Helter Skelter (part two)

© 2011 David Jasmin-Green

In British English, the term 'helter-skelter' means 'haphazard or careless, in disorderly haste or confusion,' but is also the name of a spiralling amusement park slide. McCartney used this song as a response to his critics, who accused him of being a mere ballad writer..... On 20th November 1968, two days before the release of 'The Beatles', McCartney gave Radio Luxembourg an exclusive interview in which he discussed several of the songs on the album. Speaking of 'Helter Skelter,' he said: “Umm, that came about just 'cause I'd read a review of a record which said, 'and this group really got us wild, there's echo on everything, they're screaming their heads off.' And I just remember thinking, 'Oh, it'd be great to do one. Pity they've done it. Must be great - really screaming record.' And then I heard their record and it was quite straight, and it was very sort of sophisticated. It wasn't rough and screaming and tape echo at all. So I thought, 'Oh well, we'll do one like that, then.' And I had this song called 'Helter Skelter,' which is just a ridiculous song. So we did it like that, 'cuz I like noise.....”

Brr brr! Brr brr! Brr b - Oh no! Hello? What? You're a highly dangerous sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania, and you're just outside gate nine? Really? Oh yes, I can see you on the security camera. Don't you think you're a bit old and coarse looking to even think about trying to pass yourself off as a woman? You look atrocious in that royal purple silk corset, chum; your heels are way too high, the sequins on your open-crotch panties are rather amateurishly applied, you've made a right pig's ear of your make-up and your wig's lop-sided. And, I hasten to add, you've got a moustache. Oh, and a fucking beak!
What's your name then, duckie? Your name is Duckie because you contain a sprinkling of Khaki Campbell genes? Good guess, hmm? You have an army of several hundred million extra large Betelgusian termites that can burrow through a thousand feet of solid granite in less than twenty four hours? Most interesting. I'm so frightened I think I'm about to nod off, and if I was capable of cacking myself I'd probably deposit a Malteser or two in my skidders and run away squealing blue murder. You're a pussy hole, Duckie, and you'll soon be a frazzled corpse - you know that, don't you?
Ah, you have a Gallrack under your jurisdiction. Pray enlighten me, what might a Gallrack be? I'm afraid the word doesn't feature in my extensive vocabulary. A Gallrack is a vast, almost indestructible being from a planet orbiting a red giant seven hundred light years away, and its anal glands exude an uncommonly powerful acid in ridiculously large quantities. You reckon that with the help of your unusual army you can burrow into our complex and dissolve us all in two to three days maximum. Lovely..... Oh, I can see your insectile slaves scurrying around your feet. They're pitiful, my not so feminine friend - a few squirts of ant killer and they'll be tits up in ten minutes flat. What's that large rock formation doing in the background? I'm sure it wasn't there the last time I looked. Good golly gosh, it's moving. Oh shit.....
You have a ransom demand, you say, a small price to pay for our pathetic lives? Firstly we're not alive, you thicko, and secondly we don't have any precious metals or gemstones or anything else of any value to you or anyone else, so you might as well bugger off. You want what? I'm afraid that's out of the question, honey-bunch. We're not mortal creatures, you absolute penis - we're synthetics, so your wish is a physical frigging impossibility - we're made out of metals and plastics and whatnot, so you can't bum us within an inch of our lives because we don't possess arse-holes or lives! Yes, and you, love. Don't bother calling again. Phone your regular bum-chums to deliver a hasty goodbye, because you'll be dead meat quicker than I don't know what.
Bzzzzz! Cyril, it's me again, I'm afraid we have another little problemmo. You're already monitoring the situation? Jolly good, keep up the good work. Do whatever you think's best, pal – you need to analyse those termite thingies and that hulking great walking ball-bag and use whatever is most lethal to them. Yes, whatever! Nuke the bastards if necessary, I don't give a monkeys as long as they're swiftly put out of action and they eventually expire. Bye, now.....

