I just heard from the horses mouth (P.M.) that ‘Helter Skelter’ was written about was children at a play ground. “When I get to the bottom of the slide, I go back to top, where I turn and I go for a ride, 'til I get to the bottom and I see you again”.
I’ve been to some Chuckie M’s site (There are WAY too many by the way) and I can’t figure out how he turned this "chidrens song’ into the race-war death chant.
I don’t want this to go to IMHO, so I’m looking for definitive justification on his part about how this got mis-interpreted.
Any takers?
Simple-the guy was nucking futs!
Manson’s interpretation came not from anything inherent in the lyrics, but from the fact that Manson is crazier than a shithouse rat.
Basically, Manson’s theory was that there was a war coming between blacks and whites. This war, “Helter Skelter,” would be the time when the “Blackbirds” (who have been waiting all their lives for this moment to arise) or the “Rocky Raccoons” would finally rise up and destroy the white man, or “Piggies.” (happiness, after all, is a warm gun).
While this war was going on, Charlie and the Family would be hiding out in the California desert. When it was over, and the blacks had won, the Family would emerge, destroy the blacks, and take over.
By slaughtering Sharon Tate and her guests, and the LaBiancas, Charlie hoped to bring the war on a little sooner. His intention was for it to be blamed on the blacks, touching off Helter Skelter that much sooner.
He believed he was getting a lot of this from the Beatles, who were either prophets, or the Four Horsemen described in the Revelation (Revolution=Revelation, in Charlie’s mind.)
There’s a good online reference at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/rauk/charlie.htm ; or, alternately, it’s all outlined pretty well in Bugliosi’s book Helter Skelter.
Yeah, he was also ignorant of the fact that in Britain helter skelter just means ‘a slide’. He took it in the American sense to mean something like general mayhem.
Idjit. McCartney even sang “When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide” to make it obvious for American listeners.
Here’s Cecil’s take on the matter:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_003.html
“I’d say the fact that he’s crazy pretty well covers it.”
–sublight.