that happened, Kaufman was in prison for smuggling marijuana. And his fellow inmate was, you guessed it, Charles Manson. Manson got out of jail before he did. But before he was released, Kaufman, who thought that Manson was a bad guitar player but a decent enough songwriter,
gave Manson a couple of names in the music world. That included Gary Stromberg at Universal Studios. Stromberg arranged for a recording session, but the results weren't very good. Kaufman went to live with Manson for a time after he was released, but left the family because it seemed to be a little too weird. But Kaufman did produce a record for Charles Manson.
The recordings made at Brian Wilson Studio with Dennis Wilson were never released, but these other recordings were made and compiled by Kaufman into a full album. It's called Lie, the Love and Terror Cult. It was recorded between June 1967 and August 1968 at a couple of LA studios. It was released on March 6, 1970, while the Manson family trial was still ongoing.
Initially, about 2,000 copies were pressed. But the revulsion created by the killings made it impossible to get the record into stores. Over the years, though, it's been reissued many different times. And I'll confess that I do have a copy, both on vinyl and CD. Here's a quick sample. There's a time for living. The time keeps on flying.
Charles Manson from his Lie album and a song called Look at Your Game Girl.
Musicians on the album include family members Bob Beausoleil on guitar, Clem Grogan on bass, Paul Watkins on French horn, Catherine Scher on violin, Mary Brunner on flute, Diane Lake on recorder, and Sandra Good, Lynette Squeaky Fromm, and Nancy Pittman on background vocals. It literally was a family affair. Manson was very prolific and really wanted a record deal. And there was a nibble from Terry Melcher.
Melcher was the son of actress Doris Day and had done very well for himself producing records for both The Birds and Paul Revere and The Raiders. One song emerged from those days in the studio. Manson called it Cease to Exist. And here it is. This is from late in the summer of 1968. ♪ I'm your kind, oh, you're kind I can see ♪ ♪ Walk on, walk on, I love you pretty good ♪
The Beach Boys kind of liked that song, but it wasn't exactly their style. Cease to Exist was reworked into a song called Never Learn Not to Love, and it was released as the B-side of a Beach Boys single entitled Bluebirds Over the Mountain in December 1968. The sole writing credit on that version went to Dennis Wilson.
Why nothing for Manson? Wilson said Manson gave up all the rights in exchange for about $100,000 worth of stuff. What kind of stuff? Well, we're not sure. Meanwhile, it said that Manson was really, really angry that the Beach Boys would rip him off this way.
During this time, Wilson and Terry Melcher introduced Manson to some people from both the L.A. music scene and the film scene, often at wild parties held at the house at, guess what, 10,050 Cielo Drive, which Melcher was renting at the time.
Melcher's girlfriend was Candace Bergen, and it's possible that Manson crossed paths with Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, David Geffen, Mia Farrow, and Angelica Houston, all at these parties at 10,050 Cielo Drive. Manson also met Mama Cass Elliot at the Mama's and Papa's, probably through her connections with drug dealers. It appears that Manson may have visited her home in the Hollywood Hills earlier.
and went to at least one of her parties. His weird dancing was the hit of the night. And based on that story, he probably met other stories in The Mamas and Papas, too. Neil Young ran into Manson. One day, he dropped by Dennis Wilson's house. Manson was there with three or four girls. And in his 2012 autobiography, Young recalls this.
After a while, a guy showed up, picked up my guitar, and started playing a lot of songs on it. His name was Charlie. He was a friend of the girls and now of Dennis. His songs were off-the-cuff things he made up as he went along, and they were never the same twice in a row. Kind of like 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 Austin at Reprise about him and recommended that Reprise check him out. Shortly afterward, the Sharon Tate LaBianca murders happened, and Charlie Manson's name was known around the world. But no matter who got to hear Manson's music, no one thought it was good enough to offer him a contract. Manson was insulted. He was not happy with this.
Melcher was afraid of Manson and wanted no more contact with him. He was so freaked out that Melcher moved out of the house on Cielo Drive, hoping that Manson wouldn't find him and would just leave him alone. Meanwhile, Dennis Wilson was having Manson issues of his own. The family wouldn't leave his rental house on Sunset, so he just left. The landlord would have to be the one to evict the dozen or so family regulars who had taken up residence over the last six months.
