One Song - The Beatles' "Helter Skelter"

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

A flaming ashtray. A saxophone mouthpiece. Blistered fingers. How did one of the Beatles’ most chaotic recording sessions lead to a raucous masterpiece that paved the way for metal? On the first part of this Beatles Two-Parter, Diallo Riddle and LUXXURY dive into the tumultuous creation of “Helter Skelter,” tracking its origins as a 30-minute mellowed out blues-rocker to the review that inspired Paul McCartney to crank the track up to an eleven. Plus, LUXXURY tries to convince Diallo to listen to Wings. Songs Discussed: “Helter Skelter” - The Beatles “Mama’s Pearl” - The Jackson 5 “Helter Skelter” - Mötley Crüe “Dear Prudence” - The Beatles “I Can See For Miles” - The Who “Holidays in the Sun” - Sex Pistols “Fire” - Arthur Brown “Birthday” - The Beatles “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” - The Beatles “You Really Got Me” - The Kinks “Exciter” - Judas Priest “Whole Lotta Love” - Led Zeppelin “Paperback Writer” - The Beatles “Long Tall Sally” - The Beatles “She Loves You” - The Beatles “Silly Love Songs” - Wings “Arrow Through Me” - Wings “Old Siam, Sir” - Wings “Muzik” - Knoc-Turn’al “Temporary Secretary” - Paul McCartney One Song Spotify Playlist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It sounds like he's got a grin on his face while he's singing that. He's at the top of everything, the peak energy, the peak, the notes, everything. He's coming out past, he's miles above you because he's so high. Lecture today, we're diving into a group that changed the landscape of rock music forever, a group that despite lasting not even a decade, still drives the conversation of what a recording career can and should look like. So much so that they are getting four movies in 2028 alone. That's right, Diallo. and we could not contain our excitement to talk about,

not just what the group means to popular music as a whole, but also what they mean to us. So today's episode is just part one of a two-part episode where we break down two of our personal favorites from this band's expansive and extensive discography. It was not an easy decision to make, which two songs. No, difficult choices. Today we're covering a song spearheaded

by the group's soppiest member, determined to shed that image and create a screaming record accompanied by the most rock, vocal and loudest drums the group had ever recorded. And those are all air quotes because they're literal McCartney quotes. They're from his mouth. A song so heavy, it left blisters on the drummer's fingers. Famous.

And might have even invented the genre of heavy metal. So we'll tell you, tell you, tell you the answer. We're talking one song and that song is Helter Skelter by The Beatles. I got blisters on my air guitar fingers. Okay, glad he clarified. Air guitar drumming. I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And I'm producer DJ songwriter and musicologist luxury, aka the guy who whispers,

Interpolation. And this is one song. The show where we break down the stems and stories behind iconic songs across genres, telling you why they deserve one more listen. You will hear these songs like you've never heard them before. And you can watch one song on YouTube while you're there. Please like and subscribe. So, y'all, we've already talked about our shared love of the Beatles when we covered Come Together,

one of our earliest episodes. Very early episode. Like maybe episode seven or eight. scroll all the way back in our archives because we are at episode 124 today. So it was some time ago. But Diall, specifically this song's Helter Skelter

and the White album from which it derives. What do they mean to you? Gosh, you know, it's so interesting that we're doing something from the white album because it's literally one of the albums that came to, like, the latest in my life. Still in my 20s, but like it was not, I was a Sergeant Pepper's guy.

Easily. Like, that's one of the first albums I ever remember. I love the Beatles growing up. I've said before on this show that A Hard Day's Night was literally the first piece of me. music I ever bought for myself. I still own the record. Still says Diallo Riddle written in a five-year-old's handwriting. That is such a testament to your character in some ways.

It's just, you're a classy guy. That was your first record. I love it. Well, look, you know, it's one of those funny things where television was my entry point in some ways to the music that I purchased because in Atlanta, growing up, syndicated cartoons in the afternoon. The Beatles cartoon would come on and then the Jackson Five cartoon would come on. famously the members of these groups did not supply their voices to the but but they did play the songs and so I really liked you know the music of a hard days night era Beatles that was what was really cool and by the way to this day I still love Mama's Pearl by the Jackson 5 because that was the outro song on that show the first time I remember hearing Heltter Skelter it wasn't even the Beatles

because again that wasn't my era of Beatles fandom no I think the first time I heard the song Heltr Heltr it was actually this cover by Motley crew You know what? I'm a Motley Crew fan. He had no blisters. That was a little bit of a letdown. I have to say, I'm literally, I'm a big Motley Crew. I love Motley Crew.

We're going to do a Motley Crew. That was like so by the numbers and by the book. It was tamer than the original. Somehow they tamed down a song recorded 15 years earlier. But that's what's interesting. Think about the difference between the Beatles in 1968 and Motley Crew in 1983. This song was only 15 years old at that point. Right.

For us, that's 2011. So it would be like Empire the Sun or something. It's so recent. It's not that long ago. It wasn't that long ago. But they were revered. The flip side of it, and what makes me think that they did it so kind of reverently is like the Beatles were so huge

that it's almost too risky to cover them. Yeah, a little bit. It's 1983 and John's only been dead for three years. So, yeah, there was probably a little bit of reverence on the point. They probably were like, let's cover this song. And as they were getting into it, it's like, let's not mess with it too much. And it ends up interestingly sounding tamer. It sounds tamer than the Beatles version.

What about you, luxury? What does this song mean to you? When did it come onto your radar? Well, kind of like you. I would say that White Album Beatles is a little bit later in terms of appreciation, because it is such a different band. They were experimenting. They were doing crazy stuff. Across the narrative of the two albums, you have like early proto sampling and experimentalism. And then you have this raucous song. And then you've got terrible stuff like Sexy Sadie, which nobody wants to listen to. And everyone skips over every time. I would just say that the soundtrack to my growing up in the early 80s, late 70s, like, as a very small child, like, I remember hearing the Beatles and solo Paul, and there was a divorce happening in my parents in my life. So it's a little bit of the soundtrack to that. And maybe the darkness and strangeness of this album, specifically, it's not the innocence of the Hard Days Night Beatles. This is a sort of weird breaking up, arguing version of the Beatles. And that translates into the music. I think I sensed that. I think I sensed that in Tudence. as like a four-year-old. It's like when you read that both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are going through divorces when they make Temple of Doom, and as a result, Temple of Doom feels a lot darker. I didn't even know that, but that makes sense, right? Is that the one with the heart

being ripped out? Yeah, there's, you know, and a lot of problematic racial depictions of the thuggy. Yeah, like, it's just like they were going through dark time, so they made a dark movie, and the Beatles are going through a dark time. And, you know, the white album is, it isn't Sergeant Peppers. It lacks a certain cohesiveness that that album famously had. I would agree. But it is now probably my favorite record beats between that and I don't know. Revolver, Abbey Road and White album are like neck and neck. It's so interesting. I feel like I have an opposite. So is that your three? I suppose I'm saying it out loud and I'm like, yeah, I'll stick with that. And I will probably- Sam again, Sam again, Revolver. It's like kind of like the cure episode where just like

heaven is like maybe the perfect song, but I don't listen to it as often because it's like I kind I get it. Revolver is like that to me. I love Revolver, but I don't go to it as often because I've gone to it enough. But tomorrow never knows. Forget about it. Taxman, forget about it. But I would say I go to now. But your three were Revolver Abbey.

