Paul McCartney was reading the American music magazine Guitar Player in late 1967 and came across an interview with the Who's Pete Townshend, who proclaimed that the Who's new single "I Can See For Miles" was the loudest, rawest, dirtiest record the band had ever recorded. Paul decided that the Beatles had to beat the Who at their own game by coming up with something louder, rawer, and dirtier still . . . and then found out that this would be an easy task when he actually heard "I Can See For Miles." The Who's song does have some intense drumming as well as a stinging guitar riff centered on a single note, but it's rather mannered and sophisticated, especially in comparison to what guys like Jimi Hendrix were coming up with. Paul was even more determined to come up with something really raw and powerful . . . because he liked the idea of making a lot of noise.
Paul got the idea of writing a rock song around the idea of going from a rise to a fall, from the top to the bottom, and he found the perfect metaphor in a helter skelter. In British English, a helter skelter is an amusement-park slide (pictured above) that goes around in a spiral along a tower shaped like a lighthouse, with the staircase to the top inside. (American amusement-park slides tend to go down a straight line, usually with cascading waves.) In American English, though, "helter skelter" is an expression signifying anarchy - the sort of anarchy that gripped the U.S. in 1968 - and one Charles Manson heard a sinister message in this song and other songs on the Beatles' White Album . . . but that's for another post. For now, let's just concentrate on the song itself.
"Helter Skelter" was originally recorded in July 1968 as a slow, steamy blues number, one take lasting 27 minutes and 11 seconds, the longest Beatles recording ever. Paul decided to have another go at it that September, and this time he aimed at paring down the song to a reasonable length. This September 1968 session was also the first session to be produced by Chris Thomas, whom George Martin - by 1968 working as a freelancer with his own production company - had brought in as his assistant at the start of the White Album sessions. (Thomas got a job with Martin's company by writing him a letter asking about employment opportunities there.) Now, with Martin on vacation and with Thomas having returned from his own vacation, the apprentice was in charge. Martin thought that his protégé was ready to direct a recording session on his own.
As we have already seen, Thomas (above, in 1968) became an important player in getting the Beatles' White Album completed, having won the confidence of the group in short order once he got going. But he got off to a rocky start here as a substitute producer; it seems that Martin had failed to tell Paul McCartney that the 21-year-old Thomas would be subbing for him before he left for a vacation, and when Paul arrived at EMI Studios before the other Beatles and found only Thomas waiting for him, the assistant explained the situation.
"Well," said Paul, "if you wanna produce us you can produce us. If you don't, we might just tell you to f--k off!"
That pretty much set the tone for the song.
The jagged, distorted electric guitar that kicks off "Helter Skelter" gives Paul the incentive to come in shouting, and as the band builds up behind him, he takes charge with an all-out scream that causes the whole soundscape to explode with punishing drums, heavy distortion, two lead guitars battling for supremacy, John Lennon's thunderous six-string bass, a devastating slide-guitar lick from George Harrison, and Paul's histrionically raucous vocal. And it's immediately clear what Paul is singing about: sex, dirty sex, and pure unadulterated sex. He wants his woman to know that he's ready to come down on her, warning her not to let him break her and telling her not to get so assured of her ability to keep up; he wants to do a dancer, and he ain't talking about no ballerina . . . and whatever his woman is, she ain't no dancer. He's coming and coming down fast, and when he rides down that slide, he wants ecstasy.
I think Alan Aldridge's illustration of "Helter Skelter" explains the song perfectly.
Look out, 'cause here she comes!
As if all that distortion and heavy playing weren't enough, the Beatles threw in some other tricks, such as employing a saxophone for sound effects (which sometimes sounds like a cat being tortured) and having Beatles assistant Mal Evans blare a trumpet. The madness of the song led to madness among the Beatles, as when George ran around the studio with an ashtray on fire atop his head, in the style of British shock-rocker Arthur Brown. The song climaxes (yes, I had to use that word) with Paul yelling out the start of a final vocal line, lowering the register of his voice as he goes to simulate a descent on a slide, followed by descending notes that bring the sound into a drone of sonic mud. A high-pitched wail brings the music to life again, and "Helter Skelter" plods on through before it finally fades out.
Then it comes back in. Still unsatisfied (yes, I went there), the Beatles continue for a few more seconds before everything collapses upon itself, leaving Ringo Starr to pick up the pieces. After three huge cymbal crashes, an exhausted, exasperated Ringo roars like a dying lion in one final rally, screaming, "I got blisters on my fingers!" The damage to Ringo's digits was real, and so was Ringo's anger; his scream was a form of blowing off steam in a recording that allowed the Beatles to vent musically, but it fit the cacophonic anti-masterpiece Paul sought to make, and so it was preserved as the song's end. Lennon was undoubtedly pleased. Just before Ringo's scream, he can be heard saying, "How's that?" (On the mono version of the White Album, the song fades out but doesn't come back in.)
"Helter Skelter" is loud, it's obnoxious, it's dirty, and it's somewhat misogynistic. It's also one of the greatest rockers ever made, and it set the template for the steamier and more lustful side of heavy metal, evident in songs such as Free's "All Right Now" and Deep Purple's "Highway Star." And there were several other bands that tried to capture the thunder and lust of "Helter Skelter," most notably Kiss, but they were rank amateurs. The band that could best approach the menacing sound of "Helter Skelter" with all of its sexual drive would be, of course, Led Zeppelin, which formed the same month this was recorded.
The first time I heard "Helter Skelter" on the radio (I'd already heard it on the Beatles compilation Rock n' Roll Music, which I owned), I was thirteen years old and riding in a car with someone else on a warm summer night, with the local FM rock station playing. The next song that came on the radio was Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love." It was the first time I ever heard Led Zeppelin.
The car I was riding in was a souped-up Chevrolet Nova SS.
Well, that makes sense! ;-)
It also makes perfect sense that both songs would produce mashups like this one.
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