musicians who are responsible for the murders and suicides committed by their fans.
Te third and final point for consideration in the debate of whether famous musicians are responsible for the murders and suicides committed by their fans is that our world has always had a murderous element of individuals who are prone to kill as well as mentally ill individuals who are hell bent on self- harm and suicide. Troughout history there have been truly evil people who hold the lives of others in low regard such as Vlad the Impaler, who impaled the heads of his enemies on large spikes along the roadsides as a warning to any who opposed him. Another example of such individuals is Charles Manson, who founded and led a murderous cult and attributed his motives to “Helter Skelter”, a song written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon and performed by Te Beatles. Consider the following passage from Te History Channel correspondent Lesley Kennedy.
Members of Manson’s cult, known as the Manson Family, carried out a string of brutal murders of actress Sharon Tate and four others, including coffee heiress Abigail Folgers, on Aug. 8, 1969, and of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca two days later. Musician Gary Hinman and horse wrangler Donald Shea were also murdered in separate instances. Te words “Death to pigs” and “Rise” were written in Leno LaBianca’s blood on his living room walls, while “Healter (sic) Skelter” was scrawled in blood on the refrigerator door.
Manson’s explanation for the murders was simple—and bizarre.
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“It’s the Beatles, the music they’re putting out,” Manson, who, sentenced to death row, died at age 83 in 2017, said at trial. “Tese kids listen to this music and pick up the message. It’s subliminal … It is not my music. I hear what it relates. It says ‘Rise.’ It says ‘Kill.’ Why blame it on me? I didn’t write the music. (Kennedy)
When asked about this Paul McCartney said that:
I was using the symbol of a helter skelter (a playground slide) as a ride from the top to the bottom—the rise and fall of the Roman Empire,” McCartney says. (Kennedy)
Did Te Beatles cause Charles Manson to be mentally ill, or did Charles Manson’s mental illness cause him to be a murderous cult leader? Te chances are that it was the latter rather than the former. In another peer reviewed resource that I found titled “Heavy Metal Music and Adolescent Suicidality: An Empirical Investigation” Karen Scheel writes:
Tis study investigated the relationship between preference for heavy metal music and vulnerability to suicide among 121 high school students. Heavy metal fans had less strong reason for living (especially male fans) and had more thoughts of suicide (especially female fans). For a large majority, listening to music (all types) had a positive effect on mood. Overall, the results indicate that preference for heavy metal music among adolescents may be a “red flag” for increased suicidal vulnerability, but also suggest that the source of the problem may lie more in personal and familial characteristics than in
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