The Musical Lives of Charles Manson

Nicholas Tochka analyzes the role of rock music in the life of Charles Manson, the Family, and the August 1969 Tate-LaBianca killings, which also gives larger insight into Sixties counterculture.
Failed singer-songwriter. Devious cult leader, a rock Pied Piper. The product of a sick society. Just another dime-a-dozen singing hippy mystic. Did the guitar-playing guru personify the violence that the rock counterculture had inflicted on American society? Or did his music diagnose the dehumanizing effects of that society's broken institutions?
For over five decades, commentators have debated the meaning of Charles Manson and the Tate-LaBianca killings. A key thread linking their narratives has been rock music: from the acid-drenched singalongs at the Spahn Movie Ranch, to a bizarre theology centered on Beatles songs, to his commune's alleged links with Hollywood's elite, to Manson's own album, LIE: The Love and Terror Cult (1970). In this first comprehensive examination of the Manson Family's music, Nicholas Tochka writes with, against, and alongside the many authors-true-crime hacks, gonzo journalists, conspiracy theorists, and rock critics alike-who have told and retold the story of "the Manson murders." Playing the truth games that these postwar Americans helped invent, The Musical Lives of Charles Manson presents a boldly revisionist take on the story of the commune-and rock music's role in fracturing the possibility of writing trustworthy histories after the Sixties.
The Musical Lives of Charles Manson is also available in audiobook format from audiobook retailers.

Nicholas Tochka is Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of Audible States: Socialist Politics and Popular Music in Albania (2016), Rocking in the Free World: Popular Music and the Politics of Freedom in Postwar America (2023), and Ardit Gjebrea's Projekt Jon (2024). His work examines the politics of music-making in the postwar world.