Dennis Wilson moved to Santa Monica. Just about everything he owned at the Sunset House was stolen by the family. There is also a story that Wilson saw Manson kill a black man with an M16 military rifle. Wilson could have gone to the authorities at that point, but for whatever reason, he didn't, and that allowed for everything else to unfold. Manson felt disrespected by Wilson's abandonment. He left a bullet with Wilson's housekeeper as some kind of threat.
After the murders, Manson went back to Wilson's house and demanded money. Wilson gave it to him just so Manson would leave him alone. Did Wilson know that Manson and his people had just slaughtered seven people? Maybe, but we're not sure. Again, he never said a thing. It would be months before Manson and his people were arrested. And even then, Wilson was too scared to testify. He kept his mouth shut, even with everything he knew. What about those songs he recorded with Manson at his brother's studio?
Wilson said that he destroyed them because, quote, "the vibrations connected with them didn't belong on this earth." Manson also felt very disrespected by Terry Melcher. On March 23, 1969, Manson made the trip up to the house on Cielo Drive to confront Melcher. But again, by then he'd moved out, the new tenants didn't treat him very nicely, and once again Manson felt disrespected. Things were pretty dark.
On one side, the Hollywood elite, members of the music, film and TV scenes with their parties and drugs and alleged orgies. On the other, Charles Manson and his family, outsiders trying to get inside by any means necessary. And when they couldn't get in, things went from dark to apocalyptic. The Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson managed to stay clear of Charles Manson once he left him at the rented house on Sunset Boulevard.
But Manson held a serious grudge against Terry Melcher. Why wouldn't he give him a record deal? Why didn't he follow through on his alleged promises? Why had Melcher ghosted him? This, to Manson, was nothing short of a betrayal. A theory, advanced by some, including Vincent Bugliosi in his book Helter Skelter, says that Manson held a serious grudge against Melcher and made him a target. Family went to the house on August 9th to kill Melcher.
That theory has a bunch of holes in it. Remember, Manson did go back to Cielo Drive on March 23rd, 1969, to scare Melcher into behaving. When he was told rather brusquely that Melcher had moved out by the new resident of the house, Manson didn't forget that lack of hospitality.
Therefore, Manson and his people knew that Melcher had moved to Malibu because one day Melcher found a note on the porch of his new home out on the coast and it was from the Manson people. They knew where he was. However, when it came time to send a message via murder, the house on Cielo Drive and its occupants became the target. Family member Susan Atkins testified to that effect.
Melcher was not the intended victim, but he spent the rest of his life thinking that he was. He died of cancer in 2004. All right, what about the LaBianca murders? There's a music connection there too. Philip Kaufman, remember him, the producer who was in jail? He ended up in the Las Feliz area of LA, living right next door to Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Manson and some of his women attended a party in the LaBianca house with Kaufman.
So it appears that the death of the LaBiancas also involved music, at least peripherally. Dennis Wilson was also traumatized by his association with Manson, refusing to talk about anything that happened. The man he once called "The Wizard" and whom he supported along with 17 women at his Sunset Boulevard house never forgot the bullet Manson left with his housekeeper. He also allegedly received a number of death threats from people directly associated with Manson.
When people asked about him, Wilson refused to talk, although he did say this, I know why he did what he did. Someday, I'll tell the world. I'll write a book and explain why he did it. Dennis Wilson died on December 29, 1983, in an accidental drowning when he dove off a boat in Marina del Rey, California. When he heard the news, Manson said,
Dennis Wilson was killed by my shadow because he took my music and changed the words from my soul. Charles Manson's discography extends beyond the Lie album that Philip Kaufman produced. While in prison after the murders, Manson made a ton of recordings on portable tape recorders, which were then given to someone on the outside. Dozens of these tapes went into circulation, resulting in more than 20 albums issued on vinyl, cassette, and CD.
They have titles like Poor Old Prisoner Boy, The Way of the Wolf, Manson Speaks, which is a collection of poetry, and The Wit and Wisdom of Charles Manson. There's also a catalog of seven-inch singles, including at least one picture disc. There's also a four-disc series of Manson poems and songs released on a label called Magic Bullet Records. All the songs are based on mankind's non-sustainable environmental conditions. That's Manson's description.
