A song like few others, with a powerful sound and a dark story surrounding it - "Helter Skelter" - 1968

Good afternoon, dear friends of Hive. I hope you are all doing well and enjoying time with your families today. I extend my greetings to the extraordinary project at https://scrobble.life/. Welcome to my review!

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Today, I am pleased to present another fabulous Beatles song. The first time I heard it, I doubted it was them because of its intensity and power. It also marks a milestone in music as one of the first true Heavy Metal songs, a term that was unknown until that year. The only reference to the term was an acid rock song called Steppenwolf from mid-1968 (the song is titled "Born To Be Wild"). From then on, the expression "Heavy Metal" became popular to refer to a style of loud, aggressive music. I am talking about The Beatles' song "Helter Skelter," to this day their most "heavy" and powerful song.

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The song was recorded in mid-September 1968 at EMI Studios in London and appeared as the twenty-third track on the "White Album," or simply "The Beatles," as the LP (actually a double album) was also known. The title is a German term referring to a type of spiral slide found in amusement parks, and McCartney himself stated that he wanted to convey an impression of "fall and decay." I was impressed to learn that the first take lasted over 20 minutes (this version remains unreleased), but they ultimately recorded a much shorter version of about four and a half minutes, and both mono and stereo versions of the song were recorded almost immediately.

In one of the rehearsals or takes, Ringo Starr threw his drumsticks in the middle of the studio and exclaimed, "I got blisters on my fingers...!!" The producer took that very phrase and added it to the last chord of the song, thus ending it, and it appeared in the stereo version. This song has a very dark history behind it, perhaps not because of them, but because of a psychopath from those years named Charles Manson, a deranged religious fanatic who had a small cult called "The Family." He misinterpreted some lines and words from this wonderful song to inspire him to commit some of his horrific crimes the following year. The most famous was the murder of actress Sharon Tate, who was pregnant and the wife at the time of film director Roman Polanski. The murder of this actress was extremely brutal and ruthless, not only to her, but to several other people who were in that house at the time. This subject Manson was sentenced to death, however, that sentence was considered unconstitutional where the crimes were committed, and then he was sentenced to life imprisonment, dying in prison in 2017 from colon cancer.

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When Manson heard the song and the entire album, his distorted mind... He thought The Beatles were the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and the entire album, especially the song "Helter Skelter," was the final message. He wrote the title of this song himself in the blood of one of the victims on the refrigerator in the house, an abominable act by a twisted and criminal mind, which somehow tarnished a different but equally magnificent song. Aside from that episode, several rock artists have covered this song over the decades, including Mötley Crüe, Aerosmith, Pat Benatar, U2, among many others.

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In this song, we can hear Paul on lead vocals and bass, John on rhythm guitar and certain sound effects, as well as backing vocals, George on lead guitar with slide effects and backing vocals, Ringo on drums, and eventually Mal Evans on trumpet. Well, my dear friends, this concludes this review. I hope you enjoyed it. We'll see, read, and comment later... Blessings...!!!