Born Villain

• Release date: April 25, 2012
• Genre: Rock
• Length: 59:17
• Label: Hell, etc. / Cooking Vinyl
• Written by: Marilyn Manson, Twiggy, Chris Vrenna, Fred Sablan

Track List

Introduction

Manson's previous two albums were products of depression. Eat Me, Drink Me was all about getting over his failed marriage to burlesque performer Dita Von Teese, and then the follow up The High End of Low was all about his breakup with actress Evan Rachel Wood, which ended when Wood refused his marriage proposal. Both albums featured a hopeless and depressed Manson who was trying to capture his pain in music and lyrics. Then Manson finally decided that he didn't want to be that version of himself anymore. He felt the need to get back in control of his life, to reconnect to that driven attitude that he started the band with, and to start enjoying making his art again. Armed with the creative freedom he regained following his split with longtime label Interscope Records, he packed most of his things away, moved to an apartment above a liquor store that was converted to a recording studio, and started working on an album that was going to be his comeback.

Villain as the catalyst for change

Manson picked the concept of a villain to represent the album because in stories it's always the villain that creates change, often by daring to break the rules. We always perceive the hero to be the most important character in a story, but without the villain, there is no story. Everything stays the same, and all the hero does is trying to make things go back to the status quo.

So, in Manson's terminology, the villain isn't necessarily the bad guy, but rather the guy who dares to bend the rules and drive change. For example, Dexter from the similarly named show, is a villain by Manson's definition. So is Shakespeare's Macbeth. So is Lucifer, for daring to disobey God's rules.

Since Manson talked in interviews about reconnecting with the attitude he had back when he started the band, it's worth noting that this affinity for villains is actually a throwback to the band's early work, where Manson drew inspiration from characters like Willy Wonka and the Child Snatcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, stating in an interview "I want to be my childhood villains".

New Horizons

This album is rooted in Manson turning a new page in life, and heading in a different direction than what he did in the past. So, it's no wonder then that this album brought about a new set of inspirations, fairly removed from the American culture centric nature of most of his previous work.

Far east spirituality

Far east spirituality makes multiple appearances on the album, specifically Buddhism and the Chinese I-Ching. The I-Ching is an ancient divination book that literally translates to "Book of Change", and the basic I-Ching trigrams can be seen in artwork for the era. Various Buddhist concepts are referenced in lyrics, on songs such as "Hey, Cruel World..." and "Children of Cain".

Greek Mythology

Greek Mythology is featured prominently in "Overneath The Path of Misery", and in a covert fashion on the opening track. Also, topics related to the ancient Greeks also make an appearance in the album, such as the Golden Ratio, which was discovered by the Greek, and the city Rome, which belonged to the Greek's neighbors the Romans. The Greek mythology stories that make an appearance on the album are those of Oedipus and the Rape of Persephone.

Shakespeare's Macbeth

Shakespeare's Macbeth was apparently very influential for Manson because he mentioned the story multiple times in various interviews as an example of his conception of a villain. On the album, Macbeth appears in the song "Overneath The Path of Misery", and is also referenced in the Born Villain short film, which was produced in collaboration with actor Shia LaBeouf as a promotional trailer to the album itself.

Pistols and Flowers

Flowers and pistols appear a lot on the album, making them a key part of the album's aesthetic. The gun references are usually about a revolver, which is associated with Western movies, where all the archetypal villains come from.

As for the flowers, "I don't know where all this came from essentially", Manson said in an interview. "Maybe it's because my dad was in Vietnam and there's an iconic image of the flower being put into the rifle".

Les Fleurs Du Mal

One particularly important appearance of flowers on the album is on the track The Flowers of Evil, which is named after a similarly named book of poetry by French poet Charles Baudelaire. This book was clearly very influential for Manson, since he not only did a song inspired by it, but also a painting, and even named one of his art exhibits after it in 2007. When touring in support of the album, the painting would sometimes be displayed on the projector screen during select songs.

Song Analysis

Hey, Cruel World...

This song is about Manson asserting himself in the role of the villain.

No Reflection

This song is about Manson not knowing who he is. It seems to explore the thoughts and feelings that made him realize he isn't who he needs to be and that he needs to make a comeback.