Abby Road and the White album. I'm the opposite in so many ways. I think my three are Sergeant Pepper's Rubber Soul. That's mid-period then. Yeah, I like the mid-period. And I know it's not an album, so don't come at me, commenters.

but a magical mystery tour. That is a amazing. Very few people are going to name that one. But that's a good one. But it's got great songs on it. And I always say when put on the spot, what's your favorite Beatles song?

I usually go with Rain, which is recorded during those sessions. Well, those are great. So Rain and Paperback writer, 100% agree. That's underrated. I think that's like a single though, right? I don't think it, I think that's a single in between albums. We're getting in the weeds.

This is actually good that we're getting in the weeds. Magical Mystery Tour, I think, was only an album in the States or something like that. Like, because in the UK, they didn't have the same. same album-driven, you know, industry or something? I'm glad we wandered down this lane, you know, just spontaneously. This penny lane? Because it bears, thank you so much, Strawberry Fields. It bears mentioning at the top of our episode about the Beatles, the first of two parts,

that this is probably the most discussed, the most investigated, the most musicologically. There is probably more information out there about the Beatles, more books written, more podcasts, more videos, more everything than any other band that's ever existed. Yeah, I totally agree. If the Beatles were a person, they had the first iPhone, and they have literally every day of their life to be able to scroll through and say, oh, yes, on July 17, 1967, I was here

and had an uncanny, you know, run in with a waitress. Like, we know everything. So this perfectly gets back to the answer to your question. I would say that not only were the Beatles and that McCartney record in this song, like part of my childhood, but in early, like, luxury, early like Blake luxury Robin being interested

in breaking down music, There are two things about this record and the Beatles in general that kind of start me off down the path that lead to us talking today, which is that they're putting out all these alternative versions and early takes. And, you know, there's even some isolated stems that are coming out on their anthology releases in the 90s. And to go along with that, there's this incredible book by Mark Lewison called The Complete Beatles Chronicle, which literally is a day-by-day accounting of the Beatles every single recording session, every premiere they attended. and this amount of information and this detail really stuck with me. I'm like, I love this.

I love getting this comprehensive of a band. So that's another thing. Because you learn things you would never learn otherwise. We just didn't have that with any other band. If anything like Led Zeppelin was the opposite, you got the albums and maybe a photograph every five years, and that's about it. So the Beatles having all this information really meant something to me.

I wanted to know. It sort of triggered a thirst for like an awareness of you can listen to just the vocals. Wait, what? I want that all the time. You can listen to like an early demo version of Helter Skelter. Oh my God, I want that all the time. So this is a bit of a full circle moment that we're talking about this song and this band and this era. Love it.

So the year is 1968. The Beatles have retired from touring two years earlier and they have just gotten back from their fame meditation retreat in India, ready to record their follow up to Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band. Okay, so here's what they do. They book open-ended studio time at Abbey Road Studios, which led to a new approach to recording where before the band would work together to finish and record the songs, many of the songs on the white album,

which is technically the Beatles' self-titled album, but everybody calls it the white album. The songs on the white album were written and created largely independently with overdubs from the other members added later. And you can hear that in songs like, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Martha My Dear, My Dear, and Dear Prudence.

Yeah, they're starting to get into their solo era a little bit where you can really hear distinctively the different voices of the different band members from one song to the next. It's like their version of a Love Below speaker box. Yeah. You know, clearly one person's taking the lead on each song. When we were deciding which songs to do,

one of the reasons I think we both really like the idea of Helter Skelter is because I think I said something like, it felt like a very early metal song. Yeah. And it could have influenced the genre. You're more of the metal guy, so I can't wait to get your take on that. Yeah, we'll talk about that when we get into the stems.

But there is something there, but yeah, let's talk about it when we get there. I'll say even if it did have a huge impact on the genre metal, it didn't always have to go that way. Yeah, basically the first version of Helter Skelter Skelter was recorded on July 18th. Just a day after the world premiere of Yellow Sdomarine and Piccadilly Circus, the band recorded three takes of the song with the final, still never released take, lasting 27 minutes, 27 minutes, almost half an hour. Let's hear a little bit of the second take of Helter Skelter recorded that night. It's so slow.

It's a blues song too That is a blues song Absolutely just a straight up Straight up blues song Yeah No question about it But it's not the song that we now think No but it's interesting that even then

They felt that there was something there Because they kept on doing take after take And they did the 27 minute version famously And I mentioned that Mark Lewis in book It's really important because we have this incredible chronicle of like getting in the headspace of what this band had been doing when this song was recorded

And as we're about to get into the second version of the song a little bit later. But again, going back to just the headspace on Thursday, July 18th, 1968, when they recorded that version that we just heard of Helter Skelter, you know, you mentioned the night before they had seen the world premiere of Yellow Submarine. The day before that, it's important to point out that the engineer had quit Jeff Emmerich, who wrote an incredible book, by the way, called Here, There, and Everywhere, My Life Recording the Beatles. He had worked with them on Sergeant Pepper, Revolver, Won Grammys.

he was basically George Martin, famously the Beatles producer. We'll be talking about him in a moment because he plays a role in the story. He was his right-hand manned, and just two days earlier, he had quit. He was tired of all the fussing and infighting between the band members, and he was like, I'm out of here, this is not fun.

He's like, life's too short to record the Beatles. So I love that little tidbit of information because that's Tuesday, July 16th. The next day the band's like, we're going to take the day off and recover from our infighting that made our engineer quit. And then on the 18th, They're doing the early Helter Skelter slow blues jam over and over again at this lugubrious pace.

