The Beatles' reactions to the Manson Murders?

Did the Beatles ever comment on the murders and how they felt about their songs getting mixed up in it? I haven't read much on what they thought of it all.

 

By the time it was discovered Manson and company were responsible the Beatles had broken up but I'm sure somebody must have commented just can't recall.

 

From John Lennon's 1980 Playboy interview:

PLAYBOY: "Did it trouble you when the interpretations of your songs were destructive, such as when Charles Manson claimed that your lyrics were messages to him?"

LENNON: "No. It has nothing to do with me. It's like that guy, Son of Sam, who was having these talks with the dog. Manson was just an extreme version of the people who came up with the 'Paul is dead' thing or who figured out that the initials to 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' were LSD and concluded I was writing about acid."

 

All i've heard is that John Lennon defended Helter Skelter in court sometime. (Strange, since he didn't write it).

EDIT: and this
"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)

 

From Lennon's 1970 Rolling Stone interview:

What did you think of Manson when that thing happened?

I don't know what I thought when it happened. I just think a lot of the things he says are true, that he's a child of the state made by us. And he took their children when nobody else would, is what he did. But of course he's cracked, alright.

What were your feelings when he quoted Helter Skelter?

Well he's barmy. He's like any other Beatle kind of fan who reads mysticism into it. <snip> But I don't know what "Helter Skelter" got to do with knifin' somebody, you know?"

 

In court?

 

From this link, but i've seen it before.
http://rocknrollgraffiti.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/infamy-grows-for-helter-skelter.html

"Headlined "Beatle Lennon Defends 'Helter Skelter,'" the story was published in the Friday, Nov. 6, 1970 edition of the Bay Beacon student newspaper.

One of their hardest rocking numbers, "Helter Skelter" was entirely composed by McCartney, although John Lennon was also credited as songwriter.

At that time, many assumed the Lennon-McCartney composing credit meant that Lennon was responsible for the lyrics while McCartney composed the music.

When I wrote my story, Lennon was being subpoenaed to appear as a defense witness at the trial.

Lennon told the Associated Press: "I'm a peace-loving man. If I were a praying man, I'd pray to be delivered from people like Charles Manson who claim to know better than I do what my songs are supposed to mean."

Reporter Donald White also quoted Lennon as saying, "Why didn't Manson listen to our song 'Revolution?' 'Revolution' clearly states my position on violence. 'When you talk about destruction, you can count me out!'"

Lennon didn't testify at the trial which ended on Jan. 25, 1971. Manson was found guilty of first degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

EDIT: so not quite?

 

That's all very fine with John Lennon... But how about McCartney? Didn't he ever said anything at all on the topic? It was his own song after all...

 

I believe he said something to the effect of , "It's the bloody Beatles White Album. Don't kill, people. Shut up!"

 

McCartney's always denied that Maxwell's Siver Hammer was about Manson. So I try to force myself to not to read it that way, but I find it really hard.

 

Thought never occurred to me.

 

Paul did mention it very briefly in Many Years From Now.

Talikg about "Helter Skelter", Paul explains how he wanted a loud dirty track , and how Ringo had been drumming ferociously.

Then he says: "Unfortunately it inspired people to do evil deeds".

As an interesting aside, talking about how the Beatles had encouraged anyone to send them tapes of their music and the weird people that would call or show up, the author Barry Miles mentions..

"It was someone in Derek's (Taylor) office that fielded the telephone calls from Charles Manson and all the other fanatics who had decoded the album sleeves or lyrics to find secret messages addressed only to them." I don't recall reading anywhere else that Manson actually tried to contact the Beatles or at least..Apple.

 

Me either, always considered it somewhat of a nonsense song, also I think it was started well before the Manson arrests.

 

That's because "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" was already written before November 1968, and the Manson murders were committed on August 9th, 1969.

In the November 1968 issue of the Beatles Book magazine they report that two new songs, "Polythene Pam" and "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" had been written just too late for The Beatles. (The White Album)

 

Can't be. MSH was written before the murders.

