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Helter Skelter (song)

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This article is about The Beatles song. For other things with this name, see Helter Skelter (disambiguation).
"Helter Skelter"
Song

"Helter Skelter" is a song written by Paul McCartney,[1][2] credited to Lennon/McCartney, and recorded by The Beatles on The White Album. A product of McCartney's deliberate effort to create a sound as loud and dirty as possible, the clangorous piece has been noted for both a "proto-metal roar" and "unique textures."[3][4] It was one of several White Album compositions taken by Charles Manson as elaborate prophecy of a war to arise from racial tensions between blacks and whites.[5][6]


Inspiration

McCartney was inspired to write the song after reading an interview of The Who's 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, etcetera" 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."[1] (In British English, the term helter-skelter not only has its meanings of "confused" or "confusedly" but is the name of a spiralling amusement park slide.) McCartney has used this song as a response to critics who accuse him of only writing ballads.[7] John Lennon stated that Helter Skelter is "Paul's completely ... It has nothing to do with anything, and least of all to do with me."[2]

Recording

The Beatles recorded the song multiple times during the The White Album sessions. During the 18 July, 1968 sessions, a version of the song lasting 27 minutes and 11 seconds was recorded, although this version is rather slow and hypnotic, differing greatly from the volume and rawness of the album version[citation needed]. Another recording from the same day was edited down to 4:37 for Anthology 3. On September 9, eighteen takes of approximately five minutes each were recorded, and the last one is featured on the original LP.[8] After the eighteenth take, Ringo Starr flung his sticks across the studio[9] and screamed, "I've got blisters on my fingers!"[1][8] The Beatles included Starr's shout on the stereo mix of the song (available on CD); the song completely fades out around 3:40, then gradually fades back in, fades back out partially, and quickly fades back in with three cymbal crashes and Ringo's scream. (Some sources erroneously credit the "blisters" line to Lennon; in fact, Lennon can be heard asking "How's that?" before the outburst.[10]) The mono version (on LP only) ends on the first fadeout without Ringo's 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.

According to Chris Thomas, who was present,[11] 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."[8] Starr's 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."[7]

On the version that appears on the Anthology 3 album, McCartney occasionally sings "hell for leather" instead of "helter skelter".

Critical reaction

The song has been covered by a number of bands (see below) and praised by critics, including Richie Unterberger of the All Music Guide. Unterberger called it, "one of [the] fiercest and most brutal rockers done by anyone" and "extraordinary."[4] Ian MacDonald was critical, calling it "ridiculous, McCartney shrieking weedily against a massively tape-echoed backdrop of out-of-tune thrashing."[12]

In March 2005, Q magazine ranked "Helter Skelter" number 5 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.

Charles Manson

Main article: Helter Skelter (Manson scenario)

The infamous Charles Manson told his followers that White Album songs including "Helter Skelter" were the Beatles' coded prophecy of an apocalyptic war in which racist and non-racist whites would be maneuvered into virtually exterminating each other over treatment of blacks.[13]Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).[14] Upon the war's conclusion, after Black Muslims would kill off the few whites they would know to have survived, Manson and his companions, having ridden out the conflict in an underground city, would emerge from hiding and, as the actual remaining whites, rule blacks, who, as the vision went, would be incapable of running things. Manson employed Helter Skelter as the term for this epic sequence of events. Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, who led the prosecution of Manson and the killers who acted on Manson's instruction, named his best-selling book about the murders Helter Skelter. The book was the basis for two films of the same title.