There's something interesting to think about what was happening for them internally, that they needed this maybe to refresh after this week of turmoil. Points to you for using lugubrius so well in a sentence. But, yes, it starts off very slow. And Paul talks about how he got the idea to up the intensity of Helter Skelter after reading a review of I Can See for Miles. By The Who, in a 1985 interview, Paul said, I read in Melodymaker that the Who had made some track or other that was called the loudest, most raucous, dirtiest thing they've ever done. And we decided to do the loudest, nastiest, shettiest rock number that we could. Whether it's verified or unverified that the song was actually I Can See for Miles.

The fun part is that when Paul finally heard their music, he was like, oh, that's not, he was essentially like, that's not what I expected to do. here. Yeah, kind of like, really? That's raucous? He was like, oh, I think we can do more raucous. And I so, like, I feel like we are creators and like, we're people who will read a review or something or hear what's out there. And then you'll be like, oh, wait, I thought that was going to be totally different. Right.

That lane, that thing that got me excited to go through that movie or watch that show or hear that song, is still open because that's not how I would have executed it. Well, I was just going to say also, like, I remember the first time I heard the sex pistols, how shocked I was. Yeah. Because the sex pistols that were such a legendarily

You heard the stories, you saw the images, you saw that they invented punk rock is the narrative. And when I heard it, I was like, this is sort of middle of the road, 70s rock and roads kind of slow. I love the sex pistols and I love Nevermind the Bullocks. But the first time I ever heard it, I was definitely surprised that this was what was considered punk rock and raucousness. I wasn't hearing it in the music at first. That's such a good point, especially about the sex pistols. So six weeks later, enter the unsung hero of our episode. It's Chris Thomas, 21-year-old engineer who had been.

an assistant to producer George Martin. So he walks and he comes back from vacation and he finds a note on his desk at Abbey Road, which is called EMI Studios at the time. The note says, Dear Chris, hope you had a nice holiday. I'm off on mine now. Make yourself available to the Beatles.

And then George Martin, the Beatles producer, the legend, goes on vacation. Goes on vacation for three weeks, leaving 21-year-old Chris Thomas the first time he's ever been in the studio control room alone with The Beatles, the biggest band on.

planet earth. He says that he's like sitting off in a corner like in a suit. Yeah, he's like what he's petrified. It's terrifying. It's terrifying. What do you do? He says that Paul was the first one to walk in and when Paul walked in, Paul was like, what are you doing here? And he said, I felt like such an idiot, but managed to blurt out. Didn't George tell you, talk about George Martin? And Paul's reply was, well, if you want to produce us, you can produce this. If you don't, we might just tell you to fuck off. Which is, it was just so illuminating. You know, Paul's, public persona. Yeah. is like this happy go lucky and sort of like the cheerful one. But in story after story, you sort of get the system, he's got a mean side.

You know what, here's the thing. I'm going to defend Paul because to me what's going on here is Paul is trying to keep the band together. Like this is a hard position for anyone to be in. And is he doing it the right way? Is he handling people the right way? Maybe you could certainly make a case. But I think the meanness quote unquote, which I don't disagree, that's a mean thing to say. That's super intimidating.

But my sense is that it's coming from a like, oh, my God, our engineer just quit. We're in fighting. Yeah. I mean, Ringo had quit in August. Ringo had quit. And he came back like literally one week before they started this session. First we have emiric quitting, then we have Ringo quitting. Paul is like, this thing is falling apart at the scenes.

The anthics in the studio are out of control during this period. It's falling apart at the seams. This is his baby, you know, the band. And he's just trying to keep it together. And maybe his people skills, you know, are a little bit challenged at this time. He's losing his temper a little bit. That's definitely kind of simultaneously, quote, mean thing to saying kind of funny, too.

I can see how he's like, look, just don't fuck it up. So Chris Thomas says that, quote, I just jumped in the deep end. They were doing a take. Somebody made a little cock up, so they messed up, a little flub, a little clam, if you will. A little cock up. A little cock up.

So he said, something went wrong there. And the Beatles said, no, it didn't. Oh, this sucks. Which I love. Let me tell you something. Like, if you've ever worked on a TV show and you have a guest director for one week, sometimes that cast can eat that director up.

It is not pretty to see. It is not cool. Can you imagine? It's like a substitute teacher. I've never partaking in it, but it's just like, oh. It's like the substitute teacher. There's kind of a joy in piling on. They don't know the inner mechanisms and rhythms of the relationships of the primary cast, so to speak.

And yeah, I actually feel bad for Chris. Absolutely. You don't want to be, there's nothing worse than being yelled at by somebody who's very rich, successful, and famous. Like, that's the pits. That is the pits. You're like, you're not going to wake up tomorrow a broken destitute, so where's my revenge? But listen, this is a hero's journey that. we're on here. So Chris Thomas, this is his moment. This is his moment to shine. He says they all went up

the stairs to listen and then they agreed with him. So I think clearly in this moment he wins them over. He gains their trust. And the rest of the session, by all accounts, is excitingly raucous and crazy, but also produces the music we're going to hear today because it's at this session on the 9th of September that from 7 p.m. till 2.30 a.m. They do 21 takes of the song, Helter, Skelter, but they have changed it dramatically to go from this slow blues to something more akin to the version that we all know and left to the day. There's something that I hear almost any time I get into a car I want to drive fast. Like that opening guitar rhythm is something I hear almost every time.

So they do these 21 takes. They're all about five minutes each. They've now kind of figured out how to turn this into a song because before they were jamming on it. And this is also the genius of the band. But I think this is McCartney in this case. This is his song primarily. When we get into the splits, I'll be more specific about that. But he's gotten it down to five minutes. He's got a verse. He's got a course. He's got a bit of a structure. it's the last of those 21 takes that makes its way to the white album, to what becomes the white album, or self-titled. And on the very next day, they do these crazy overdubs.

And it sounds like the September 10th, 1968 session is where things go extra, extra crazy. Yeah, let's talk about it. So George Martin is gone. The session descends into chaos. As technical engineer, Brian Gibson tells it, they were completely out of their heads that night. But as usual, blind I was turned to what the Beatles did in the studio. Everyone knew what substances they were taking, but they were a law unto themselves in the studio.

As long as they didn't do anything too outrageous, things were tolerated. Yeah. Like there's a story about like George literally running around the studio, not playing an instrument, just with a candle, like a fire. With a flaming ashtray on his head. With a flaming ashtray on fire, somehow he said an ashtray on fire, which how much fire do you need to set an ashtray on fire? Right. Well, so that's a reference to there's a song by Arthur Brown called Fire, which was a hit that had come out like a month before. And to this day, Arthur Brown, you can see him live.

He has a flaming headpiece. So that was like his thing. And the song is called Fire. The song is called Fire. So it was a reference to that. And it just added a layer of like danger, I suppose, to the session. It almost sounds like when you put a bunch of instruments in there with kindergarteners. And everybody just picks up an instrument for like five seconds that tries to play it.

