Do you believe this Helter Skelter bullshit?
["Death to Pigs", "Political Piggy"]
["Got to admit, it sounds like a vision"]
There is no vision
I might have had an opinion about blacks and whites, and the hassles they were havin'
But I don't recall saying anything about starting a race war
[So how did that become the story?]
It was Sadie who started hearing messages in the White Album
She gave the media the material for any perversion they cared print
The DA grabbed Sadie's version, ran all the way through the courtroom with it:
"Charles Manson: the most dangerous man alive"
"Hippie cult leader who programmed people to kill"
In that book, he's got me so powerful, a look from me stopped his watch!
I'd lay there in my cell wondering, "Wow, am I really all they say?"
I was halfway believing that shit myself
But I've been starring at every clock I see
And you know what?
As hard as I stare, the clock never stops
Tex and Sadie came to me and said,
"Let's do some copycat killings to get him off."
Those kids were looking at me with hard eyes
Yeah, your kids
Tax Watson, the all-American boy?
The pride of Copeville, Tax-us
I have better sense than to disagree with him
So I said this:
"You do what your love tells you to do
I'll do what my love tells me."
Now whatever he did, that's up to him
He'll have to explain it to you
I had to go. I had to go.
Listen, Tex, he put himself on me, man
He tried to make me look weak
We were moving forward inside ourselves
We were learnin' new things, and he changed it
See, he went outside
He made his own circle
And, what, now he wants to go back to "Jesus Loves me"?
Blood of the lamb, the right/wrong games we played for 2000 years?
[Right and wrong is a game?]
There are no rights and wrongs, only ises
Whatever life is, it is
Right and wrong got nothing to do with it
[So the murder of seven people just "is"]
Well, it is, isn't it?
No one ever dies, no one ever lives
Those are two words in a leftover game
You eat meat with your teeth, you kill things that are better than you
Then you say children are killers
[no I'm saying you are a killer]
I have killed no one..
[You didn't stop them either]
If he falls, that's how he learns, you become strong by falling
[You are not suppose to let children fall, you are suppose to guide them]
Guide them into what?
Guide them into what you've guided them into?
This anger that you feel, this is just the anger that you have got for you
Find someone else to put yourself on
I'm tired of being your goat
I'm tired of being your reflection
[You're not my reflection]
I've always been yours
I've been in your cell since I was eight years old
I don't even have a name
I'm B-33920
A bell rings, I get up
A bell rings, I go out
A bell rings, I do what that bell says
I.m Pavlov's dog, man
I'm anything you wnat me to be
But what you want is a fiend
Because that's what you are
See, I never had any say in your world, you created it
How do you feel about those murders?
That's what counts
Happened in your world, not in mine
[What counts is that you ordered the deaths of seven people]
[Eight if you count an unborn baby]
And now you can reflect it back on me? and you can lock me up in your penitentiary, and you can say that your world's better
But prison's a frame of thought
We're all our own prisons
We are each our own wardens
We do our own time
Prison is in your mind
Can't you see I'm free?
[You don't look so free to me, Charlie]
No, you don't look free to me!
You look like a composite of what someone told you you are
You live for other people's opinion, you got pain on your face, and you wonder if you look okay
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