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I had to hit it…

This is the worst trip / I’ve ever been on
— The Beach Boys: “Sloop John B” (1967)

Both books offer vivid examples of the many serpentine links between the case and other ’60s signifiers. Hollywood is one such link, but falls outside the range of this article. Suffice to say that the Manson saga is riddled with filmic connections – from its Benedict Canyon and Los Feliz crime scenes (the latter in a house once owned by Walt Disney) to victim Tate’s husband Roman Polanski’s homicidal and occult-themed films (Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby). Manson’s great scheme, after his 1967 release from prison, was to become some kind of star – preferably in music, but movies would also do – and he and the Family haunted film studios and stars’ homes throughout 1968-1969 to catalyze what Ed Sanders in The Family calls “operation superstar.”

But rock & roll is where Manson’s malignant influence was most keenly felt and lingers still. Inspired in prison by The Beatles’ success, Manson – a competent guitarist and singer – became convinced that his meager musical skills and unorthodox philosophical insights (“No sense makes sense,” “Total paranoia is total awareness,” “You can’t kill kill”) would rocket him to stardom once he was released into the hedonistic wonderland of ’60s California. His consequent failure – despite some surprisingly high-profile support in the music industry – played a critical role in his shift from sex-and-drugs messiah to vengeful maniac.

Brought to the attention of record producer (and son of actress Doris Day) Terry Melcher – who produced seminal folk rock records for The Byrds (“Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Turn! Turn! Turn!”) – Manson ultimately failed to impress the young executive and the rejection inflamed his insecure ego. Melcher lived in Benedict Canyon with his girlfriend, actress Candice Bergen, and when the couple moved out in mid-1969, their former home was leased to Polanski and Tate. On the night of August 8, when Manson armed four followers and told them to kill the occupants of whatever house he sent them to, it was Melcher’s old place – now occupied by Tate and her house-guests (Polanski was in Europe on business) – he selected.

Manson met Melcher through the Beach Boys’ Dennis Wilson in 1968, after the handsome drummer picked up a pair of female hitchhikers and drove them back to his Sunset Boulevard home. Unknown to the musician, both were Family members, and when he returned late that night from a recording session, he found his house swarming with nubile cultists and their guru-like leader. A dark period followed for Wilson, during which the Family moved in and helped themselves (over several months’ time) to $100,000 worth of his money and belongings, all the while pressuring him to boost Manson’s music career.

For a time, Wilson himself got swept up in the madness, promoting and recording the would-be superstar (he later erased the tapes, telling deputy D.A. Bugliosi “the vibrations connected with them don’t belong on this earth”). He called Manson “The Wizard” and admitted he was slightly afraid of him. Eventually he had the Family evicted and cut off contact, but extortion attempts followed. When Manson threatened his young son, an enraged Wilson – never one to shrink from a fight – “pummeled” him, according to Beach Boys collaborator Van Dyke Parks. Still, the musician increasingly feared for his life.

On a darkly humorous note, teenage Box Tops singer Alex Chilton – a forbear of alternative rock through his ’70s band Big Star – crashed briefly at Wilson’s place during the Family’s residence there and was once sent by a Manson follower to buy groceries (out of pocket) for the household. “When I got back,” he later recalled, “they looked at the grocery bag and they said, ‘You forgot the milk!’ I said, ‘Aw gee, I’m really sorry I forgot the milk’ … By the time I got to the front door, they were standing in the doorway, blocking the door, and they said, ‘Charlie says go get the milk.’  The vibes were kind of weird.” Chilton left soon afterward.

Part of Manson’s animus towards Wilson stemmed from the musician’s adaptation of one of Manson’s own songs for the B-side of the 1968 Beach Boys single, “Bluebirds Over the Mountain.” The move – ostensibly part of operation superstar – angered Manson because Wilson substantially re-wrote the song in an attempt to make it commercially viable. (He also took sole compositional credit – a mercenary but probably fair action in lieu of the strain the Family put on his bank account). Originally an acid-fried anthem to ego death with sadistic overtones called “Cease to Exist,” Wilson changed “exist” to “resist” and reshaped it into an unlikely love song called “Never Learn Not to Love,” replete with chant-like but appealing Beach Boys harmonies.

Cease to resist, come on say you love me
Give up your world, come on and be with me

There are few creepier cultural artifacts of the ’60s than this admittedly not great but still haunting song. Recorded during a rough patch in the Beach Boys’ career, when their resident songwriting genius – Dennis’s troubled brother Brian – was withdrawn and inactive following the traumatic collapse of his psychedelic magnum opus, Smile (co-written with Parks and finally completed and released to ecstatic reviews in 2004), the record marked the only time before his final incarceration that a Manson song saw wide release. It was even performed on “The Mike Douglas Show.” Wilson croons the song with stoned sincerity, in the same slightly raspy voice he gave “Forever” – a romantic ballad and minor Beach Boys hit in 1969.

Submission is a gift, give it to your lover
Love and understanding is for one another

Manson needn’t have fretted over his potential big break, as the single flopped. But the demands for money continued, their ante raised by symbolic .45 caliber bullets Wilson received, and the cumulative intimidation took a toll. The drummer found himself in a state of constant paranoia (or “total awareness” in Family parlance) – an anxiousness that would not abate until Manson’s arrest on suspicion of murder in late 1969.

I’m the luckiest guy in the world, because I got off only losing my money.
— Dennis Wilson (1970)

Next week – Revolution Blues: How Charles Manson Murdered the 60s (Part Two) looks at Neil Young, The Beatles, John Moran’s Manson Family Opera, and Manson’s music itself.