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In 1968, Charles Manson believed The Beatles were communicating with subliminal messages in their music. He said their music, particularly the song “Helter Skelter,” inspired the Manson family’s murders. The band felt horrified by this, but George Harrison said there was one element of the situation that he found offensive.
George Harrison found one thing about Charles Manson’s connection to the Beatles frustrating
Harrison, like his bandmates, said he did not like any association with Manson, even though he didn’t think The Beatles were really connected in any way to the murders.
“Everybody was getting on the big Beatle bandwagon,” he said in The Beatles Anthology. “The police and the promoters and the Lord Mayors — and murderers, 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.”
He said there was a surprising element of the connection with Manson that he found offensive, though.
“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,” he said. “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.”
The Beatles’ hair was a subject of debate for much of their time as a band.
The Beatles said they were horrified to be connected to Charles Manson
As Harrison noted, the band found it upsetting to have any kind of connection with Manson. Paul McCartney said many people had interpreted their music in different ways than they’d intended, but it had never had such terrible consequences.
“After all those little interpretations there was finally this horrific interpretation of it all,” he said. “It all went wrong at that point, but it was nothing to do with us. What can you do?”
Ringo Starr agreed. He’d known Sharon Tate, one of the victims, and said the whole situation shocked him.
“It was upsetting. I mean, I knew Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate, and — God! — it was a rough time.,” he said, adding, “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.”
John Lennon compared him to other fans of the band
Lennon said he didn’t think the band held any responsibility, and he certainly didn’t think he did.
“All that Manson stuff was built around George’s song about pigs and Paul’s song about an English fairground,” he said. “It has nothing to do with anything, and least of all to do with me.”
He compared Manson to other Beatles fans who took interpretations of their music too far.
“He’s barmy, he’s like any other Beatle fan who reads mysticism into it,” he said. “I mean, we used to have a laugh putting this, that or the other in, in a light-hearted way. Some intellectual would read us, some symbolic youth generation wants it, but we also took seriously some parts of the role. But, I don’t know, what’s ‘Helter Skelter’ got to do with knifing somebody?”
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