Samples?

At the very beginning of the track you can hear Manson say "“how else do I ??? ??? ???"", and a woman saying "That way mago", "wet", and "super dry". It's unclear if any of this was meant to be an actual easter egg in the track, or if it was just background sounds bleeding into the microphone before recording began.

Pistol Whipped

Pistol whipping means beating someone with a pistol. However, there's also a bit of a wordplay in the phrase. In an interview Manson said that he named this song "Pistol Whipped" because

"a pistil is obviously the female part of the flower".

This is a key phrase for interpreting the song, because at face value most of the lyrics sound like the perspective of a man who is abusive towards women, until you get to the chorus, which seems to say the opposite: "you're a little pistol, and I'm fucking pistol whipped". If this is in fact the perspective of an abusive man, why is he "pistil whipped", that is- whipped by women? Isn't he the one doing the whipping?

One interpretation is that it's the reiteration of the idea that being weak makes you dangerous. Often, people who are abusive act this way from a place of emotional defenselessness. They lash out uncontrollably because the slightest provocation hurts them deeply, so ironically, they feel like they are the ones who are "whipped" by their victim. Another interpretation is that the song is really about a female abuser, and most of the lyrics are a form of misdirection. The gender of the speaker is never actually revealed, but it's safe to assume that most people would jump to the conclusion that it's a man being abusive towards the woman, and subverting the expectation is an opportunity to make a point. The point could be "look at your bias", or it could be "now that you know it's a woman, does it change the way you feel about it?"", since female-on-male violence doesn't get the same amount of outrage as male-on-female.

Samples

The song begins with the sound of a revolver cylinder spinning.

Overneath The Path of Misery

This song is about rejecting tragedy/rising above tragedy/flipping tragedy upside down. This tragedy negation concept emerges through the many wordplays in the lyrics, the first of which appears in the song name itself. "Overneath" is obviously the word "beneath" transformed into meaning "above". He transforms being below the path of misery into being above it, which could be taken as transcending it. Then in the lyrics themselves he talks about "fucking myself down", rather than up, and "unswallow my pride" rather than the common idiom of swallowing his pride, all being used to mean his wish of undoing his personal tragedies which he was complicit in creating (he fucked himself up, he swallowed his pride). Later in the song the word "forever" is transformed into "fornever"- forever never.

Another example of flipping tragedy upside-down can be found in the intro of the song, where Manson recites a soliloquy from Macbeth:

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

"That quote can be taken as, woe is me, my life is shit, I give up," Manson said in an interview. "When Macbeth said it, it was a resignation. But I read it differently. I started thinking it was empowering. For me, it was a resurrection." [...] "It can be interpreted as a depressing statement, or as a somewhat liberating or redeeming statement. I wanted to make it whatever people want to hear it as."

The song also has a "fuck it, nothing means anything" sentiment that repeats throughout. The words "signifying nothing" are repeated 3 times in reverse right before Manson begins reciting the Macbeth quote, suggesting that he places particular significance on that part of the quote, and the song also stresses the words "no reason" and "whatever". This could be interpreted as nihilistic, but because this song is about rejecting tragedy, I think the sentiment expressed by it is more akin to not letting the incessant nonsense of life take hold of you. Someone is being a dick? Whatever. No point in dwelling over it. How could this injustice have happened to me? No reason, it just did. Now get on with your life instead of brooding over it. Maybe if I find meaning in my tragedy, I'll be able to tolerate it better? No, there's no meaning, it signifies nothing, just pick yourself up and go on living.

The song includes references to both Macbeth and Oedipus, so it's worth taking some time to understand what these stories are about. Both stories are tragedies, both stories deal with fate, and both characters epitomize Manson's conception of what a villain is by being agents of change and by being rule breakers who usurp a throne from its rightful owner (the part about breaking rules does fit Macbeth a lot more then Oedipus, but the story of Oedipus still has elements of that).

In Macbeth, a brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness and death. Lady Macbeth eventually kills herself, prompting Macbeth to utter the soliloquy recited at the beginning of this song, and as for Macbeth, he tracks down the three witches and receives another prophecy about when he will be killed/dethroned. Initially, he thinks that the prophecy is impossible, and thus believes himself to be invincible, but ultimately the prophecy does come true, and he is slain in battle.

