Helter Skelter (song) Helter Skelter is a song written by Paul McCartney, credited to Lennon–McCartney, and recorded by the Beatles on their eponymous LP The Beatles, better known as The White Album. A product of McCartneys deliberate effort to create a sound as loud and dirty as possible, the song has been noted for both its proto-metal roar and unique textures and is considered by music historians as a key influence in the early development of heavy metal. In a special stand-alone issue, Rolling Stone ranked Helter Skelter fifty-second on its 100 Greatest Beatles songs list. McCartney was inspired to write the song after reading a 1967 Guitar Player magazine interview with the Whos Pete Townshend where he described their latest single, I Can See for Miles, as the loudest, rawest, dirtiest song the Who had ever recorded. McCartney then wrote Helter Skelter to be the most raucous vocal, the loudest drums, et cetera and said he was using the symbol of a helter skelter as a ride from the top to the bottom; the rise and fall of the Roman Empire—and this was the fall, the demise. In British English, the term helter-skelter not only has its meaning of in disorderly haste or confusion but is the name of a spiralling amusement park slide.[8] McCartney has used this song as a response to critics who accuse him of writing only ballads. On 20 November 1968, two days before the release of The Beatles, McCartney gave Radio Luxembourg an exclusive interview, in which he commented on several of the albums songs. Speaking of Helter Skelter, he said: Umm, that came about just cause Id read a review of a record which said, and this group really got us wild, theres echo on everything, theyre screaming their heads off. And I just remember thinking, Oh, itd be great to do one. Pity theyve done it. Must be great — really screaming record. And then I heard their record and it was quite straight, and it was very sort of sophisticated. It wasnt rough and screaming and tape echo at all. So I thought, Oh well, well do one like that, then. And I had this song called Helter Skelter, which is just a ridiculous song. So we did it like that, cuz I like noise. Recording[edit] The song was recorded many times during sessions for The White Album. During the 18 July 1968 sessions, the Beatles recorded a version of the song lasting 27 minutes and 11 seconds, although this version is rather slow and hypnotic, differing greatly from the volume and rawness of the album version. Another recording from the same day, originally 12 minutes long, was edited down to 4:37 for Anthology 3. On 9 September, 18 takes of approximately five minutes each were recorded, and the last one is featured on the original LP. After the 18th take, Ringo Starr flung his drum sticks across the studio and screamed, I got blisters on my fingers! Included on the stereo mix of the song is Starrs shout. At around 3:40, the song almost fades out, then quickly fades back in with three cymbal crashes and Ringos scream (some sources erroneously credit the blisters line to Lennon; in fact, Lennon can be heard asking Hows that? before Ringos outburst). The mono version ends on the first fadeout without Starrs outburst. The mono version was not initially available in the US as mono albums had already been phased out there. The mono version was later released in the American version of the Rarities album. In 2009, it was made available on the CD mono re-issue of the White Album as part of the Beatles in Mono CD box set. According to Chris Thomas, who was present, the 18 July session was especially spirited. While Paul was doing his vocal, George Harrison had set fire to an ashtray and was running around the studio with it above his head, doing an Arthur Brown. Starrs recollection is less detailed, but agrees in spirit: Helter Skelter was a track we did in total madness and hysterics in the studio. Sometimes you just had to shake out the jams. Charles Manson Helter Skelter (Manson scenario) Charles Manson told his followers that several White Album songs including Helter Skelter were a part of the Beatles coded prophecy of an apocalyptic war in which racist and non-racist whites would be manoeuvered into virtually exterminating each other over the treatment of blacks. Upon the wars conclusion, after black militants would kill off the few whites they would know to have survived, Manson and his companions would emerge from an underground city in which they would have escaped the conflict. As the only remaining whites, they would rule blacks, who, as the vision went, would be incapable of running America. Manson employed helter skelter as the term for this sequence of events. Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, who led the prosecution of Manson and four of his followers who acted on Mansons instruction in the Tate-LaBianca murders, named his best-selling book about the murders Helter Skelter. The book was the basis for two television movies of the same title
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 14:00:02 +0000
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