By Ed Merson.
Spotify can lead to many different places. The rabbit-hole of music which I embarked on during lockdown opened my eyes to the peculiar phenomenon of Charles Manson’s debut album in 1970, ‘Lie: The Love and Terror Cult’. Music often evokes emotions of happiness or sadness, but not much has incited such confusion and fascination, or even guilt, as Charles Manson’s debut record.
When people think of Charles Manson, the most likely things which come to mind are the events of mid-1967 involving the Manson Family. Feeding a commune of middle-class teenagers LSD while manipulating the words of the Beatles to incite a race war, Manson coerced lost souls in the Summer of Love to commit nine murders on his behalf, including that of Sharon Tate, the wife of Roman Polanski.
Before listening to this album, it’s interesting to consider what to expect. Dark and estranged by madness is the first inclination. The album cover immediately gives this impression, which features Manson, Swastika on forehead and ‘LIFE’ magazine changed to ‘LIE’. Besides, what else could come from the mind of a serial murderer who forced innocent people to paint the words ‘Piggies’ on Polanski’s kitchen walls with blood.
To my dismay, the album offered a deep and reflective Charles Manson, commenting on US Society, his wish to return home and his relationship with girls. If anything, this fits perfectly into the context of counterculture and Woodstock.
The first song ‘Look at Your Game, Girl’ is a soft and intimate address to a girl, asking to reveal her emotions to his confused and sad state:
What a mad delusion
Living in that confusion
Frustration and doubt
Can you ever live without the game
The sad, sad game
Mad game
Just to say loves’ not enough
it can’t be true
Oh, you can tell those lies
but you’re only fooling you
Although experiencing familiarity while listening, I was immediately snapped back to the narrative of murder and manipulation.
‘Look at Your Game, Girl’ is followed by ‘Mechanical Man’: an unemotional response to the monotonous nature of industrial life in middle America. Manson offers a satirical and receptive comment on the dysfunctionality of life that Manson experienced himself, growing up with a negligent father who worked in local mills in Ohio.
I am a mechanical man, a mechanical man
And I do the best I can
Because I have my family to look out for
I am a mechanical boy
I am my mother’s toy
And I play in the backyard sometime
I am a mechanical boy
Largely abandoned by family, he lived between foster homes and eventually committed his first offence of arsenal when he was 13. From then on, Manson’s home would be in state institutions, spending 20 years in rehabilitation centres and prison intermittently. The background brings sadness when listening to ‘Home is Where You’re Happy’: a short and upbeat song that resonates with his own loneliness and isolation.
Up to this point in the album, without knowing the origin of the words, you could equate it to the voice of Rodriguez, also lost in American culture until recently. However, the insightful lyrics are interrupted by ‘I’ll Never Say Never to Always’ performed by an ensemble of girls. The same ensemble who loyally followed Manson and whose hands killed nine people. A chilling amalgamation of murderous voices.
The album was written during his incarceration, where he learnt to play the guitar and met Phil Kaufman, producer of Gram Parsons, who encouraged Manson to record his music. Through this relationship came another with The Beach Boys. He recorded his album in their studio and even harboured his family in Dennis Wilson’s LA house. The Beach Boys even went on to adopt his song ‘Cease to Exist’ as ‘Never Learn Not To Love’.
If ever you wanted a means of gaining an insight into the mind of a psychopathic multi-murderer, behind the Swastika tattooed on his forehead and his chilling expression of madness, an album with a mixture of longing for love and social commentary provides the perfect opportunity. You may now continue on the straight and narrow of modern music.