The story of Oedipus is a typical Greek tragedy, and as such it is driven by the classic Greek tragedy format wherein a character tries to run away from their fate, but ironically the very actions they took in order to escape fate end up being the actions that cause it to come true. Case in point, in the story of Oedipus, Oedipus learns of the prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother. Determined to not let it come true, instead of returning home to his parents, he runs away to another city. But what he doesn't know, is that he is adopted, and his biological parents are the king and queen of the city he just run away to. He meets his father on the road, and not knowing who he is gets into a fight with him and kills him. He then saves the city from the Sphinx and as a reward earns the hand of the recently widowed queen in marriage, thus marrying his mother. After a while of ruling the city, it is stricken by a plague of infertility, and an oracle tells Oedipus that it will last until the murderer of the previous king is discovered. Determined to cure the plague, Oedipus starts searching for the killer, which eventually leads to the discovery that he in fact fulfilled the prophecy he tried to run away from.

The song also makes references to The Rape of Persephone, another story from Greek mythology. Contrary to modern expectations, the word "rape" in the title means "kidnapping", not sexual assault. In the story, Persephone is kidnapped by Hades, ruler of the underworld, to be his wife. Her mother Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, begins searching for her missing daughter, and in the meantime causes a global famine. This eventually forces Zeus to order Hades to return Persephone to her mother, which he agrees to do, but then tricks Persephone into eating some underworld food, which makes her unable to fully leave the underworld, forcing her to go back for 3-6 months every year (depending on the version of the story). When she is in the underworld, Demeter becomes depressed again, and the land becomes cold, preventing crops from growing. When Persephone returns from the underworld, Demeter cheers up, and warmth returns to the world, enabling agriculture.

Finally, a few words about the title of the song. The path of misery could be a reference to Via Dolorosa, Latin for "way of suffering", which is a different way of saying "path of misery". Via Dolorosa was the path Jesus walked on his way to the crucifixion, and is a symbol for one of the famous tragedies in human literature, about a man punished for his virtues in the worst possible way. The Path of Misery was also the name of Manson's art exhibition that operated from November 2011 to February 5th 2012, a little before the beginning of the Born Villain era. At the event's launch Manson explained that he had chosen paintings which he felt represented milestones on his path out of misery.

Slo-Mo-Tion

This song is a sarcastic jab at talk show TV. For interpreting the lyrics it's best to imagine something trashy like the Jerry Springer Show. It's also partly inspired by a special slow-motion camera that Manson got to play with during the Born Villain era. The camera in question is PS-Cam X35 made by the German company P+S Technik. The camera Manson had access to was probably a pre-production prototype, because presumably Manson was the first person they lent it to. Effects of the camera can be seen in the music videos for the era.

The Gardener

This is a song about difficulties in relationships. It talks about two things: how sometimes one person outgrows the other (and the struggles that follow from that), and also about not wanting to transition from the idealization stage of the relationship to the real-person stage:

When a new relationship begins, one of its early stages is the idealization stage. This stage happens when you identify in the other person some sliver of your fantasy of an ideal partner, and then unconsciously project the entire fantasy on the person. In layman's terms we call this a crush, or an infatuation. A key stage in forming a relationship with that person is discovering the real person behind the fantasy, because you can't have a relationship with a fantasy (it's not real), but you can have a relationship with the person behind the fantasy. In this song, Manson is talking about how he doesn't want things to go beyond the fantasy stage, because that's when things start to ruin. The stage when reality penetrates the fantasy is represented by the moment when you meet her friends.

The Flowers of Evil

The title of this song is a reference to Les Fleurs Du Mal a collection of poetry by the French poet Charles Baudelaire, first published in 1857. Les Fleurs Du Mal can be translated as either "The Flowers of Evil" or as "The Flowers From Evil", and the word Mal can also mean ache or suffering, so it seems like it's not talking just about moral evil, but rather all forms of "badness" in the world. Since flowers generally represent beauty, the title seems to suggest that you can find beauty in evil/suffering, or that beauty can emerge from (grow out of) evil/suffering, which is apt for an album that wishes to turn to a positive direction coming out of a period of suffering.