Then they put it down and pick up another one. Like, it sounds like pure chaos. We're going to talk about when we get into the Sims. There are some instruments on this record. I had no idea we're there. but once you know they're there, it's like, oh, that's what that crazy sound was. Exactly. And listen, Chris Thomas is doubly an unsung hero, because not only was he the only babysitter that day, keeping things on track, so to speak, but and making them incredible as the producer, the sole person in the

control room, I should say, along with Ken Scott the second engineer, the two of them made this song exist and kept track of the Beatles, not burning the place down. But importantly, he's not credited on the song as a producer or even a co-producer. But on the tapes, according to Mark Lewison, and according to his archival research, he is on the tapes as a producer. They just didn't credit him with that title, unfortunately. But he also went on to produce without credit the song Birthday. Happiness is a War I'm Gunn.

One of my absolute freaking favorites. And two of the songs that sound the best on the record to my ears. Like I love those are rockin songs. The drum sounds are great on those. Oh, and by the way, Happiness is a Wargum is like, it's such a mind twister. It's got three or four different sections to it. It's like three different timesignatures.

Exactly. The time signatures are constantly changing. He must have thought he was going crazy. We love Chris Thomas, and he is a big part of the White album because he also played harpsichord on piggy's melotron on bungalow bill and electric piano on Savoy Truffle. But don't cry too many tears for Chris Thomas because he went on to produce Pink Floyd, the pretenders. And not unimportantly, he produced, never mind the bullocks. Here's the sex pistols. It comes full circle.

It comes full circle. Chris Thomas is the producer of that Sex Pistols records that I thought was a bit middling sounding in terms of raucousness. and punk rock dumb. But what a great record that I listen to all the time still to this day. All right, well, we're going to take a quick break a break down Helter-Skelter's connection to metal. We're going to break down what we think these lyrics are all about, and we're going to settle the debate. Who is playing the bass on this song? Stick around. We'll be right back. All right, welcome back to one song. Let's get into the stems. Why don't we start with the drums? Richard Ringo Star Star-Sarky on drums. Let's listen.

He's playing the crash the whole time. And then he's got that motif, which we hear a bunch of times. That da, da, da, get boom, get bunga. Exactly. It's one e, a two-y, and he plays it a few more times like here. Right here. Da-da, get-boa-boa-bo-ge-boa. A shout-out to Ringo because on my little animal drum set from the Muppets,

I thought I was Ringo. I was just down there every day with my father's records, just playing along. This is a very animal song. It's also very Mitch Mitchell. meets Keith Moon song. Certainly the use of the crash, the heavy use of crash in Tom's super The Who. It's super

Keith Moon from the Who who famously would stand up a lot of times and wouldn't hit the hi-hat very often. So a lot of crashes, and that contributes already just in the first layer of the drums. Rockusiness is rising. We have rising rockusness. Just because we're hearing the crash

on every single beat of the song pretty much. But we've also said on this show before, I think that the one thing that Ringo does well is he does provide structure. Yeah. And, you know, because he's not... Locking it in. Because he's not often the guy who is, you know,

taking lead on the song. You know, he's not trying to showboat. Yeah. And it allows you to really appreciate, you know, the music that's written by a Paul or John. Well, it's interesting to note, too, that we're not that different of a BPM from the slow version. I mean, the slow version is definitely slower.

But imagine that... Right. Ringo could have gone... Uh-dun-tun-huh. that would a ruckist it up. You know, so we're already dialing up the raucousness that Paul wanted. You know what's cool about this is that for years, I could have sworn that the drums slow down just like the smallest bit,

just like maybe like one BPM when they finally come crashing in. From the guitar intro? Yeah, yeah. But once I heard the stems, I was like, oh, God, there's like literally no slowdown. Like, it's just, they come in with such a force, and maybe there's like maybe some echo in the room or something like that that I'm also picking up on, but like, no, it doesn't slow down. It's just to halftime.

We don't know where it's going to go yet because it's just the guitar. So it's a bit of a surprise when the drums come in. And you're basically half time. I think maybe what you're picking up on is we are going half time because he could have come in and go, boom, kind of dunna, dunna, da, da, da, bo, do, down, boom, two, three, and four and one. But he goes one and two and three and three.

So in 1968, they're making a transition from four track to eight-track recording. So Sergeant Pepper, incredibly, is on four-track. If you can bloody believe it, one of the greatest albums of all times. was recorded on four track a year earlier. In 1968, they are recording on A-track, but we still have this phenomenon that we've had on a few episodes like Jimmy Hendricks

when we're in basically 60s songs, Beach Boys, etc., Rolling Stones, where the stems are limited because they use multi-track, meaning they would often start with the drums and bass or the whole band, and then you would bounce a lot of things onto a single track to free up a track, or say, an orchestra

like we have on this song, meaning stuff is baked together. If you've got 24 instruments, you might have four instruments on one track. Exactly right. So what's going on here in the drum track is we have some really cool

crazy sounds which I will now play for you and then we'll talk about what they are. Sort of buzzing bee. I didn't know that we had a kazoo

in the Beatles. That's crazy. It's basically no different from a kazoo. It sounds like a kazoo. It's the mouthpiece for a saxophone. Oh, no way.

And that's John Lennon playing. The mouth, just the mouthpiece for a saxophone to get that annoying kazoo bees buzzing around the studio sound. You know what's funny? I think I've always heard that bees buzzing is probably like some kind of effect on a guitar or something like that. Sure.

Yeah. I mean, it's only because... Saxophone mouthpiece. We know from the Lewis and book that on the 10th they overdubbed, they were running around with flames coming out of their heads and they were overdubbing sax mouthpieces on top of the truck. And they were also overdubbing just more drums. For example, you can hear in this next section,

Ringo's still playing that crash beat, but he's playing the snare on top of it. Listen, you'll hear there's two Ringo's coming up. Right, right, right. I mean, look, no, no shade. No shade, but it makes sense that, like, you know, five-year-old me on that drum set thought I could play like Ringo. Right.

You felt heard. Oh, this is a drumbeat? I can do that. That's the job. Okay. I can do that. This one, here's another section. This is a little Tommy section.

