Retrospective: Charles Manson

Charles Manson, discounting a select club of dictators, is perhaps the top example usually given of a person who is ‘pure evil’. Not just a sociopathic killer, but a leader amongst killers. A man who revelled in and openly encouraged excessive violence, who attempted to turn serial murder into both a political movement and a quasi religion. A man who took the ideals of the 60s Cultural Revolution and warped them into a message of hatred, abusing his position of respect and influence over others to corrupt the minds of the impressionable and use them to do his bidding.

What’s strange about Manson is that we have a particularly unusual form of insight into the man’s mind through his music, which I’ve agreed to listen to for reasons best left for my therapist to unravel in later life. Now, technically the man has released a number of albums, mostly from prison. The first and most famous of those (chiefly because it was released at the same time as his trial) can be listened to freely on the internet, and to be honest why would I want to pay for the privilege of hearing the guy sing? So, that’s the one I chose.

Perhaps the first thought you get when listening to Manson’s music is how eerie it is with the benefit of hindsight. To listen to him is to re-humanize a person who you had previously psychologically stopped considering a member of the same species as yourself. Music, of course, is one of the most intimate means by which people who you don’t know can connect with you on a raw, human level, and to award such a man with the opportunity to attempt to do so gives you a feeling bordering on violation. To listen to Manson sing is to hear evil sing, and yet it’s just a normal voice. More than that in fact, it’s a rather pleasant singing voice, one which would be better suited to a crooner at a 50s Chicago lounge bar than a 60s amateur folk singer; let alone a mass murdering one.

The album’s flagship song is a two minute acoustic ditty called ‘Look At Your Game Girl’ and is the closest thing to a half decent tune on there. This was annoying, because I was really hoping they’d all be terrible. It would be a lot easier if they were. It added to the faint anger I felt that Charles Manson could, through his music, almost pass for normal, even mildly talented in places, although the vast majority of his discography is, as expected, indisputably awful dross.

Of course, some of the elements of his musical portfolio cannot help but raise a certain sort of dark titter. Particularly his track ‘Don’t Do Anything Illegal’, which, whilst falling firmly into the larger group of Manson’s songs that are unapologetically rubbish, really takes the biscuit as far as hypocrisies go. You really do have to laugh at the concept of being told not to do anything illegal by Charles bloody Manson. It’s like turning up to Alcoholics Anonymous and finding out your sponsor is Brendan Behan’s ghost.

However, other than universally acknowledging that ‘Don’t Do Anything Illegal’ wins the prize for most ironic song of all time, is there any point to all of this? Perhaps that making music doesn’t necessarily make you a nice guy? Well, we knew that. Manson isn’t the first musician who did terrible things, although he may well be the worst. I suppose an important question to ask is whether or not his music tells us who he really was, if somehow the evil shines through. And the answer is no, it’s just music, a little subpar in quality perhaps but not intrinsically reeking of malice. Maybe by listening to the music of a man like Manson we can learn something about how easy it is to hide one’s true nature? Yeah, let’s say that, at least so I don’t feel like this has all been a monumental waste of my time.