Chrysti the Wordsmith > Radio Scripts

The reduplication or rhyming phrase helter skelter, a part of the English language since at least the 1500s, refers to disordered haste, confusion, and tumult. The OED suggests that the expression was originally a vocal imitation of the sound of scurrying feet.

But in 1974, the expression helter skelter was given a sensational new life as the title of a book featuring the lives and deeds of the Manson Family, a California communal group who followed the teachings of their cult guru Charles Manson. In the late 1960s, Manson attracted a group of young followers, who believed, like he did, that a worldwide holocaust was coming.

Convinced that apocalyptic prophesies were encoded in the songs recorded by the Beatles on their 1968 "White Album," Manson took the title of the song "Helter Skelter" to be a synonym for the coming armageddon. Obeying the supposed "instructions" recorded in the song, Manson ordered his followers to commit random murders in the LA area, and to graffiti the words "helter skelter" at the crime scenes.

In reality, the Beatles were merely singing about a British amusement park ride, the helter-skelter, a spiral slide built around a tower -- a harmless enjoyment named after the reduplication that had for centuries meant disordered haste and tumult.

Radio Script > Helter Skelter II