I'm just emphasizing these fills of Ringoes because besides being iconic and having motifs here and there, like, there's also a lot of, there are a lot of low, end that is coming from it. There's a lot of heaviness. And as we get into the metal or not metal conversation in just a moment, I think contributing to that sound and the heaviness is the sound of the drums, the sound of the crashes, which includes the sound of the room in the studio at Abbey Road where it's recorded. But you're getting a lot of that heaviness in what Ringo is playing, how he's playing it, and the sound of the drums as they were recorded. One of my favorite things about this song is the very end of it. When you hear our drummer boy Ringo scream,

I got blisters on me fingers. I always loved it. Didn't know it, but apparently not on the mono version. On the mono version, they just fade out. Which I think you lose a full minute of the song. Yeah. And you lose him screaming about his blisters. Can we hear a little bit about the blisters?

Let's get into the blisters. As you mentioned, unusual. Look, it's 1968. There's some things we take for granted, but in 1968, the song fading out meant that it was over. So it fading back in was really surprising. That's cool. They do that on strawberry fields. Strawberry Fields, too. So that little studio trickery was another kind of way of being surprising and a little bit avant-garde.

You guys, we can bring down the volume and then we can bring it back. It's like literally like an avant-garde technique because don't forget that just a year earlier, if not like, you know, the entirety of their career up to this point, they're writing basically pop songs with the occasional Tomorrow Never Know's thrown in. They're starting to experiment on Revolver. But like now they're full on like, let's just make interesting stuff. It's not always going to be a pop song. They were like, hey, we're not going to go on tour anymore. So let's do all these studio tricks. And there are no singles that were released from this record.

So they're not thinking about charts. They're not thinking about stadiums. They're just thinking about what is interesting to them and following their artistic muse. So once we come back from that fade out, we have extra craziness in the drums leading to that magic moment you just talked about. Let's listen.

Famously on the canonical track, that's sort of like, it sounds more backgrounded and it's got a big guitar crunch in it. Yeah, he threw his sticks all the way across the room. But you can hear it a little more clearly because it's, I guess, his, you know, one of the mics near the drum kit. It says Mike, yeah.

I got blisters on my fingers! And I want to play this from an interview that he gave about that famous line. I only got blisters once, and that was on Helter Skelter because it was like three hours long. It was a jam. And we were just beating those drums. And as you heard at the end of it,

I got blisters on my finger. I tend to get blisters if I haven't played in a while. You know, I get blisters because of the sticks, but I just carry on and get over it. And indeed, he did carry on because that was technically the 18th take where he says, I got blisters on my fingers. And there were three more to go before we got to the canonical 21st take of the final version. So Mark Lewisin's book indicates that John Lennon actually played the bass on this song.

But there's been a lot of debate on that in columns on rock magazines, internet forums, parking lots outside of Oasis concerts, including me. You know, the debate being, was this John or was this Paul? Let's hear a little bit of the bass, and let's see if we can tell. All right, here we go. And this is some of the nastiest bass you'll ever hear

in recorded music history. Let's listen to the very beginning. Sounds so good. I love that. I love that. That's like a perfect bass tone. Just enough high-end. Which fingers do we think we hear there?

So, to your point, there is some speculation that it might have been John, or it might have been Paul. Different sources have different theories. I found this one, here's Take 17. Listen to the very beginning of Take 17. You can hear Paul explaining something about what he wants to happen. And the way he's doing it to my musician ears, for lack of a better way of saying,

from having been in a situation where I've got an instrument and I'm talking to somebody and explaining something, the kind of interplay between what he says and what you hear, it sounds like somebody's saying to do a thing and then doing the thing themselves. Okay, let's hear it. Have extra on the first one, Paul.

So that sounds to my ears like Paul playing the bass and explaining what to do on, you know, to maybe the guitar, maybe to John, maybe to George, it's unclear. But I hear I'm going, go da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and playing da-da-da-da-da-da on that dirty-sounding bass. So to me, that's a pretty strong argument for like, this is probably Paul playing the bass.

But Lewison, for whatever reason, has speculated that it's John on bass. we may never know for sure. So that could be Paul playing a 1966 Fender Jazz, or it could be John playing a Fender 6, which, by the way, go back to our Cure episode, that is a guitar bass essentially, which Robert Smith sometimes plays.

So that's distorted, it's growly. Again, from the ground up, this is kind of reminding me of the Aussie episode where, like, if where we're landing is some idea that this might be the first metal song, we're certainly getting a lot of that sound in the rhythm section, the drums, as we just discussed, and the raucousness and the crash symbol and even the heaviness.

And now with the bass, the distortedness and just the agro-aggressive style of playing, it's all really contributing to something that to my modern ears is like, oh, yeah, if I'm hearing this, it's kind of a stoner rock song. That could be a caius song. That could be Queens of the Stone Age, something like that. Got it. So I'll play a little more, and then I'll bring some other instruments in because that's always fun. So here's where we go to the low G, lover, but ain't no dancer part.

then into the chorus. I love that so much. It sounds so tough. It's so tough. It's like proto, it is proto heavy metal. It is proto heavy music, I should say. We've been talking about how this song was influential in the development of metal. It should be said that plenty of people, myself included, have frequently thought of like songs by the kinks.

Like, you really got me. All day and all of the night. Like, these really feel like early heavy metal. songs. But this song does feel like it has something to do with the development of the genre. I mean, I hear it as you do in this bass part. How can you help us draw some parallels here? So I would make the case, as we often do on this show, that genre is the strangest word. There's almost, it's almost always apples to apples with genre. Because when you talk about classical music, you're often talking about instrumentation and time period, right?

We're thinking about violins. We're thinking about the lack of distorted guitars, etc. And then when we get to blues, we're often talking about kind of a scale and a structure that finds its way into, if not every other genre, most other genres, from jazz to R&B to rock and roll. And this is no exception. When we say, is this metal, you really have to break it down to the sound. You have to break it down to who's making it and who the audience is and what the context is essentially. And also the vibe. What is the vibe? What is the vibe?

Yeah, the overall vibe of the song. So as I thought about this question of whether it's metal, it's not literally. metal, but it is what I would call proto-Sabbath, and Sabbath is itself proto-metal. Sabbath is heavy rock. It leads the way to what our modern ears think of as metal. But to me, metal really is about that characteristic guitar sound and sheen that we kind of start to hear more in the late 70s with like Judas Priest. To me, that's where metal starts to be metal, that to our modern ears still sounds like metal. If you wanted to start a metal band, I wouldn't go halftime grooves. That's more stoner rock to our modern ears, like in this song in Helter Sculter.

A lot of the sounds we've been hearing so far, to today's ears are really more like either doom rock or stoner rock, more like Caius, Queens of the Stone Age, that kind of thing. But there is clearly, historically, an importance to having distortion in 1968, to having these really big, raucous sounds and the crash symbol, a lot of sonic things, even the dissonance, the opening notes of the song, which is like a second. That's dissonance. So the loudness, the dissonance, the rockness of it all, I think is why we consider this in 1968

to be such an important song, to the development of what is later splintered in many directions as heavy music from heavy rock to heavy metal and beyond. I'm glad you bring up the dissonance because that guitar brings in dissonance from the very beginning. It doesn't go, da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-.