This poetry collection was incredibly controversial upon its release. Its content was considered "an insult to public decency", and both Baudelaire and the publisher were prosecuted by the state. Baudelaire was fined 300 francs, and six poems from the collection were banned for publication in France until 1949.

The song itself appears to be a tribute to Baudelaire, since it seems to reference various aspects of his life, as well as his art. Baudelaire is a figure that has many parallels with Manson. Like Manson, his art was controversial and caused major public outcry. Like Manson, Baudelaire enjoyed reveling in the beauty of ugliness, which is something that can characterize a lot of Manson's own artistic output. Like Manson, Baudelaire was powerless against love; he had a stormy relationship with a woman, a French-Haitian named Jeanne Duval, who according to Baudelaire's mother "tortured him in every way" and drained him of money at every opportunity. She also had affairs with Baudelaire's friends, and encouraged his drug use, yet despite all this, Baudelaire considered her to be his greatest love, and stuck by her side for 20 years, so he was clearly unable to overcome the power love had over him, even to his detriment, which is a sentiment that was at the core of two of Manson's previous albums.

Samples

At the beginning of the song there's a sample of a man (or men) saying something that sounds like it was stitched from three different parts. The content as far as I was able to figure out is:

"This is for my", "you'll never guess who's", and "ain't this one".

The origin of this sample is currently unknown.

Children of Cain

This is the most philosophical song on the album, mixing concepts from both Christianity and Buddhism to ponder about the nature of sin and absolution. The general idea seems to be a criticism of the way Christianity approaches the concept of sin, with its quick fixes (Sunday worship rituals) and the unfair infliction via the idea of inherited sin. In contrast to that, Manson offers us the Buddhist approach, which rejects the concept of sin and original sin, and instead believes in salvation through personal transformation and reaching of a higher consciousness.

The song title is of course a reference to the biblical story of Cain and Able. In that story, Cain murders his brother Able out of jealousy-fueled resentment, becoming the first real human in the biblical corpus to perform an unforgivable sin (Adam and Eve were created by magical means, so they aren't technically regular humans). The significance of being Children of Cain hints at the Christian concept of inherited sin, making the Children of Cain sinners by bloodline.

It looks like the Buddhist elements in the song are at least partly inspired by the work of Paramahansa Yogananda. Yogananda was an Indian yogi who was very influential in introducing meditation and yoga to the West, and he was very interested in unifying Western and Eastern spirituality. Among his beliefs was the idea that the teachings of Jesus Christ and Bhagavan Krishna were in perfect harmony with each other, and he also had what he considered to be a "scientific" approach to religion. He believed that the commonalities that are apparent between Jesus and Krishna are the common scientific foundation of all true religions, and that science and religion can be united based on shared underlying principles.

Disengaged

At face value, this song is about looking back at a volatile relationship from the point of view of being disengaged from it. However, it looks like "disengaged" is also a word play on the word "engaged", meaning "not engaged (to marry)", and this is somewhat reinforced in one of the verses where he is talking about a fateful day in which she goes away, and him wanting to shoot a diamond bullet in her face for it. Engagement rings have diamonds in them, and Evan Rachel Wood left him after he asked her to marry him.

So, I think that specifically this song is about looking back from a distance about his volatile relationship with Evan Rachel Wood, and about how she refused his marriage proposal.

Samples

At the beginning of the song there's a sample that sounds like a bike driving away.

