A Summer of Chaos
The first three lines of the fourth verse depict the chaos that took place in the summer heat at the end of the decade. 1967 was the year’s self-proclaimed summer of love as youth culture hippies from all over the country headed to San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury district where they lived out the counterculture’s refrains of drug-induced transcendence and brotherly love. However, as they lived a carefree existence, the calm waters were soon to be disturbed by several events that challenged the flower power existence of the hippies.
Three soldiers stand amid the rubble of a burned building in Washington, D.C. Riots and looting occurred in many U.S. cities after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
This was the time when the violent Oakland anti-draft protests took place, but also the year the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy took place. Other significant imbalance included the black riots across the nation following the assassination of Martin Luther King as well as the riots at Columbia University and the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
The “Helter Skelter” phrase is a metaphor for the Celtic events of this period and also a reference to the song of the same name by the Beatles. Another musical reference in this verse is “Eight Miles High” by The Byrds, which was released in 1966 and spoke of the drug culture of the period and foresaw the anarchy that was about to erupt in America. Both of the songs cater to the idea of falling fast, which in retrospect it is a metaphor for the following of the all the world and the advent of a new one.