Musings on the Beatles and Manson

Another bizarre twist to this tale involves a little guy by the name of Charles Manson.

He was so obsessed with The Beatles he thought they were sending hidden messages directly to him through their music. While this had nothing to do with the ‘Paul is dead’ controversy per se, he helped to expose the outright fanaticism of many Beatles fans. A little known fact is that Charlie Manson had dreams of becoming a rock star himself, and he got to hang out with several of L.A.’s musical elite, like Dennis Wilson and Terry Melcher. Wilson let a few of Charlie’s girls live in his mansion until they gave everyone the clap.

Neil Young even tried to convince Elektra‘s Jac Holzman to sign him to a recording contract.

Apparently, Charlie could sing like an angel, and he was able to improvise songs on the spot. He would make up songs about anything and rap on it endlessly.

Charlie’s bitterness at not getting a deal is the real reason why he ordered the murders at Terry Melcher’s former residence on Cielo Drive.

Manson is known as the “man who killed the 60s.” The whole world was scared and disillusioned by the end of 1969. All of that “peace & love” from the mid-sixties had turned into something very dark.

The fact that fans could even contemplate a conspiracy involving Paul McCartney’s supposed death was a reflection of the paranoid times. The hippie dream was over, and so were The Beatles.

George’s songwriting

It’s true that most of the focus in The Beatles is on John & Paul, but George and Ringo’s musical contributions are seriously underrated. Ringo is acknowledged by many of his contemporaries as one of the greatest drummers of all time: certainly the most famous. George is the Beatle who initially lobbied for Ringo to replace Pete Best because whenever he sat in with them (the number of times is disputed) Ringo really made it “swing.” Lennon pointed out in his 1980 Playboy interview that Ringo was already famous in Liverpool before he even joined The Beatles. He wasn’t as kind to George. At the time John was bitter because George didn’t mention him in his autobiography, I Me mine. But that was then. He was only 40 years old and I’m convinced that had John Lived, The Beatles would have re-formed by the end of the 1980s.

In any case, George Harrison eventually became known as one of the greatest (and most underrated) songwriters of all time, thanks in part with having to compete with Lennon/McCartney. Don’t forget also that George almost single-handedly introduced Indian music into pop culture, along with Transcendental Meditation [TM]. Both of these factors prove beyond any doubt that George Harrison belongs right up there with the most important and influential figures in global popular culture. His deeply spiritual nature had a profound effect on many people who eventually followed in his footsteps.

Question time

Question: Critics and scholars often divide the Beatles albums into 2 categories: their early work, considered to be singles-orientated pop music, and their later work, more complex and serious album-orientated rock music, with the album Rubber Soul as the marker of the beginning of the second period. Do you agree with this dualistic view of the Beatles work? If not, how else could you describe the arc of their career? If so, do you think Rubber Soul should mark the boundary, or should it be some other album?

Answer: Yes, I agree with this assessment. Ironically, this is exactly the way I would classify Beatles music.

As I child, I was not exposed to the early Beatles at all, except on the radio. I had no real appreciation of The Beatles as the four suited mop-tops, or any of that Beatlemania stuff, except as ancient history. Since I was born in 1963 I just missed out on actually experiencing any of it.

But my dad loved the later stuff like Let It Be, Hey Jude, Something, and The Ballad Of John And Yoko, so we had the albums Abbey Road, Let It Be and Hey Jude (the US-only album), and for some reason, we also had The Beatles, aka ‘The White Album.’ I think my dad bought it by mistake thinking that Hey Jude was on it…But it soon became the most compelling piece of music I’d ever heard.

I didn’t actually listen to Sgt. Pepper until later, and I will never forget that day. I didn’t really like it that much. Several years later, when the first remastered catalogue came out and I was able to really LISTEN to it closely, I got it. I still prefer The Beatles, though, because it was more diverse and varied in content. Plus, the photos and the poster were so mysterious and enigmatic.

I didn’t really listen to any of the early Beatles until the entire catalogue was released on CD for the first time in 1987. That was a revelation, because until then I’d only had the US versions of the albums to listen to. The UK and US versions were SO DIFFERENT. Side two of the American versions of “Help” and “A Hard Day’s Night” consisted of incidental soundtrack music,  for God’s sake!

What a rip-off.

And the guts were ripped out of Revolver! It was a completely different album without John’s three compositions: “And Your Bird Can Sing,” “I’m Only Sleeping,” and “Dr. Robert.” We never knew what we were missing in this country! It’s sad: Americans still don’t have a clue about all the ways they’re getting screwed, even when it comes to music.

It wasn’t until the release of Sgt. Pepper and all subsequent albums that the US and the UK versions were identical when Apple Records was formed and John and Paul demanded it.  An odd example of a US-only Album was Hey Jude, which was a great but very eclectic collection of singles. Most of them were from the later period, but it also had “Paperback Writer” and “Rain.”

But my parents only had the later stuff so that’s all I heard. To me, The Beatles were a group of god-like, long-haired hippies singing about really obscure subjects. I was also aware of the Manson trials and The Beatles’ strange connection to that whole depressing saga. My family was living in L.A. at the time and it was the only story on the local news for ages. Listening to “Revolution #9” still kind of scares me to this day. Watching the TV movie Helter Skelter [with Steven Railsback as Charlie] – also scared the crap out of me. I couldn’t sleep for years after I saw it…

But the point is that The Beatles’ later music was definitely more mature, more refined and increasingly complex and mysterious. Rubber Soul clearly marked the turning point from the sugary boy-meets-girl pop confections to more adult themes. That was the album where they began branching out both lyrically and musically.

I’m sure the Beatles would have carried on at least through the early ‘70s if Brian Epstein hadn’t died. Despite what anyone wants to admit, the fact that they suddenly had to deal with the business side of things ultimately destroyed the harmony between the fab four. History has shown that Paul was right all along about Allen Klein. He was a total crook.

Even though some of the deals he made on behalf of NEMS were somewhat questionable, Brian Epstein personally took care of the Beatles finances and kept the business out of the creative process.

Once he was gone, the boys were forced to deal with issues they didn’t have any business dealing with, as it were…and they weren’t cut out for it. Playing music is the only thing they really knew how to do.

If only they had been left alone to create music without having to worry about THE BUSINESS..!