Charles Manson, the cult leader behind the 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and four others, had a bizarre friendship with The Beach Boys' drummer Dennis Wilson that led to one of his songs being released as a B-side. The twisted tale of failed ambition, drugs and sex ultimately resulted in the bloody slaughter of a rising Hollywood star who had never even met Manson.
Manson was not present at the Cielo Drive massacre, but later claimed that he was responsible for 35 murders. The horrifying murder of Sharon Tate and her unborn son sent shock waves through the carefree, optimistic world of late Sixties Hollywood. The glamorous star of hit movies such as Valley of the Dolls and The Wrecking Crew had been hanged from a beam in her home in Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles, while she was already dying from 16 stab wounds inflicted by members of the Charles Manson murder cult.
How Manson met The Beach Boys
The violent raid on Sharon's home, which also claimed the lives of her friends Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, and Abigail Folger, was actually intended to harm the home's previous occupant. Sharon, and her husband filmmaker Roman Polanski, had taken over the lease of the house on Cielo Drive from record producer Terry Melcher.
Melcher – son of Hollywood icon Doris Day – was an influential figure in California's folk rock scene, producing hits for bands such as The Byrds, and was a close confidante of The Beach Boys. In particular, Melcher was friends with The Beach Boys' drummer Dennis Wilson. Through Wilson, Melcher had met a darkly charismatic aspiring pop star named Charles Manson.
New Netflix docuseries Conversations with a Killer: The Charles Manson Tapes details how one of Manson's songs found its way onto the B-side of a Beach Boys single, and how his resentment over changes made to the recording by producer Melcher had driven Manson into a murderous rage.
Ex-convict Manson had drifted into the free-loving hippie society of San Francisco at the height of the 1967 Summer of Love, and had begun to gather a cult following – mainly composed of young women. It was two of those young women, Patricia Krenwinkel and Ella Jo Bailey, that made the initial contact with Dennis Wilson when he picked them up as hitchhikers.
The song that sparked a feud
The girls introduced Wilson to Manson, and the drummer immediately fell under his spell, referring to him in one magazine article from the period as a "wizard." Fellow Beach Boy Mike Love later recalled: "Dennis was enthralled by him at one time, and it didn't hurt that Charlie Manson came with this group of girls -- young girls, who were very enamoured with Charlie, and looked up to him as a leader."
Wilson introduced Manson, who also seemed to have a plentiful supply of LSD, to some of his music business contacts. One of those contacts was Terry Melcher. Manson was known to have recorded several of his songs at a studio owned by The Beach Boys' co-founder Brian Wilson around this time, although none of them have ever been officially released.
One of Manson's songs, though, a number entitled Cease to Exist, did make the cut. With some of its lyrics changed and given the new title Never Learn Not to Love, the song was released on the flip side of Bluebirds over the Mountain, which was released in late 1968 and became a minor hit for the California band in 1969.
There are a number of differing accounts from former Manson Family members and The Beach Boys band members to explain why Manson was not credited on the release. According to Manson, he had written the song specifically for The Beach Boys. He said that the band had been "fighting amongst themselves," and he had written a song that he thought would reunite them: "Submission is a gift, give it to your brother," he said. "Dennis has true soul, but his brothers couldn't accept it."
Manson Family member Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme explained: "Charlie made up a song for Dennis, and we wrote down the words. Dennis would later talk The Beach Boys into recording the song, but someone would talk him into changing the rhythm and words, and failing to even mention Charlie."
From friendship to murderous rage
According to Wilson, Manson had agreed to give up his publishing rights on the song in exchange for "about a hundred thousand dollars' worth of stuff", which included a BSA motorcycle. Studio engineer Stephen Desper claimed that Manson's credit had been removed because he had stolen so much from Wilson and the other Beach Boys: "If Manson had been a decent person, the Beach Boy organisation would have given him credit and treasure, as they did with other writers. But Manson was a thief and did not play by civil rules. By those rules, he was compensated as far as they were concerned."
Mike Love said he hadn't even been aware that Manson had written the song, and assumed it was entirely Dennis Wilson's work. But Manson was incensed, not so much by the loss of a writing credit as by the changes that had been made to the song in the studio. Gregg Jakobson, a friend of both The Beach Boys and Manson, later recalled: "Charlie always said…'I don't care what you do with the music. Just don't let anybody change any of the lyrics.' That was one of his big beefs with Dennis. Dennis had taken some of his songs and changed the lyrics around, which really infuriated him."
Manson went on to threaten Wilson by leaving a bullet on the drummer's bed. In the 2017 ABC documentary Truth and Lies: The Family Manson, he told interviewer Diane Sawyer: "I gave Dennis Wilson a bullet, didn't I? I gave him a bullet because he changed the words to my song."
Responding to Manson's increasingly disturbing behaviour, Wilson and Melcher broke off their friendship with the cult leader during the first half of 1969. By the summer of that year, after realising that Melcher had no plan to make him into an international rock star, Manson began increasingly to brood about 'Helter Skelter,' his plan to spark a race war in the US and wipe out Western civilisation. The first part of that twisted plan was to dispatch a group of his followers to 10050 Cielo Drive and kill everyone inside. By then, Melcher had long moved out and instead, it was Sharon Tate that faced the crazed wrath of Manson's cult.
