Beach Boy Dennis Wilson Stole a Song From Charles Manson In 1968: It Nearly Cost Him His Life
May 28 2021, Published 5:16 p.m. ET
When mass murderer Charles Manson first gathered his followers around him, his original plan was not to embark on the killing spree that eventually saw nine innocent men and women butchered -- including the seven infamous Tate/LaBianca murders-- but to make it as a pop star.
And according to a new book The Last Charles Manson Tapes: Evil Lives Beyond the Grave, one of his musical compositions even made it onto a Beach Boys album -- with near-fatal consequences.
Authors Dylan Howard and Andy Tillett reveal how the Manson-penned song Cease to Exist was “appropriated” by Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson to appear on the band’s 1969 album 20/20 as Never Learn Not to Love.
Wilson had first met Manson in the spring of 1968 when he picked up two of his female “Family” members – within days almost the whole cult, including Manson himself, had moved into his Los Angeles mansion.
“Wilson indulged Manson’s musical grandiosity,” write Howard and Tillett. “He and Manson jammed together, and made a few attempts at collaboration. He arranged for recording time in a Santa Monica, California, studio.”
The recording session did not go well. Manson’s runaway ego and Messiah complex would not allow him to take direction from the producers, and at one point, he even pulled a knife on the head engineer.
As the authors explain, another problem may have been the quality of the songs themselves.
“The music he made was seen as average at best and by no means good enough to make it into the charts,” they write. “His song lyrics were usually straightforward suggestions or requests regarding how he wanted people to behave, such as urging women to surrender and serve men. He was also a huge believer in the power of the stream-of-consciousness and would make up lyrics on the spot which would remind Family members of what had driven them to him, such as their anger toward their parents."
“One of the more striking examples of this are the lyrics of Cease to Exist:
Pretty girl, pretty, pretty, pretty girl / Cease to exist / Just come and say you love me Give up your world / Submission is a gift / Go on, give it to your brother.”
The record producers and studio engineers may not have been impressed, but Wilson himself saw something in Manson’s music – and in Cease to Exist especially. He kept the tapes as potential source material for his own contribution to the next Beach Boys album, even allowing Manson to believe that he would receive a co-writing credit for the track.
