‘Once Upon a Time’ subject has niche in pop, rock, rap
Charles Manson was a failed songwriter who, like thousands of other would-be rock stars of the era, moved west to chase his dream of becoming a successful musician. Needless to say, it didn’t work out that way.
That wasn’t for lack of effort. As he and his murderous followers tore through California from 1967 to ’69, the cult leader was not only working to foment an LSD-inspired race war but playing in bands, making demos and ingratiating himself with musicians, including the Beach Boys’ Dennis and Brian Wilson.
In Quentin Tarantino’s new film, “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” characters bump up against the Manson “family” of Charles and his followers and their legend. The film’s release is keenly timed to the 50th anniversary of the five-week series of murders that stunned Los Angeles.
After Manson’s arrest and conviction, his sinister charisma became synonymous with evil, and a generation of artists drew meaning from his words, music and myth. Below, a semichronological annotated playlist of Manson-related music.
Grateful Dead, ‘Viola Lee Blues’
“The night I dropped my first tab, the Grateful Dead was playing at the Avalon Ballroom,” Manson recalled, referring to the San Francisco venue, in “Manson in His Own Words,” a book that compiled his jailhouse interviews.
He added of the 1967 concert: “Even without the acid, the performance would have blown my mind.” Manson remembered the music creating “a frenzy in the listeners and dancers. Before I actually realized what I was doing I was out there on the floor innovating to the beat of the Grateful Dead.”
Which song was Manson “innovating” to? He doesn’t say, but if he stayed for the whole set, he likely danced to “Viola Lee Blues,” a staple of their live shows of the time.
Charles Manson, ‘Cease to Exist’
After busking in San Francisco during the Summer of Love and settling in Los Angeles at the end of the season, Manson hit up a music business contact he’d gotten from a former prison inmate. Soon Manson was recording demos around Hollywood across the fall of 1967 and into ’68. The recordings didn’t see release until after he and his followers were arrested.
“Cease to Exist” is a love song about submission written as only a narcissist could, from the 1970 album “Lie: The Love and Terror Cult.” Manson traded the rights to the song to Dennis Wilson for a motorcycle and some cash. The Beach Boys recorded a renamed version of it in 1968.
Though the best known of his musical work, “Lie” is hardly Manson’s only album. After his conviction, the killer issued a number of jailhouse recordings, many released in limited editions. In the mid-1980s, former Black Flag singer Henry Rollins produced an entire album in collaboration with Manson, but the record was shelved.
Beatles, ‘Piggies’ and ‘Helter Skelter’
When it was released in 1968, the Beatles’ wild two-LP “White Album” stumped a lot of people. Not Manson, though. On the contrary, its meaning was crystal-clear: The Beatles were communicating to him and laying out the blueprint for his violent initiative.
He called the pending actions “Helter Skelter” after the Beatles song and had his minions write the phrase in blood at a crime scene. Ditto the George Harrison-penned “Piggies.” At the location of music teacher Gary Hinman’s death, the murderer painted “political piggy” in blood on a wall, according to the book “The Family,” in an apparent reference to the Beatles song.
Dennis Wilson, ‘Album Tag Song’
One day in the spring of 1968, Dennis Wilson picked up two women hitchhiking on Sunset Boulevard. That was his first mistake. Patricia Krenwinkel and Ella Bailey were members of the Manson family. Soon they were partying at Wilson’s house on Sunset in Pacific Palisades.
Mistake No. 2 occurred after Wilson left the two at his house while he went to a studio session. Upon return, nearly two dozen Manson family members, mostly women, greeted him. Manson was there too. He and the family would end up leeching off the Beach Boy for many months, costing Wilson thousands of dollars and irreparably damaging his reputation.
Beach Boys, ‘Never Learn
Not to Love (Cease to Exist)’
Manson’s biggest run at success came when the Beach Boys released “Bluebirds Over the Mountain” as a 45 rpm single. For the B side, the band recorded (and renamed) Manson’s “Cease to Exist.” The cult leader had managed to get the once familyfriendly surf group to sing the lyrics “cease to resist” and “submission is a gift, give it to your lover.” The Beach Boys’ label, Brother Records, nearly signed Manson to a recording contract — but Brian Wilson vetoed the deal.
N.W.A, ‘Straight Outta Compton’
Founding N.W.A member Ice Cube was born the summer of the Manson family killings. By the time he was a teen, the crimes had seeped into the city’s subconscious. The title track to the Compton quartet’s 1988 album opens with Ice Cube describing himself as “a crazy …” who would have liked nothing more than to kill his enemies and “mix them and cook them in a pot like gumbo.” One measure of his danger? “A crime record like Charles Manson.”
Across the decades, dozens of lyricists have used Manson as a metaphor for menace. Eminem describes himself as “part Manson, part Hannibal, part mechanical shark” in a freestyle verse, one of a number of Eminem’s uses of the cult leader’s character. On “Trap House,” Lil Wayne boasts of having people “that’ll kill for me — Charles Manson.” Last year the rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again opened the first verse of his track “Diamond Teeth Samurai” by depicting “(a) whole lotta killing, Helter Skelter like I’m Charles Manson.”