Lisa Francishelli: The Beach Boys’ Dennis Wilson — was he a friend? What was your involvement with him?
Charles Manson: Yes. I loved him.
Lisa Francishelli:Â Did he live with the Family?
Charles Manson: See, there you go again, drawing lines to the Family. What’s the Family? The Family had five people in it. It was a music group. It was called Family Jams.
Lisa Francishelli:Â Was Dennis there?
Charles Manson: Yeah. When the Buffalo Springfield broke up, they left a motorcycle over at Dennis’ pad. I wanted the motorcycle. I went over to get the motorcycle, mainly because I liked the Buffalo Springfield. I was there with this Neil something or other, Diamond or Young, and we sat and bullshitted. We played some music and he said, “You play pretty good, why don’t you take it up professionally?" I was going to do something with Dennis. I was writing songs for Dennis, and Dennis was taking them and giving them to his brothers’ recording company. They were changing the words all around and moving the song to the point that it was not saying what I wanted to say. I said, later! If I can’t say what I want to say, then I don’t want the money. Fuck the money, man. It’s the principle.
Lisa Francishelli:Â What were your thoughts when Dennis Wilson died?
Charles Manson: I knew it. I’d seen it. Too many negative trips. Dennis was a lost child. He was thrown up in the public’s eye before he really knew what life’s all about. When I got him to hitchhike up and down the highway a couple of times, he was thrilled to death, because that was like getting back in touch with reality. He had forgotten what the regular people lived like.
Lisa Francishelli: The Beatles —
Charles Manson: They killed the music. They killed the music by not standing up with the kids they were influencing. “Why don’t we do it in the road?" Do what? Who’s going to do it in the road? We’ll do it in the road, and we’ll do the suffering and the kids come to the nut ward and say, we’ll go down to Strawberry Fields, where nothing is real, Penny Lane, cut your fuckin’ wrists, write “I love you God" on the wall and all that stuff, and then hang yourself on the fuckin’ ventilator.
Lisa Francishelli: What was your reaction to John Lennon’s assassination?
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