Manson interpreted 'piggies' to mean members of the Establishment. In their styes with all their backing/ They don't care what goes on around/ In their eyes there's something lacking/ What they need's a damn good whacking.Įverywhere there's lots of piggies/ Living piggy lives/ You can see them out for dinner/ With their piggy wives/ Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.

Have you seen the bigger piggies/ In their starched white shirts/ You will find the bigger piggies/ Stirring up the dirt/ Always have clean shirts to play around in. Have you seen the little piggies/ Crawling in the dirt/ And for all those little piggies/ Life is getting worse/ Always having dirt to play around in. Manson was fond of the word 'rise'-often telling his followers that black people would 'rise up.' Manson should now reveal his plan to escape the coming chaos.Īlthough the album jacket insert says 'you know that you can count me out,' on the record itself the word 'in' can be heard immediately after the word 'out.'īlackbird singing in the dead of night/ Take these broken wings and learn to fly/ All your life/ You were only waiting for this moment to arise.īeatles were urging black people to arise and revolt against the white establishment. You say you want a revolution/ Well you know/ We all want to change the world/ You tell me that it's evolution/ Well you know/ We all want to change the world/ But when you talk about destruction/ Don't you know that you can count me out (in).ĭon't you know it's gonna be all right/ All right, all right/ You say you got a real solution/ Well you know/ We'd all love to see the plan. According to Family member Paul Watkins, 'Before Helter Skelter came along, all Charlie cared about was orgies.' The White Album played a key role in forging Manson's warped ideology. He interpreted many of the songs idiosyncratically, believing, for example, that 'Rocky Raccoon' meant black people and 'Happiness is a Warm Gun' was a song about getting firearms to carry on the revolution rather than-more obviously-a song about sex. Several songs from the White Album crystalized Manson's thinking about a coming revolt by blacks against the white Establishment. Manson believed that the Beatles spoke to him through their lyrics, especially those included in the White Album, released in December 1968. In Revelation 9, the four angels with 'breastplates of fire'-electric guitars-'issued fire and brimstone'-song lyrics. It describes prophets as having 'faces as the faces of men' but with 'the hair of women'-an assumed reference too the long hair of the all-male English group. Revelation 9 also tells of 'locusts'-the Beatles, of course-coming out upon the earth. According to Family members, Manson would most often quote 'the Beatles and the Bible.' The two influences were linked, in that Manson saw the four Beatles members as being the 'four angels' referred to in Revelation 9.

Many of these date to the 16th century.One of the two great influences on the thinking of Charles Manson, along with the Book of Revelation, was the musical group the Beatles.

'To which he might have added,' Moor writes, crincum-crankum, crinkle-crankle, flim-flam, fiddle-faddle, gibble-gabble, harum-scarum, helter-skelter, hiccup-suickup, hocus-pocus, hotch-potch, hugger-mugger, humdrum, hum-strum, hurry-scurry, jibber-jabber, prittle-prattle, shilly-shally, tittle-tattle, and topsy-turvy. 1600).Įdward Moor, 'Suffolk Words and Phrases' (London, 1823), quotes a list of 'conceited rhyming words or reduplications' from the 1768 edition of John Ray's 'Collection of English Words Not Generally Used,' all said to 'signify any confusion or mixture ' the list has higgledy-piggledy, hurly-burly, hodge-podge, mingle-mangle, arsy-versy, kim-kam, hub-bub, crawly-mauly, and hab-nab. Reduplications in the h-/ p- pattern are common (as in hanky-panky, hocus-pocus, hinch(y)-pinch(y), an obsolete children's game, attested from c. 'confusedly, hurriedly,' 1590s, a 'vocal gesture' probably formed from pig and the animal's suggestions of mess and disorder.

What did helter skelter mean