The Beatles recorded 'Helter Skelter' many times during sessions for 'The White Album'. During the 18th July 1968 sessions, a version of the song lasting twenty seven minutes and eleven seconds was recorded, a rather slow, hypnotic variation, differing immensely from the album version. Another recording from the same day, originally twelve minutes long, was edited down to four minutes thirty seven seconds for 'Anthology Three'. On 9th September eighteen takes of approximately five minutes each were recorded, and the last one is featured on the original LP. After the eighteenth take Ringo Starr flung his drum sticks across the studio in frustration and screamed, “I got blisters on my fingers!” The Beatles included Starr's rabid cry on the stereo mix of the song – it was fantastic! Some sources wrongly credit the 'blisters' line to Lennon, but in fact Lennon can be heard asking “How's that?” just before the outburst. The mono version omits Ringo's ebullition; it wasn't initially available in the United States as mono albums had already been phased out there, but it was later released in the American version of the 'Rarities' album and in 2009 it was made available on the CD mono re-issue of 'The White Album' as part of 'The Beatles in Mono' CD box set.
According to Chris Thomas, who was pr -

Brr brr! Brr – Yes? Your name is Gordon Brown and you're wondering if we have any high-ranking political positions here that you might be considered for? Oh, fuck off.....

According to Chris Thomas, who was present at the 18th July recording session, it was especially spirited. “While Paul was doing his vocal, George Harrison set fire to an ashtray and he was running around the studio with it above his head, doing an Arthur Brown.” Ringo Starr's recollection is less detailed, but it agrees in spirit: “Helter Skelter was a track we did in total madness and hysterics in the studio. Sometimes you just had to shake out the jams.”

Brr brr! Brr – What? You're an inconceivably powerful inter-dimensional invader resembling a raspberry trifle covered in poisonous stings, you have a vast nuclear arsenal hidden in yonder valley behind some papier-mache rocks, an arsenal that you're not frightened to use, and you're going to give us a really, really good hiding and blow us to kingdom come if we don't let you in. I can see you on the security camera, you lying slaaaaag, and it's as clear as day that you're Gordon flipping Brown with a crudely painted bin liner over your head and a few twigs in your soft, pudgy, work-shy hands. I told you to scoot, you one-eyed, po-faced, insufferable, brown-nosed Scottish cock-gobbler, and I bloody well meant it.

Helter Skelter has been covered by a number of bands and praised by critics, including Richie Unterberger of 'Allmusic'. Unterberger referred to it as “one of the fiercest and most brutal rockers done by anyone” and he called it “extraordinary.” Ian MacDonald, however, was rather more critical - “ridiculous, McCartney shrieking weedily against a massively tape-echoed backdrop of out-of-tune thrashing.” Alan W. Pollack was of the opinion that the song would “scare and unsettle” listeners, citing Helter Skelter's “obsessive nature” and “undercurrent of violence,” and noted “Paul's savage vocal delivery” as reinforcing this theme. Billy Joel used the phrase 'I've Got Blisters On My Fingers' at the end of the extended 12 inch version of 'Sometimes A Fantasy,' and in a 1980 interview Lennon reflected “That's Paul completely ... It has nothing to do with anything, and least of all to do with me.” In March 2005, Q magazine ranked 'Helter Skelter' number 5 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks, a feat that's -

Brr br - Oh, for fuck's sake! Yes, who are you and what do you want, you great, steaming berk? You're an infeasibly large canary/tyrannosaur hybrid called Funky Frankie. You're blessed or perhaps cursed with a bottomless sexual appetite, a frighteningly large, rather thorny mega-penis and an abnormally high sperm count – you ejaculate gallons of the revolting stuff on a disturbingly regular basis - and you and your one point five billion alien ghetto reared ethnic minority bisexual junkie criminally inclined donkey headed bitches have reared an overwhelming swarm of fearsome, well-hung monsters that have joined forces with Duckie, his/her termites and that ugly great whatchumacallit of theirs.
You're currently camping outside gate twenty two singing Gingangooly gooly gooly gooly wotcha, gingangoo, gingangoo around a very large camp-fire making daisy chains, toasting your stinking toes and frying an improbably large number of sausages, and you swear that you'll order your kids to hoof us all into an unrecognisable pile of scrap if we don't agree to wear Cameron Diaz masks and allow you to shag us until we're blue in the face after Duckie's emptied his/her sack. You wish we'd hurry up and submit because the clouds are rolling in and it's starting to drizzle, your tents aren't waterproof and you forgot to pack your brollies. Oh, and as soon as you've shot your ginormous load you'll order your kids to hoof us senseless anyway, only quicker. That's not much of a choice, is it? Adios, you imbecilic saurian-cum-avian twannock. And I hope it absolutely pisses it down!
Bzzzzz! Cyril? You're on to Funky Frankie and his infeasible sounding wives and kids already? Oh, right. See you, then. Blow the dopey fucks off the face of the Earth! I want that psychopathic outlaw's todger slicing off while he's still conscious, stuffing and mounting on a bloody shield.