Manson and four of his followers who acted on Manson's instruction in the Tate-LaBianca murders, Charles Manson told his followers that several White Album songs, particularly "Helter Skelter", were part of the Beatles' coded prophecy of an apocalyptic war in which racist and non-racist whites would be manoeuvred into virtually exterminating each other over the treatment of blacks.
Upon the war's conclusion, after black militants had killed off the few whites that had survived, Manson and his "Family" of followers would emerge from an underground city in which they would have escaped the conflict.
As the only remaining whites, they would rule blacks, who, as the vision went, would be incapable of running the United States.
Manson employed "Helter Skelter" as the term for this sequence of events.
In his interpretation, the lyrics of the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" described the moment when he and the Family would emerge from their hiding place – a disused mine shaft in the desert outside Los Angeles.
At the scene of the LaBianca murders in August 1969, the phrase (misspelt as "HEALTER SKELTER") was found written in the victims' blood on the refrigerator door
In the final interview he gave before his murder in December 1980, Lennon dismissed Manson as "just an extreme version" of the type of listener who read false messages in the Beatles' lyrics, such as those behind the 1969 "Paul is dead" rumour.
Lennon also said: "All that Manson stuff was built around George's song about pigs ['Piggies'] and this one, Paul's song about an English fairground. It has nothing to do with anything, and least of all to do with me."
Reflecting on "Helter Skelter" and its appropriation by the Manson Family , McCartney said, "Unfortunately, it inspired people to do evil deeds" and that the song had acquired "all sorts of ominous overtones because Manson picked it up as an anthem".
Author Devin McKinney describes the White Album as "also a black album" in that it is "haunted by race". He writes that, in spite of McCartney's comments about the song's meaning, the recording conveys a violent subtext typical of much of the album and that "Here as ever in Beatle music, performance determines meaning; and as the adrenalized guitars run riot, the meaning is simple, dreadful, inarticulate, and instantly understood: She's coming down fast."
In her 1979 collection of essays about the 1960s, titled The White Album, Joan Didion wrote that many people in Los Angeles cite the moment that news arrived of the Manson Family's killing spree in August 1969 as having marked the end of the decade.
According to author Doyle Greene, the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" effectively captured the "crises of 1968", which contrasted sharply with the previous year's Summer of Love ethos. He adds: "While 'Revolution' posited a forthcoming unity as far as social change, 'Helter Skelter' signified a chaotic and overwhelming sense of falling apart occurring throughout the world politically and, not unrelated, the falling apart of the Beatles as a working band and the counterculture dream they represented."