Lyrics	Commentary
And I could look into the crowded morgue of mistakes the sun stopped its smile and frowned on me too my re-built/re-mastered heart is smashed into its faces and its face is confused	He looks back at the many mistakes he has made. Such a fool was he that even nature itself judges him. I'm guessing he used "sun" because the sun is always watching over you, and it's a source of unconditional nourishment, but now even it stopped on its tracks to express its criticism. He had rebuilt and remastered his heart, so it already went through the process of being broken into pieces and glued back together, and now it's broken again, and he feels confused about his emotions.
I cut my throat in two I said "sorry" to you, for being a fool but I didn't want forgiveness. It was regret, not an apology it was regret regret regret	He regrets the things he has done, and even inflicted some self-punishment in repentance (cut my throat in two), but all of this acceptance of mistakes is done on his own terms. He isn't going to judge his mistakes by somebody else's opinion, that's why he isn't apologizing, nor asking for forgiveness, which are all appeals to somebody else's acceptance. He regrets it because he decided that he regrets it, not because somebody else thinks he did something bad.
Dis Dis Dis Disengaged you're with me, against me but the only thing forever is hate	Dis-engaged I believe that the way he sings it is meant to hint at the fact that this is a word play on the word "engaged". you're with me, against me It looks like the relationship was volatile, constantly jumping from one extreme to another. but the only thing forever is hate ...until finally the relationship came apart acrimoniously, and that's when the volatility described above finally stabilizes into hate, that's why it's the only thing that's forever. The word "forever" is another hint at marriage. It's the idealized "lived happily ever after", "be together forever" that lovers hope for. But turns out only hate is really forever.
I forget what I saw before and after that day I'd trade all I was worth to make myself into the handsomest gun and put the diamond bullet into your 404 ERROR face	It looks like that day was so significant it eclipsed everything else (everything that came before and after it). He then describes her face as a "404 ERROR" face. 404 error is the HTTP error you get when trying to access a website that cannot be found, so her being 404 error implies she is missing. This suggests that the day in question is the day when she left, and it's clear from the content of the verse that he is very angry about this, wanting to shoot her right in the face. This brings us to the engagement theory. I think that the bullet is made from diamonds because an engagement ring is made with diamonds, so it's like: you didn't want my diamond as an engagement ring? Fine, then you'll get it as a bullet in your face instead.
Dis Dis Dis Disengaged you're with me, against me but the only thing forever is hate
and I'm an event, and everybody knows you decide if you can live, or you decide to let someone decide for you	A version of this lyric was originally posted on Manson's Facebook page. The original text read: "You are an event other people know and decide to live around or not". The version in the song is a bit more ominous, but the general idea is similar: if you're not going to be in control of what happens to you, then you're choosing to let things to happen to you. Everybody knows what kind of an event I am. This is what it is, this is the ups and downs of being with me. You can make a conscious decision to accept it, or you can make a conscious decision to refuse it and leave, but if you don't make this decision yourself, you'll just be passively subjected to whatever happens from being around me.
Dis Dis Dis Disengaged you're with me, against me but the only thing forever is hate

Lay Down Your Goddamn Arms

The message in this song is "you can't force me to open up to you". He has a locked box where he keeps all of his secrets, and the other person is trying to forcibly open it by shooting down the lock, so "lay down your arms" means stop trying to force me to open up.

Murderers Are Getting Prettier Every Day

Samples

Police siren.

Born Villain

This song explores the question "are villains born or made"? Part of the lyrics imply that his villainy is innate ("there's a taste for blood, and it's something deep inside", "and you know I'm loaded"), while other lyrics can be seen as him turning to acts of violence by the influence of his circumstance.

Then there's also the word "become", which is repeated a total of 15 times just by itself, not even as part of a sentence, signifying that it has an important role in the song, as is appropriate for a song about born vs become.

In an interview for Revolver magazine, an interviewer commented that most villains aren't born, they're made. Manson's reply was this:

Breaking The Same Old Ground

This song is about two lovers who destroy their relationship by having the same fight again and again, never being able to get past it. The phrase "breaking the same ground" means "doing the same thing again and again", and the idea that the "thing" the song is talking about is a fight is illustrated in the chorus, which is written like an argument that's on the verge of becoming physical, as well as an easter egg at the 3-minute mark, where there's a sample of a man and a woman in the midst of an angry argument. Like other songs on the album that talk about relationship woes, it's written from the point of view of its aftermath.

Samples

At the 3-minute mark, there's a sample of what sounds like a woman screaming. The sample is pretty buried in the mix, so it's hard to figure out what to make of it at first, but if you use audio manipulation tools such as Audacity to clean things up a bit, and a pair of good headphones, you'll discover that there are actually two voices in there. The woman does most of the screaming, but the man gets in a few words as well, and you'll also be able to tell that the nature of the screaming is fury, not terror as one might assume from just hearing it without audio cleanup. In other words, it's a sample of a furious fight between a man and a woman, with the woman doing most of the screaming. The contents of the argument are still unintelligible to me.