It's like wrong from the beginning. And yet it wakes you up and you're like, oh, if you guys saw when we first started playing the song in the studio, we both went crazy. So there's something about just that slide into the battery of ba-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b. The dissonance connects it almost more to like Sonic Youth, I would say, than, like, Metallica. Like, I'd say, like, this is less of a Metallica song than it, because of the dissonance and the avant-garde nature of the crazy sounds and atonelness, right, with the mouth-sax, you know, the mouthpiece, the sax mouthpiece.

Yeah. We're getting a lot of atonal and sort of avant-garde sounds and even the structure, the fading in and out. So I would say that there are some proto-heavy music characteristics in Helter Skelter. It does not directly tie. There's not necessarily a direct through line from this song, though, to the works of Megadath and Slayer and Anthrax, Metallica, the big four. Or the best Motley-Cru songs. Or even the best Motley-Cruz songs. I will say that also the riffiness is another part of the song's connection to all of those genres, because we do have in the chorus.

That's not necessarily on par with of the Zeppelin into Everything Sabbath. A huge part of heavy rock into metal, though, is riffiness, is having an instrumental melodic hook or motif that is just like equal, if not more important than a vocal in the song to maybe your takeaway of what's so cool about that song. So this also has that.

So just to summarize, I would say it's maybe heavy but not quite metal. it's closer to stone or rock than it is to like modern metal to our ears. But there's definitely a connection with the loudness, with the noise, and with the dissonance, it even has an avant-garde side to it. We are talking about that iconic intro.

With no further delay, let's hear that iconic intro. Now listen to the guitar here. Do you notice that? There's a bit of a sort of a droney, almost like a sitar, like microtonal. It might be, this song's in E-Mager, basically, E-7, E-major.

That might be an F, but it might be just under an F. But listen again, and you'll hear what we think is a very unusual guitar that's playing that. Right there. You can really hear it right there. I assume that was just the same guitar, but what is that? Well, there's probably two maybe more guitars in the mix there, but one of them. We're pretty sure that's George Harrison's Bartel fretless guitar, which we know he has. We don't have the documentation for every song he definitely used it on.

But to my ears, that sounds like a very unusual instrument, a frontless guitar. It's acting in a similar way to what a slide might do. It goes in between the notes. But it has this, and by the way, it's George, so it's got kind of an Indian flavor to it, right? It's got that very, like, because it's microtonal, it's going between the notes. And you're hearing this, don't. It's a little wobbling. So your sense of where the tonality is is like shifting.

Kind of like the humming at the end of painted black. We talked about how they're going. Yeah. Hmm-hmm. Hmm-hmm. Hmm. It's sort of in between the notes, and it gives it more of an Eastern flavor. It also has a little bit of a My Bloody Valentine flavor to it.

25 years ahead of the case, the drone sound. And also the fact that... The droniness of it? The droneiness and the sound, the note itself really moving just a little bit, just wobbling a little bit above the tone center, above that E. Yeah. I want to hear the guitars at the chorus, because that's really good shredding. It's good, by my definition.

Let's listen to that. There's also an overdubbed snare that you'll hear here. Ah, man, that part is so cool. That rise. That's Paul, right? I think that might be George and or Paul. Not sure. Not sure who's credited with that.

Really? We don't know, because it seems like we know everything about the Beatles sessions. We don't know. That's a mystery. There is speculation that that might be the George overdub on 10th of September, because it does give credit lead guitar part by Harrison. I would argue that sounds like a lead guitar part. Wow. Yeah, but we're not 100% sure.

I just want to know because it sounds so good. I just want him to get his flowers. You know, he might be, you know, somewhere not getting the flowers he deserves. Isolating that part, too, I'm noticing how that is a, that's a blues trope. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. So it takes us back to the origin of the song, the slower version that we had heard from just a few weeks earlier. Yeah, that's just, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. You play the fifth to the sixth, dun, dun, dun, but then he turns it into the riff, again, proto-heavy music with a

da-na-na-na-na-na-na-no. That's such a hooky part of the song. that little riff right there. Yeah. And then we have these little chirps that I think might be Harrison that come right after that. Yeah, you need those.

That one. That's very Harrison. I love that one. That's so Harrison to my ears. I love that one that you just play. That one always jumps out to me too. I feel like you hear that on, you know, my favorite era,

like the paperback writers and stuff. Yeah. That's sort of like real twangy thing. It could also be, you know, though, as a fan of the Beatles, like Lenin also has a guitar playing style, which is not dissimilar to that. So it might have been, it might have been Lenin. So we're not sure about a lot of the guitar work on this song. There's a lot of documentation that comes from the Lewison book. Yeah. And then there's scholarship that goes far beyond that. And there isn't a definitive, for example, a liner note

that points out this part played by this individual from the Beatles. So we do have to speculate a little bit. But it is, I think, informed speculation that we likely heard Harrison. in the parts we've just been listening to. It's amazing that as well-documented as the Beatles are, we don't have every answer. But the vibe you get is that they were running around, like I said earlier about the kindergartners, they were just running around, picking stuff up,

trying something, and then putting the instrument down. Trying is the name of the game of this one. They're just having, they're experimenting, they're enjoying. It's about sound more than it is aiming for a pop hit, and they're possibly exchanging instruments and just trying whatever works on this most recent take to make it better than the take they just did a moment earlier. Well, there is one role on the song that we do know who did it,

and that's Paul on vocals. And I think it's one of my favorite, not just Paul vocals, but one of my favorite rock vocals of all time. First off, I like it when Paul goes loud. He famously went loud on Long Tall Sally. He loves his little Richard. Yeah, he's definitely going for Little Richard there, but, again, like, I love Paul's voice when he goes loud and raucous.

And this song has a lot of that. And just playing that snippet from the early days is reminding me that they learned in the early days that the girls would go freaking crazy when they would go, when they would make unusual kind of like bordering on inhuman sounds. So clearly that was part of the experience

of making this song is like remembering like, oh, when we do crazy stuff, people love it. Let's hear his amazing performance at the top of this song. Okay, stop and turn and they go for a ride. Okay, stop it. I love him bringing back. yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the earliest Beatles songs. One of the first ones I ever filmed in one. She loves you. Let's hear a little bit of She Loves You. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he's brought it back. He brought back the Yeah, AAS from She Loves You. And now it's like,

interpolating this wow crazy way. This is so obvious. And there's an answer out there, but are the yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that is so cool. I've always been told that. Is that right? Karen O, if you want to correct the record, come on one song. I know. That's the only way for me to find out for sure. You must come on the show now. But we are under the same impression of the AAS are after the... That is a cool-ass band name based on that story. I love that. Let's keep going with the vocals.