Here's a sample from the disc called Air. All the world is king. Air is the king. The air that we breathe is the king. As low as the grave and as deep as the dungeon. In 2010, we learned that Henry Rollins was once commissioned to produce an album for Manson.
In the 80s, when he was the vocalist for Black Flag, a lawyer representing Manson wrote to SST, the label run by Black Flag. Would someone at the label be able to help complete a collection of Manson songs? Rollins put up his hand. I'll do it, he said. And some work on the project was carried out. But word got out and a series of death threats came into the label. So the project was canceled.
Rumors are there are just five copies of this album. Rollins has two. The other three are unaccounted for. Meanwhile, Rollins and Manson became sort of pen pals after Manson saw him on MTV back in 1984. Henry would pick up envelopes at the post office, all decorated with swastikas. In these letters, Manson spent a lot of time complaining about how the Beach Boys stole his music.
The family also recorded material without him, including a 1970 album entitled The Manson Family Sings the Songs of Charles Manson. Clem Grogan is the lead singer.
Everyone who is the one is looking for the last hope. And if you are the one, then you don't need to look anymore. Bobby Beausoleil, a family member and part of the family band, was a musician before everything went weird.
Arthur Lee, the guitarist famous for being in the psych band Love, was in a group called The Grassroots. No, not that grassroots, but a different one. And Bobby Beausoleil was a member of that band. He also released several recordings while in prison as part of what he calls the Freedom Orchestra. In 1980, an album entitled Lucifer Rising was released on a label called Lethal Records. It was also used as the soundtrack of a film of the same name.
Beausoleil got the gig after, and get this, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin dropped out of the project. Beausoleil was in prison at the time for the murder of Gary Hinman. So he recorded that soundtrack in jail. Remember that letter my friend got from Charlie? There was a reference to this album in that note. Something about Lucifer Rising. And there is a song called Lucifer Rising. It sounds like this. ♪♪
And there's more. Clem Grogan, another family member, was paroled in 1985. He's been in several bands under the name Steve Grogan. Here he is playing guitar in a jazz band led by a guy named Mitch Woods. Well, come on in, don't worry about a thing. It won't take long for Amadita to swing. Get yourself a mom and club to rug. Grab yourself a beer and chug a lug. Stomping and chomping at half-bastoo. Have a boogie-woogie barbecue.
You see what I mean about how music permeated so much of the Manson family's story? And there's more to this, too. These murders are embedded deeply into the cultural psyche. Neil Young, who you remember met Manson several times and shares a birthday with him, November 12th, wrote a song about Manson called Revolution Blues on his 1974 album On the Beach. The Ramones' 1977 song Glad to See You Go references Manson.
In 1985, British electronic music pioneer Cabaret Voltaire released an album entitled The Covenant, The Sword, and The Arm of the Lord, which features spoken word rambles from Manson between songs. That same year, Sonic Youth issued Death Valley 69, which alluded to Manson's fantasy of riding out the race war with the rest of the family in Death Valley in the Bottomless Pit. Twelve months later, The Flaming Lips released a song called Charles Manson Blues.
In 1988, Ozzy Osbourne alluded to the Tate-LaBianca murders in a song called Bloodbath in Paradise. And Skinny Puppy's 1989 song Warlock features Manson reciting Helter Skelter. You can just make him up. In 1993, a group called Meat Machine sampled Manson for a track called Charles Manson Rise and Fall.
Slipknot has a 36-second song that introduces their debut album. It features bits from a 1973 documentary on Manson. From 2001, there's a track entitled Atwa on System of a Down's Toxicity album. This was inspired by Manson's environmental muses in a sympathetic way. In 2005, Alkaline Trio released Sadie, a song that has a direct mention of family member Susan Atkins. Frontline assembly, monster magnet, poison idea –
They and numerous others have all written songs based on something to do with Manson and the family. And a surprising number of acts have covered Manson songs. Gigi Allen, the weirdo self-destructive singer, had a version of a song entitled Garbage Dump. In 1988, the Lemonheads covered Your Home Is Where You're Happy, a Manson original from their creator album.
