The Tate-LaBianca Homicide Research Blog

No Mistaking What These Lyrics Are About...
Revolution Blues - Neil Young

Well, we live in a trailer, at the edge of town

You never see us, 'cause we don't come around.

We got twenty five rifles, just to keep the population down

But we need you now, and that's why I'm hangin' 'round.

So you be good to me, and I'll be good to you,

And in this land of conditions, I'm not above suspicion

I won't attack you, but I won't back you.

Well, it's so good to be here, asleep on your lawn.

Remember your guard dog? Well, I'm afraid that he's gone.

It was such a drag, to hear him whining all night long.

Yes, that was me with the doves, setting them free near the factory

Where you built your computer, love.

I hope you get the connection, 'cause I can't take the rejection

I won't deceive you, I just don't believe you.

Well, I'm a barrel of laughs, with my carbine on

I keep 'em hoppin', till my ammunition's gone.

But I'm still not happy, I feel like there's something wrong.

I got the revolution blues, I see bloody fountains,

And ten million dune buggies, comin' down the mountains.

Well, I hear that Laurel Canyon is full of famous stars,

But I hate them worse than lepers, and I'll kill them in their cars.

 

1974: “Revolution Blues”

On Young’s 1974 album On the Beach, he included a song about Manson, “Revolution Blues”, culminating in the couplet: “I hear that Laurel Canyon is full of famous stars/ But I hate them worse than lepers, and I’ll kill them in their cars.”  Subtle it’s not, but a pretty extreme sentiment for a rock star, one illustrating just how far Young has deviated from the gently melancholic country rock, the “Heart of Gold”-type stuff, that is still what he is most publicly known for.
For his part, Manson said in a 1995 interview from prison in California that all his old musician friends “didn’t give a sh*t” – except Neil Young, who once gave him a motorcycle.  When Young’s biographer related this to Young, he seemed oddly pleased to have won Manson’s approval: “So Charlie remembers me too, huh? Everybody else ripped him off.  I gave him a motorcycle.  I turn out to be a good guy.”