One night, while xploring the Beatles The Beatles album (the one that saved a ton on cover graphics only to squander the savings on the inside lyric sheet and headshots) I had the occasion to share with Robin the song that spawned a franchise: Helter Skelter.
The song I had a hankering to hear, Everybody’s Got Something to Hide (‘Cept For Me and My Monkey) is a track away from said cultural icon and we both were impressed how well the album holds up. I always viewed the White Album as Lennon’s breakout work, thus my favorite of the Beatles albums, but to deny Paul his props for what was once a magnificent rock voice would do him a disservice, regardless of the positively awful Christmas song playing on the Korean Market’s PA system the other night.
To make a long story interminable, the consideration of Helter Skelter (both confusion and a slide ride in Britain) led to the revisiting of its franchise, the murders that made Bugliosi a household word (around the Bugliosi house) and Manson a name synonymous with murder, cultish madness and some decent hard rock songs, especially covers.
As is our custom, Robin reads the book and we discuss it, going over parts aloud, looking at the pics. Afterward I did a Wiki follow-up, noting the similarity between Susan Atkins nom de guerre Sadie Mae Glutz and Mona Simpson’s Muddy Mae Suggins after which we revisited the original movie with Steve Railsback playing crazy, crazy Charlie. For a TV outing, it was fairly comprehensive and held up better than I thought it would, damn these preconceptions of mine.
Anyway I decided to write a song about the implications of young women, still very much girls, and men, (note our pride in being good old boys) who had so little direction or apparent positive parental influence that they would so readily attach their very lives to that of such an obvious charlatan and thug.
As I write this I immediately think of religious and political leaders who placate millions with transparent fiction, who induce millions of men and women to take up arms against each other for the glory and benefit of a few. I think of the negligible impact I had on my children (though none have killed anyone to the best of my knowledge) and wonder what level of parenting can even be imagined as effective – many parents raise their kids believing that war is honorable, that soldiering is a noble profession, that killing based upon the words of total strangers is patriotic.
Charlie’s girls were soldiers, following blindly the instructions of the daddy they made for themselves to replace the one they never had. Or perhaps had too much of. Anyway, as the song took shape I realized it wasn’t about what I thought it was, but a more universal perception of the want which has plagued humanity from the beginning of time. It wasn’t about Manson as the father to his extended family, but about that lack which allows people like him to exist in such tragic abundance. It’s about
Daddy Issues
Position available
Apply yourself inside
Opening for a daddy
So many have applied
Promise ever unfulfilled
If history is a guide
Blind to the big picture
Just along for the ride
The first bit is quite easy
As opposites distract
A little huggy squeasy
Horny humans interact
Flirt assert insert exert
Precise yet inexact
Delight transforms to effort
Issues result from impact
Daddy issues quite a mess
Little babies big distress
Mammals have a cuddling inclination
Safety in daddy’s loving embrace
Some mommies spurn daddies’ adoration
A sad situation all too commonplace
Daddy can’t love us as he loves mommy
State regulations and mommies insist
Daddies hit hard by mommy’s rejection
Find children in ways hard to resist
Sad children starving for adult approval
The most perverse of daddies will enlist
In actions resulting in childhood removal
What choice is there in the kiss or the fist
Daddy issues troubling mess
Some types undress to impress
A challenge why would daddy dis you
To hope in absence daddy miss you
Or that in public he won’t dismiss you
He’ll wipe your weeping eyes with tissue
Or hold you close and even kiss you
It appears we have a daddy issue
Daddy issues such a mess
Another case where more is less
Daddy had a daddy likely worse than he
Everybody’s got a place to learn debauchery
We know bad behavior is learned in custody
What’s the difference anyplace if you’re too young to flee
Enslaved to a notion, another’s property
The coin toss of creation extant in biology
Tragic repercussion or commonality
In overcoming daddy must we bask in misery
Some will go Gomorrah, others live in sodomy
Some places it’s a sacrament, others a felony
Daddy issues sticky mess
When you’re held under duress
My daddy beat me with a belt
His daddy beat him with his fist
Frustration in the pain that’s felt
Anger unable to resist
When daddy’s having fits
He hits and hits and hits
When daddy’s losing bouts
He shouts and shouts and shouts
When daddy is three sheets
He beats and beats and beats
When daddy’s delight dies
He cries and cries and cries
Unable to face his fears
Daddy disappears
Daddy issues some big mess
All must crumble under stress
When he’s home he hurts you
When he’s gone you hurt yourself
Each time daddy deserts you
He perverts your mental health
The longing for a father
Our shared human lament
The struggle, toil and bother
Around which every brain is bent
Daddy issues one more mess
Many urges to repress
Our father who art in service
Hallowed be thy war
For war makes daddy duties
So easy to ignore
Is it peace or isolation
That you’re fighting for
Our father who art in labor
Hallowed be thy work
The effort maintaining income
Makes parenting easy to shirk
Schools and gangs can baby sit
An always useful perk
Our father who art in business
Hallowed be thy employ
Exacting such grand profits
Provides the distance you enjoy
New cars can compensate
For the lives you destroy
Our father who art in debt
Hallowed be thy arrears
Feed your children on regret
Wean them with your fears
A shame to blame your offspring
As off course your life veers
Our father who art in hiding
Hallowed be thy hidey hole
Influence huge but negligible
When taken as a whole
So many wretched in the wings
Prepared to fill that role
Daddy issues life’s big mess
Guess you’re ready to confess
As adults we must face the facts
Of which we’re so afraid
Daddy didn’t want us
He just wanted to get laid
© 2010