You're So Vain

You're So Vain is a Carly Simon cover that appears at the end of the Born Villain album as a hidden track. It was produced in collaboration between Manson and Johnny Depp, who is a close friend of Manson, and was recorded mostly by people outside of the band in Johnny Depp's studio.

In another interview for Vanity Fair, Manson said that he and Depp picked the song to drive the point that the album isn't about anyone but Manson himself. "The previous ones might have been perceived as being about this girl or that girl - and that's what art was never supposed to be about".

Artwork

Born Villain is unusual among Marilyn Manson albums in that it doesn't have a lot of artworks. In fact, it didn't even have the lyrics written in the CD booklet, directing people instead to find them in the now defunct Born Villain website.

The album cover utilizes the "Face Framed In Shadow" technique that is often used to show that a character has a sinister side, a protrait style befitting a villain. The picture was taken by Lindsey Usich, a professional photographer who many years later would become Manson's second wife.

The Marilyn Manson logo, as well as the Born Villain logo, are decorated with I-Ching trigrams. The I-Ching trigrams represent the 8 forces of change.

Beyond The Record

The Born Villain era yielded 2 singles, 3 music videos, and a bunch of commissioned remixes. There was also a short film and a coffee book produced to promote the album.

Promotion

Born Villain film

The Born Villain film was a short surrealistic horror film created in collaboration with actor Shia LaBeouf, who initiated the project and also funded it. It was meant to be a trailer for the record itself, and could also be seen as the era's 4th music video, since its soundtrack is exclusively the track Overneath The Path of Misery. The film had a limited screening that could only be attended by people who purchased the "Campaign" coffee book, which is a photography book containing pictures of Born Villain posters plastered in various locations in LA.

Shia described the film as "Manson's 'Un Chien Andalou' macabre 'Macbeth'", while Manson called it "both an homage and a mockery of the history of Cinema.” It borrows some imagery from movies such as The Holy Mountain, Un Chien Andalou, and Spirits of The Dead.

The Holy Mountain is a surrealistic movie by Alexander Jorodovsky about a Jesus looking dude who stumbles around in a messed up world until he meets a magician who takes him on a pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain. The opening scene of the Born Villain film recreates the opening scene of The Holy Mountain almost identically. Also, the scene in which a man takes out his eye and hands it to someone is also borrowed from the same movie.

The Holy Mountain	Born Villain

Spirits of The Dead is an anthology of stories by Edgar Allan Poe. The last chapter in the anthology, Toby Dammit, follows a former Shakespearean actor's descent into madness. In one of the scenes, Toby is forced to make a speech at an award ceremony, and he does so by quoting the same monologue from Macbeth that Manson quotes at the beginning of Overneath The Path of Misery. A scene of the same nature is featured in the Born Villain film as well.

Toby Dammit	Born Villain

Born Villain is divided into 3 acts (and a prolog), each act having its own quote:

• Act I: The Toby Dammit/Overneath The Path of Misery speech.
  
  

  Life is but a walking shadow. A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. It signifies nothing.
  --Macbeth, Act 5, scene 5.

  
  Said by Macbeth as he plummets into despair upon learning of Lady Macbeth's death. See the Overneath The Path of Misery analysis for more context on the quote.
• Act II:
  
  

  Come ye spirits that tend on mortal thoughts. Unsex me here
  --Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 5.

  
  Uttered by Lady Macbeth as she asks evil spirits for the ability to carry on with her malevolent plan to cause the assassination of the king of Scotland. She asks the spirits to "unsex" her because she perceives her feminine tendencies to be an antithesis to the harsh, cold, and calculating person she needs to become to carry out her plans.
• Act III: is actually a combination of two quotes:
  
  

  For the wages of sin is death
  --New Testament, Romans 6:23.

  
  The full quote is actually "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord". It's worth noting that in this scene, Manson kills a man with a pistol that has a crucified Jesus attached to it. The quote is followed by:
  
  

  Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.
  --Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 4.