One of my favorite parts is the Oz that come in. That's right. There are these background vocals that are coming from George and John. And let's listen. What do you go? Do you want me to love you? I'm coming down five. I love those Oz.

That's so sophisticated, too, that like the backing. That's like some Beach Boys or even... Yeah, it's like that of a doo-up thing. Yeah. I hear some metallic. sounds in there. I wonder if that's the chaos of, I wonder if that's the ashtray. Sounds like Paul is smiling, which is wild. Like, you know, they said that there were some substances in the studio there. Like, I never heard even on this song, which always sounds wild

and chaotic to me. It sounds like he's got a grin on his face while he's singing that. He's at the top of everything, the peak energy, the peak, the notes, everything. He's coming out at the top. He's miles above you because he's so high. I just want to hear that metal again. Wait, listen. Do you think this is George running around with the ashtray? What is that? Or is that a bottle of beer? Is that a sniffter of some booze? I have no idea what that sound is.

Yeah, it sounds like there's a lot going on in the studio. We're Chris Thomas. I have an isolated awe right here. Let's listen. I don't think that I realized that the ayes changed that much. I heard the first transition. Ah, ah.

Yeah. I didn't hear the, ah. Like, I didn't hear that third ah. What would you call that modulation or something? What's cool is that it's sophisticated. Like in this song, that's what I thought you were talking about with the Beach Boys. I actually, I hear it on the that that does, but I hear even more on just the a Oz. Like, it sounds like they, they were really hitting those notes.

It's a sophisticated harmony stack. I mean, this is like more church than it is, like, you know, early proto Sabbath. Sabbath doesn't have harmony stacks like this. So everything in the underside of the song is, like, heavy and raucous. And then by the middle, we have these crazy, like, guitar chirps and chaotic sax sounds. But at the top, it's not sophisticated, but, like, those harmonies definitely give it, like, we're still in the Beatles. Like we're still doing something

beetly that has a pop sensibility to it. 100%. Those are some amazing Oz. Yeah. The Oz might be an unsung hero of this song, right? Don't take anything away from Chris Thomas.

He suffered enough. We are both fans of this song. What do you think by you may be a lover, but you ain't no dancer? How does that lyric hit you? This song's lyrics have been analyzed to death.

And so I won't necessarily try to add my contribution to the canon of analyses. I think most of them are pretty good out there. I do think it's meant to be a play on words between Helter-Skelter, which the etymology of Helter-Skelter goes back to the 1590s. It's speculated that it might be from, quote, to hasten or scatter hurriedly. And it's also at an amusement park in England. It's the name of a ride.

It's a slide, exactly right. So my guess is that he's enjoying the double entendre, perhaps, of it being these things and this expression that's existed since the Middle Ages. But also, there's a little sexual and maybe a little druggie. And all of those things are probably wonderfully true. They're all coming true. He also said famously that it's about the rise and fall of Western civilization. That I have not heard. When confronted with...

That sounds like a smart-ass answer when he's been asked at this in time. Well, okay, so now we get to the part about how these lyrics were infamously misinterpreted by Manson. And, you know, he thought that this song and some others on the White album were subtle and, you subtle references to a race war between the whites and the blacks. I always laugh at that because I'm like, where were the Latinos? Where were our Asian brothers and sisters? But in Manson's warped and twisted mind,

this was about blacks and dumb whites fighting against, you know, the good whites of which Manson counted himself. And it got all this kind of stuff twisted up in it. And Paul sort of in response to that has said, Helter Skelter is really just the idea of an amusement park ride. It was a metaphor also for the fall and rise of, civilization, but not about murder or the end of the world. If I learned anything from the whole Manson episode, it was not to read too much meaning into songs because that can get fairly freaky.

You can kind of find any meaning you want. If you're a psychopath, you're going to find that meaning as Manson. And what's interesting is for a while, at least, I thought the whole part, you know, tell me, tell me, tell me the answer was about, you know, the answer to life. So the idea that you may be a lover, but you ain't no dancer, was about like Jesus is love, but he might not be like, you know, the most rebellious, aka dancer. Like, that was how I interpret. Or he just had written the line that ended with answer,

and he needed a rhyme. And it's a really cool run. It happens a lot in songwriting, if not all kinds of writing, that sometimes you find the end of the phrase comes from the previous line as opposed to a grand plan for the entire uplet, right? No, one of my favorite lines. of all time from hip hop is a lost boy song where he says, me and the crew will remain raw,

chopping through y'all like a chainsaw. And I'm always like, wonder which one of those phrases he came up with first. Chainsaw or remain raw? But he flipped him so you wouldn't notice as much. Probably backed into the Remain Raw. Is that your thesis? I think you're right.

Well, listen, for his part, John said, quote, I've never listened to the words. It was just noise. Even when he was recording it, he was at a different place. But don't forget, I mean, look, Paul and John was already kind of more of the Burroughs tradition, the cut up. The lyrics are just sound and meaning is secondary, if at all.

So I would imagine those are conversations. Maybe you're a rich man. I love the ironic John lyrics. Those are always my favorite. So maybe Paul's taking a cue from that and not worrying too hard about this, having a single meaning that he wants to make sure everybody gets clearly. But enjoying the ambiguity, I think he's enjoying the ambiguity. All right, luxury, now that we've heard the song, tell us how the splits break down. Well, as in so many Beatles songs, as George and Ringo will tell you. It is a 50-50 split between John Winston-Lennon, 50%, and Paul James McCartney with the other 50% for the publishing on this song.

And in a 1980 interview, John, and this was their way, even when they would have songs that one individual would write with some contributions from the other, which was their writing style, it's well-known. We will be talking in a big way about that on the next episode. This one, however, was very different in a 1980 interview right before his untimely death. John Lennon did say, quote, that song is Paul completely. Paul completely. Yeah, exactly right. So, yeah. But in spite of it being Paul completely, it is, of course, the entire band, but only half the band got the publishing on it.

Yeah. It doesn't surprise me that Helter Skelter is clearly a Paul song. But I've got to say, I've spent exactly zero time exploring his post-Beatles work with the band Wings. I think you know wings a lot more than me. So do you think you can convince me on wings in three songs? That's quite the challenge. All right. Let me see what I can do.