He was actually listed as a co-writer and was therefore entitled to royalties from that. He never saw a penny though. All the profits went to Bartit Frykowski, the son of Wojtek Frykowski, one of the victims at the Tate House. In 1989, Crispin Glover released an album entitled "The Big Problem Does Not Equal the Solution. The Solution Equals Let It Be." And it also features a cover of a Manson original entitled "Never Say Never to Always"
Maybe we should have a quick listen to that. Guns N' Roses created a lot of controversy by covering Look At Your Game Girl for their 1993 album The Spaghetti Incident. The Brian Jonestown Massacre recorded a version of a Manson song called Arkansas in 1999.
And we need to talk about Marilyn Manson. Manson, yeah. When Brian Warner formed the Spooky Kids in 1989, the rule was that every member had to have a pseudonym. The first name had to come from a celebrity, and the surname had to be that of an infamous killer. Brian took Marilyn from Marilyn Monroe and Manson from Charlie. So yes, Marilyn Manson, the band, did cover a Charles Manson song. In 2000, there was this called Sick City.
There are a couple more stories that we need to tell. We need to follow up on the whole Beatles helter skelter thing. And then there's the multi-platinum album that was recorded in the house at 10,050 Cielo Drive.
Hold on. When Trent Reznor finally broke free of his original record contract, he signed to Interscope Records. And the first thing he did was release an EP called Broken. The next project was his second album. The past several years had been highly emotional and very distressing for Reznor. So the idea was to find a quiet, secluded, private place to make this second album. What about renting a house in LA somewhere?
An agent showed him a French country-style home in the Bel Air neighborhood that had been completed in 1944. It was on three acres and was at the end of a private drive in Benedict Canyon. It was owned by a number of people over the years, and it was a popular rental. Henry Fonda, Lillian Gish, Cary Grant, Diane Cannon, Olivia Hussey, and other movie stars had lived there over the years.
When Reznor saw the place in 1992, the owner was a real estate investor named Alan Weintraub. He liked it and signed the lease. What he didn't know, or at least what he says he didn't know, is that 10050 Cielo Drive was the site of the Tate murders. And despite the freaky vibe of the house and the fact that ghosts were always getting into the recording gear, Reznor recorded the entire Downward Spiral album inside that house.
He dubbed the place "Pig Studios" and "Le Pig" after the word the Manson family had smeared on the front door in Sharon Tate's blood. Bad taste? Most definitely. Reznor was once confronted by Sharon Tate's sister, who demanded to know if he was exploiting Sharon Tate's memory by making an album there. And that really shook him up. Treznor moved out in December 1993. He told Rolling Stone that "there was just too much history in that house for me to handle." Before he left, though,
One Nine Inch Nails video was shot there. It was for the song, Gave Up. When Trent moved out of the house of 10,050 Cielo Drive, he took the front door with him and installed it at his new Nothing Studios in New Orleans. That door has changed hands several times and is now in the hands of a private collector. Remember, PIG was written on it in Sharon Tate's blood.
Oh, and one more thing. Marilyn Manson also used Pig Studios for a few tracks on the Portrait of an American Family album. 10,050 Cielo Drive does not exist anymore. It was damaged in a 1994 earthquake and was demolished. Its replacement is a completely different structure that was given the address 10,066 Cielo Drive, and it's called Bella Vista. So there's nothing left, not a single blade of grass connected to the original house.
Finally, let's revisit the whole Beatles helter-skelter theory. As you recall, Vincent Bugliosi, the assistant DA who prosecuted Manson, put forward the story that Manson gleaned messages from songs on the Beatles' White Album. When the album came out in 1968, Manson listened to it over and over and over again. And a former Manson follower named Catherine Sher said this,
He was quite certain that the Beatles had tapped into his spirit, the truth, that everything was going to come down and the black man was going to rise. It wasn't that Charlie listened to the White Album and started following what he thought the Beatles were saying. It was the other way around. He thought the Beatles were talking about what he had been expounding for years. Every single song on the White Album, he felt that they were singing about us.
The song Helter Skelter, he was interpreting that to mean the blacks were going to go up and the whites were going to go down. Manson heard things in songs like Honey Pie, Sexy Sadie, Rocky Raccoon, Revolution 9, Happiness is a Warm Gun, and of course, Piggies and Helter Skelter. He mixed the White Album with his interpretations of the Book of Revelations. There's more.