Notable covers

  • In 1981, Pat Benatar released a cover of "Helter Skelter" as the final track on Precious Time.
  • In 1983, The Bobs released an a capella version on their eponymous album. It earned them a 1984 Grammy nomination for best new arrangement of an existing song.
  • In 1987, rock band U2 recorded the song in concert for their Rattle and Hum movie and album which was released the following year. Bono's introduction to the song was, "This is a song Charles Manson stole from The Beatles. We're stealing it back." Also noteworthy of this cover is that Bono reworked McCartney's original line "You may be a lover but you ain't no dancer" and sung it as (in a kind of double-negative) "you ain't no lover but you ain't no dancer" (this occurs throughout the performance so one assumes that, while he was "stealing it back," Bono's reworking of the lyric was intentional and not simply a live error).
  • In 1988, Japanese Heavy Metal band Vow Wow released an album entitled Helter Skelter which included a cover of the song.
  • From 1990 to 1994, Marilyn Manson used vocal samples of a Charles Manson interview and lifted McCartney's lines "Do you, don't you want me to love you, I'm coming down fast but I'm miles above you, tell me, tell me, come on tell me the answer", and "You may be a lover but you ain't no dancer" on various live and studio versions of their song "My Monkey", along with other various Beatles samples. The full cover of Helter Skelter was played on their Smells Like Children tour in 1995.
  • White Zombie often played this song live (circa 1992) and it appears on the bootleg Resurrection Day.
  • In 1994, Alice Donut released an instrumental version of the song on their live album Dry Humping the Cash Cow, in which drummer Stephen Moses plays the melody on the trombone. At the end of the song, Moses cries, "I've got blisters on my lips!"
  • On October 31st, 1994, Phish covered the song as part of their "Musical Costume" performance of (almost) the entire White Album. This version contained heavy discords; it concluded with the line "I've got Blisters on my Fingers" sung in four-part harmony. This concert was released as Live Phish Volume 13.
  • Soundgarden played a slowed down version with added lyrics during their 1996/1997 Down on the Upside tour. It was never officially released but is available on bootlegs and through file-sharing. Also available as a medley with the song "Bootcamp".
  • In 1997, Noel Gallagher of Oasis wrote the song "Fade In-Out" for their 3rd album, Be Here Now. The song is similar to "Helter Skelter" and includes the line, "Get on the helter skelter" among its lyrics. During the recording sessions for Be Here Now, the band recorded a studio cover of the song. It wasn't released until 2000, as a b-side to "Who Feels Love?". The band also performed the song live in some shows throughout 2000, one of which was included as a bonus track on the audio versions of their live album, Familiar to Millions.
  • Arizonan post-hardcore outfit the Bled covered this song at the end of their set on many of their UK and European tour dates.
  • In September 2007, Dana Fuchs performs the song for the film and soundtrack of Across the Universe, a dramatic musical story narrated using the music of The Beatles.
  • Glen Jordan and Mark Snow did a deliberately hard cover of the song for the opening of the 2004 "Helter Skelter" TV movie.

Cultural references

  • In 1971, Don McLean uses the line "Helter Skelter in a summer swelter" at the beginning of the fourth verse of American Pie, a song which purportedly features many other references to The Beatles.


  • In 1989, sound collage artists Negativland created a false press release saying that they could not go on their long-planned tour because their song "Christianity Is Stupid" may have triggered a real-life murder. News channels and media sources picked up the story and broadcast it without checking with the proper authorities, and Negativland created the album Helter Stupid about it to show the irresponsibility of the media as well as the media's obsession with sensational stories such as murder or scandal. The album samples Helter Skelter, as well as samples of Charles Manson speaking about the murder.
  • The Powerpuff Girls featured an episode entitled "Helter Shelter". Creator Craig McCracken is a vocal Beatles fanatic, having also written and directed the "Meet the Beat-Alls" episode of the same show, which featured a nearly non-stop stream of Beatles songs and cultural references.
  • The Beatles parody group The Rutles (on the Archaeology album) ends a particularly raucous track with one of the members shouting, "I've got sudden cramp in me pinky!!!" in a parody in the "blisters on my fingers" line.

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Barry Miles (1997). Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now. New York: Henry Holt & Company. pp. 487–488. ISBN 0-8050-5249-6.
  2. ^ a b David Sheff (interviewer) (2000). All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 200. ISBN 0-312-25464-4. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  3. ^ AMG Review of White Album Retrieved on 2007 April 20.
  4. ^ a b "AMG Review of "Helter Skelter"". Retrieved 2007-02-28.
  5. ^ "Charles Watson autobiography as told to Ray Hoekstra". Retrieved 2007-04-17.
  6. ^ Bugliosi, Vincent with Gentry, Curt, Helter Skelter -- The True Story of the Manson Murders 25th Anniversary Edition, W.W. Norton & Company, 1994. ISBN 0-393-08700-X. Pages 240-7.
  7. ^ a b The Beatles (2000). The Beatles Anthology. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. p. 311. ISBN 0-8118-2684-8.
  8. ^ a b c Mark Lewisohn (1988). The Beatles Recording Sessions. New York: Harmony Books. p. 154. ISBN 0-517-57066-1.
  9. ^ Bob Spitz (2005). The Beatles: The Biography. Boston: Little, Brown. p. 794. ISBN 0-316-80352-9.
  10. ^ Brown, Mike. "What Goes On: Helter Skelter". Retrieved 2007-07-31.
  11. ^ According to Lewisohn (1988), 154, Chris Thomas has the producer credit on recording sheets for the 18 July "Helter Skelter" session.
  12. ^ Ian MacDonald (1994). Revolution in the Head: the Beatles' Records and the Sixties. New York: Henry Holt and Company. pp. 239–240. ISBN 0-8050-2780-7.
  13. ^ "Testimony of Paul Watkins in the Charles Manson Trial". Retrieved 2007-02-28.
  14. ^ Bugliosi, 240-7.

See also

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