I would start with, let's see, my favorite Wings record is Band on the Run. Okay. Let's listen to... I've heard of it. I know the title track. Okay. That's a great song. You like that one.

Okay. I was going to ask you for three non-Ban on the Run songs. Okay. I'll go back and I'll try and dive into it and try and hear it as I've never heard it before. Listen, don't overthink. it. Silly love songs is a jam. Enjoy the bass line. You know what? That one note, the don't.

It screams Paul McCartney. It has a big grin on its face. Ban on the run. It's a little bit smug. Silly love songs, these both sound very, very Paul. Maybe I should have prefaced it by saying not ban on the run and not silly love song. Do you know arrow through me? I don't. Okay. Well, you're going to like this one. Let's hear it. You like Stevie Wonder? I want to get there. Yacht Rock. No, what's crazy. I didn't know Paul, McCarney had a Christopher Cross phase.

Like, there's so much, you talk about proto-metal? Apparently his proto-yot rock too. I did not know this. 100%. Can I just say, I am now reminded that there is one-wing song that found its way into me liking it. Okay. Do you know the song Old Siams, sir?

It sounds familiar, but what record is that from Back to the Egg? No, this is, yeah, it's from Back to the Egg. Yeah, that's a great record. This is Old Siam, sir. I really do like this song. And now, can I tell you how I came across that song? because it was sampled in 2000 by a LA artist named Nocturnal for his song music. It was one of the few times that Paul has ever personally signed off on a song like that.

And I had to know what the sample was. Here is music by Nocturnal. Yeah, when I heard that song, I was like, that's clearly a sample. And man, this song goes hard. I always say clear your songs for samples because you might turn on a listener who has not known all of your catalog. So have you come around now you are a McCartney fan? Oh, I just said I like one song. I'm still struggling with wings.

Listen, as long as you can you expand the parameters of this exercise to include solo Paul McCartney? You know what? I think solo Paul McCartney I sort of am more cool with. Yeah. And also, like, he was putting out music in the, he put out one of my favorite Michael Jackson. Say, Say, Say, say, it's an amazing song. Okay. That, as we've said on the show, if you replace The Girl is Mine on Thriller with Say Say Say,

somehow Thriller is an even better album. I agree with that. Solo Paul. Listen, if only the parameters for this exercise are so very porously drawn, it's possible. This would be my number one thing to play for you. If we can include solo Paul, and you may already know it. But if you don't, and if the listeners out there don't, this might be my favorite Paul McCartney track. It's definitely the coolest.

It's got the most cred. Temporary Secretary from McCartney 2. Do you not know this song? I don't think so. Oh, come on. Look, I was actually on board. I was, like, so ready to like this song. Then when he went nasally on the chorus like that, I'm like, come on.

This is why Paul needs a john. He needs somebody to just pull it back. Pull him back a little. That's a very popular sentiment. You're not the only one who thinks that way. Paul's got so many good ideas, but he needs some censorship. You're not going to, you're not going to call up the mic B and say, come on, I got to get a DJ gig tonight because I'm starting and ending my set with us.

I wonder how I've gone this far in life and I've never, what year is that? Is it like 79? 80. It's 80. Very cool, interesting track. He lost me when he got to the chorus. I don't know who told him, hey, Paul, see. I sing this with your nose pinch.

No one tells him anything. No one tells him anything. Part of the problem. Hey, you can come here and produce Paul or you can just fuck off. That much is clear. Well, that's Helter Skelter. And before we move on to part two next week, what would you say is the legacy of this song specifically in the, you know, well-traveled beetle canon of songs.

I think the Beatles are underrated for their contributions to heaviness and avant-gardeeness in music that came after. I think their pop songwriting is unparalleled on potentially planet Earth, one might say. A lot of people might make that case. And I think it's interesting. I'm glad we broke it down and kind of got to what is it about this song that is proto, if not metal itself, proto-heavy music. So I think that's an important part of the legacy of Helter Skelter and the canon.

And just to be really clear on what that is, it's the heaviness, it's the use of dissonance, it's the loudness and raucousness of all things vocal, all things, crash symbol, all things guitar. Every instrument is doing something that borders on abrasive, and there are moments that are literally, in what the definition of the term is, dissonance. There's sounds that are harsher to the ears of a 1968 listener

to maybe a modern listener. So that's important to bear in mind that contextually, in 1968, this song, if not the whole record, was really adventuresome, risky, and avant-garde. You can imagine that mom in Missouri, like, cut that off. What is that noise? This is the Beatles. What? You mean those guys with the nice haircuts?

Yes, I think it's easy to look back on their career now and say, wow, they took chances and they won. You've got to believe that there were some people at their record label like, can we just please sing about, I want to hold your hand again. Yeah, no singles from this record. No singles. And I think that's another reason why it took... a little while for young Diallo to discover it because this was not easily accessible music.

I agree. It took longer for a young luxury as well. But now it is the record, one of my top three, as I was saying before. There's a lot more depth to the music in a lot of ways. I think maybe, and it comes through what we know about the personalities, and we know about the band's dissolution, which was barely a year away when they recorded Helter Skelter. and their thirst for adventure and adventure some sounds and just to be eclectic and to sort of branch out and to leave the fab four model behind them and the mop tops behind them and move forge new territory. That was only four years before this, which is crazy.

Yeah. The whole mop top revolution. This song could have been a pop record in a later time, but in the Beatles time it was very much an experimental record. All right. That was Helter Skelter. Stay tuned for part two. well, we do a very different song. A Day in the Life from Sergeant Pepper's,

Lonely Hearts Clubin. As always, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok. You can find me on Instagram at Diallo, D-I-A-L-O, and on TikTok at Diallo-R-R-L-L. And you can find me on Instagram at L-U-X-X-U-Y and on TikTok at LuxuryXX. And you can follow our podcast on Instagram and TikTok at OneSong podcast.

You can also watch full episodes of OneSong on YouTube. Just search for OneStrecht. song podcast. We'd love it if you'd like and subscribe. Also, be sure to check out the one song Spotify playlist for all the songs we discuss in our episodes. You can find the link in our episode description. And if you've made it this far, you're officially part of the One Song Nation. So show us some love. Give us five stars. Leave a review. And please send this episode to 25 of your friends. It really helps keep the show thriving. But not that 26th. We know he lies a lot. He lies a lot. Luxury, help me in this thing. I'm producer, DJ, songwriter,

musicologist and every Friday night from 10 p.m. till midnight, KCRW DJ luxury. And I'm actor, writer-director, and sometimes DJ, Dialla Riddle. And this is one song. We will see you next time. This episode is produced by Casey Simonson, mixing in engineering by Eric Hicks.