  
  This quote is said by Malcolm, the elder son of Duncan the king of Scotland, as he reports the news that the thane of Cadwar, who committed treason by siding with the enemy in the war, was executed, saying that despite his deplorable actions, he did die honorably by confessing his treason and expressing deep regret, thus "nothing in his life made him look as good as he did when he died".

Campaign book

The Campaign book is a book of photography released alongside the Born Villain movie. It contains photographs of Born Villain posters plastered all over LA, taken by Shia LaBeouf and his girlfriend Karolyn Pho. The filmed locations and their sequence are retracing the steps of a night LaBeouf and Manson spent in the streets of LA. The book description tells the story as follows:

Locals Rule. I think. Odd, living in L.A all my life and taking for granted my environment, my city. But one night, just a few months ago, I bumped into Marilyn Manson at one of my locals and together we crawled the city a bit; where he lived, where I lived, where we ate and drank and where we have been entertained. We traveled the roads to those places on streets that had become too familiar. And then I reflected back on that brief journey and traced that trip (with photographs). I connected buildings and streets, freeways, storefronts and trees with a BORN VILLAIN at my side. Here it is but with a little mood music to set my mood. -- Shia and K and MM

Below is a selection of some of the photos:

Singles

Two singles were released in support for the album. Both singles don't have any artwork aside from the cover, and both covers feature the I-Ching decoration on the Marilyn Manson logo (and on No Reflection text). No Reflection received a proper CD release, despite having no additional content beyond the base song, while Slo-Mo-Tion had various digital releases composed of commissioned remixes for the namesake track, all of which are aggregated in the digital Slo-Mo-Tion EP.

Music videos

No Reflection

When asked about the concept of the video, Manson said that:

It was written as a sarcastic view of my life. With the girls in my life, there's the one that you pick and she poisons all the rest, then as you try to save the one you pick, she poisons herself, so you have to kill her and then you're left alone. That is a very wide metaphor for everything that's happened in my life. You make choices and sometimes you pick the wrong one, for the wrong reasons.

Slo-Mo-Tion

Most of this video is a demonstration of the capabilities of the PS-Cam X35 slow motion camera. It was made in collaboration with Alan Lasky, a visual effects specialist who used a collection of advanced processing techniques to create the visual distortions that appear in the video. The technical details can be found in the February 2013 issue of American Cinematographer.

Aside from the visual aesthetic that makes up the majority of the video, there's also a side story. Manson, Twiggy (band's guitar player and main composer), and a topless woman are going somewhere. At some point Manson sits in a wheelchair as the woman pushes him forward. They reach a house, and Twiggy welcomes them in. Inside the house there's a party with some questionable characters.

The scene in which Manson, Twiggy, and the topless woman are walking in the street was uploaded to Manson's Twitter with the title "The witch, the liar, and the wardrobe", which is a reference to the first Narnia novel The Witch, The Lion, And The Wardrobe. This could mean that it had something to do with the inspiration for the video, however I personally don't see the connection, unless the inspiration was fantasy stories in general, and this was just a hint for the topic. Apropos to the fantasy theme, it's worth noting that in this video, Twiggy is wearing a conic hat, like a wizard, and seems to be "king of the realm" of that weird party they go to.

The balloons in the party have the words "rape" and "nobody loves you" written on them. "Rape" is also written in luminescent paint in the background of some of the luminescent paint shots of the video.

The video ends with Manson wearing a skull mask, walking on top of a roof with a machine gun, and aiming at a passing cyclist. This is related to the double meaning of the word "shoot" in the song lyrics (shooting with a camera vs shooting with a gun).

Hey, Cruel World...

This video contains mostly tour footage, although we do see Manson standing in an empty tunnel at some point, and the video ends with a door closing ominously. It was produced by AMP Rock TV as part of its The Show series of professionally edited live videos.

Tour

The primary tour for the album was called "Hey, Cruel World...", and it was followed be the "Twins of Evil" tour with Rob Zombie, and the "Masters of Madness" tour with Alice Cooper. Aside from incorporating visual elements from the music videos (like the skull mask and pink boa from Slo-Mo-Tion video), new stage elements included a microphone with knuckle buster, and a smoke gun with LEDs.