Lie: The Love and Terror Cult

When a CD of Charles Manson's recordings surfaces, it isn't hard to predict what the reactions will be. Some people will buy it out of morbid curiosity; others will insist that the recordings, regardless of their musical merits, shouldn't even be available and need to be banned. But censorship and political correctness are never helpful in a democracy. Banning Mein Kampf or The Birth of a Nation won't make the horribly flawed sociopolitical philosophies behind them go away; instead, it is necessary to study, discuss, and analyze the ugly side of history in order to learn from it. That isn't to say that the demos on this 56-minute CD express a strong sociopolitical philosophy; recorded on September 11, 1967 (with some overdubs added in 1968), Charles Manson Sings gives no indication of how dangerously unhinged he was (in 1969, Manson orchestrated the vicious Tate/LaBianca murders). None of these songs are threatening or confrontational; the material is introspective folk-rock and soft rock, and Manson comes across as a caricature of a weed-smoking California hippie — not a ruthless killer. As a vocalist, his phrasing brings to mind José Feliciano and Jim Croce (with hints of Bob Dylan at times), and his writing is generally competent — not great, not bad, but competent. Nonetheless, these are songs that tend to provoke strong reactions simply because the singer is the notorious Charles Manson. Some music journalists will trash the bluesy "Arkansas," the moody "Cease to Exist" (which the Beach Boys reworked into "Never Learn Not to Love") or the humorous "Garbage Dump" simply because Manson is the artist, and some musicians will perform Manson's songs as an empty act of rebellion and defiance (Guns N' Roses, for example, covered the mellow "Look at Your Game, Girl," which opens this disc). But anyone who acquires Charles Manson Sings in the hope of hearing some type of precursor to death metal, black metal, or gangsta rap is in for a disappointment; these songs are nothing like that, and they don't begin to reflect Manson's depravity. If the singer were someone other than Manson, these recordings would be less likely to inspire either excessive praise or scathing condemnation — and the truth is that including Charles Manson Sings in a blindfold test frequently results in responses along the lines of, "Not bad, but nothing mind-blowing." But the artist is, in fact, Charles Manson, and that fact alone gives this reissue historic value.