The Beatles released Abbey Road in September 1969, about six weeks after the murders. By this time, Manson and his family were camping out in Death Valley, searching for that mythical bottomless pit. Manson had a cassette copy of the album and was listening for more coded messages. Lines in, you never give me your money, come together, and Maxwell's Silver Hammer apparently really spoke to him.
Manson believed that it was his destiny to start a race war where the black man, led by the Black Panthers, would rise up and slaughter his white oppressors. It would be apocalyptic. But Manson and his family would be safe living in that bottomless pit out in the desert. All this was detailed in Bugliosi's book on the case, which of course is also entitled Helter Skelter.
Now, for years, this was the official story of the Manson family murders. It was a big bestseller and won a bunch of awards on its way to selling over 7 million copies. But in the decades since that it was published in 1974, Bugliosi's theories have come under fire. Manson himself dismissed the whole idea as a Bugliosi invention. I quote, As far as lining up someone for some kind of helter-skelter trip, you know, that's the district attorney's motive.
That's the only thing he could find for a motive to throw up on top of all that confusion he had. There was no such thing in my mind as Helter Skelter. Again, that's Charles Manson talking. In 2019, Tom O'Neill published his own investigation entitled Chaos, Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the 60s.
It's the result of 20 years worth of investigations trying to unravel the mystery of Charles Manson, the family, and all the flaws in Bugliosi's theories and portrayals of what actually happened in 1969. One of O'Neill's contentions is that the whole Beatles and Helter Skelter story may not be true at all, or at least in the way portrayed by Bugliosi.
Paul Watkins, a member of the family, testified about the Beatles' influence. However, others, including detectives, lawyers, and writers like O'Neill, point to the Tate-LaBianca murders as being triggered by drug deals gone wrong, copycat killings, and even influences by law enforcement all the way up to the FBI and CIA. The book contains rat hole after rat hole after rat hole and does an excellent job of showing how complex the Manson saga really is.
A warning though, if you do want to go in this direction, you will find yourself very confused and wondering about what really happened. Did Manson have dreams of being a rock star himself? Absolutely. Was he a psychopath? 100%. Was Manson a Beatles fan? No doubt about it. But was there really a Helter Skelter plan? That's still up for much discussion. And did the Beatles deserve being tagged with the Manson stigma and stink? No.
When I started looking at the connection between the Manson family murders and music, I wasn't expecting to be taken on so many detours. But the more I researched, the more wilder things became.
This episode tried to confine things just to the musical aspects of the Manson story, but once you start pulling on these threads, you will find yourself in places that you never, ever expected. For example, let's go through a few more things. The British band Kasabian is named after family member Linda Kasabian. And if you dig into the history of Metallica, you'll learn this.
In 1971, when he was six years old, bass player Robert Trujillo ended up near a shootout between Manson people and the police in Hawthorne, California. The family tried to rob an army surplus store of weapons and ammunition so they could break Manson out of prison in a plot that involved hijacking a 747 and LAX and getting Charlie out and then flying to Mexico or somewhere.
Robert was safe down the street at his grandmother's place, but he heard the gunshots. But then the fight moved closer and closer. Everyone had to shelter in place until the cops came and mopped everything up. The Manson Saga is a true crime story that just keeps giving and giving and giving more than five decades after it all went down.
If you have an inclination to investigate things further, start with CharlesManson.com, a website that's a clearinghouse of all the basics into the murders and subsequent investigations. The website also has a very good list of related books and documentaries. But I'm going to warn you again, once you start, you may never finish. This is the real abyss, the real bottomless pit of the entire Manson story. What really happened and why?
we may never ever know. You can catch up on all episodes of Uncharted by downloading them from your favorite podcast platform. Please rate and review if you get a chance. If you have any questions or comments, shoot me an email, alan at alancross.ca. You can also meet up on all the social media sites, along with my website, ajournalofmusicalthings.com. It's updated with music news and recommendations every single day, and there's the free daily newsletter that you should get.
And please check out my other podcast, The Ongoing History of New Music. There are hundreds and hundreds of episodes that you can enjoy for free. Technical Productions by Rob Johnston. I'm Alan Cross.