 

I can't hear Maxwell's Silver Hammer without thinking of Steve Martin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTNIqJE80nQ

 

Yeah, jeez. It was recorded before the murders.

 

The Beatles Anthology Book "



Paul, talking about "Helter Skelter": "Then it got over to America-the land of interpretive people. And as a DJ would later 'interpret' the fact that I had no shoes on the Abbey Road cover, Charles Manson interpreted that "Helter Skelter" was something to do with the four horseman of the Apocalypse. I still don't know what all that stuff is: it's from the Bible, Revelations- I haven't read it so I wouldn't know. But he interpreted the whole thing-that we were the four horsemen, "Helter Skelter" the song - and arrived at having to go out and kill everyone."

"It was terrible. You can't associate yourself with a thing like that. Some guy in the States had done it- but I've no idea why. It was frightening, because you don't write songs for those reasons. Maybe some heavy metal groups do nowadays, but we certainly never did."

John; "All that Manson stuff was built around George's song about pigs and Paul's
song about an English fairground. It has nothing to do wth anything, and least of all to do with me. (He continues on with the quotes already posted in post # 5 in this thread)

Ringo : It was upsetting. 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 LA felt: 'Oh God, it can happen to anybody.' Thank God they caught the bugger."

George: "Everyone was getting on the Beatles bandwagon. The police and the promoters and the Lord mayors-and murders 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."

"Another thing I found offensive was that Manson suddenly portrayed the long hair beard and moustache kind of image, as well as that of a murderer. Up until then, the long hair and the beard were more to do with not having your hair cut and not having a shave- a case of just being a scruff or something."

Well, there you have it.

 

If I remember correctly, they were against it.

 

Good picture. Thanks!

 

In that Rolling Stones interview from 1970,I recall Lennon commenting how these aggressive hippies bothered/disturbed him,which I think was in relation to his comments on Manson.That they were coming to his house,knocking on his door and were trying to find some deeper meaning in the songs he wrote.

 

I know that now. I've known it for several years now. But I didn't know it at the time I first got Abbey Road (round about the time of the Helter Skelter TV movie), so for years I assumed it was a response, and I still have a hard time not picturing Manson when I hear it. I didn't mean to imply that McCartney was lying, just that I have a hard time unhearing it. (Re-reading my post, though, I agree it does sound like that.)

So--and this is not me claiming that Maxwell is about Manson--there are enough similarities for McCartney to have been asked about it on a few occasions occasions: the similarities in names, the main character who's essentially a serial killer, who then begins 'painting testimonial pictures' (whatever that means, but it does evoke Manson's creepy look at his trial), and then you got Rose and Valerie claiming he must be set free, which sounds a lot like the Family.

The irony is that Manson thought the Beatles were prophets, and they practically prophesied him. (Also not a claim I'm seriously making.)

I'm of the age where Manson was my first high-profile killer. He still appears every now and then in my nightmares, and after this discussion, I suspect I'll be seeing him tonight.

 

...and of course The Beatles were filmed rehearsing the song in Jan 1969 during the Get Back/Let It Be sessions....

Chris

 

I read somewhere that there was an axe murderer in the UK at the time that may have been the basis for MSH - also Floyds Careful With That Axe Eugene. Not sure if it's true though..

 

While I never thought it had anything to do with Manson(I'm sure Paul had already written it) I've always thought it odd that people really just do not listen to the lyrics of that song. They are anything but nonsense, somewhat dark and actually deal with a real phenomena. And I mean Maxwell KILLS people, with a hammer, he's like a horror story, the unstoppable killer, what the heck is so freaking "fluffy" about that? Just whose "Granny" was listening to that sort of thing? LOL

If someone can see Manson in the lyrics, it's because while his is an extreme case, he's hardly the first psychopath to have "fans" in the court gallery thinking he ought to be set free. LOL

PS: I always thought "testimonial pictures" meant evidence, both in verbal testimony(paining a picture with words in a sense) and often the exhibits in a case are presented as photos, diagrams and other things like to help the jury "see" what happened. Those would be of Maxwell's erm...handiwork and if he was put on the stand himself(Maxwell stands alone), he'd be giving testimony too.