Sex Pistols - "God Save the Queen"
Whew. After the awfulness of "He Hit Me" we have a political song about a regime that has been part of oppressing people for centuries. Is the Queen in the song now dead? Of course, the family remains the same. There is little doubt that the royals have been so distanced from real people that they have stopped having any sense as to real problems. They make money simply by being born.
The real controversy with this track did not happen during the recording but the genius of the band to rent a boat during the Queen's Jubilee and the boat drifted next to the Queen while the song played. The band was escorted away by the police, but the damage had been done. The moment was one of the best in the history of rock.
In fact, this is one of the best moments anyone tried to create something to instigate, did it perfectly, and then followed up on it. The Sex Pistols were far from a perfect band and certainly had their issues, but the creation of the song and the moment near the Queen was amazing.
Beatles - "Helter Skelter"
The lyrics read as some drug-induced form of psychedelia because, well...that is what it seems as if they could be (whether that was the band's intent or not). In no way should anyone who is thinking logically interpret the words and then go on a killing spree. However, that is what Charles Manson and his followers did as they believed what the Beatles were saying had something to do with an end-times race war. Seriously...what?
Perhaps Manson, who eventually spent his life in prison and died there, was such a messed up individual that he combined the perceived name of the Beatles record upon which the song exists, the White album (which is not its official name; The Beatles is), the color of one's skin, and then his interpretations of the "Helter Skelter" lyrics.
In any case, Manson clearly was out of his head, unless he just had a deep-seated hate of slides. Maybe he had an incident as a child at a playground? Or, most likely, he was just a lunatic.