Heaven Upside Down

• Release date: October 6, 2017
• Genre: Rock
• Length: 47:29
• Label: Loma Vista
• Written by: Marilyn Manson, Tyler Bates

Track List

Introduction

Unlike Manson's previous albums, Heaven Upside Down doesn't have a well-defined concept behind it, and it seems like Manson had a bit of a challenge deciding what the album should become:

The album was originally scheduled to be released on February 14th, 2017, but then it got delayed because Manson wasn't satisfied with it. He later supplemented the album with 3 additional songs: Revelation #12, Heaven Upside Down, and Saturnalia, telling Loudwire that:

So ultimately, once the album was done, Manson had decided that it tells a story, but as the above admission indicates, this wasn't a story that was there from the start, but rather something Manson was searching for for most of the creative process.

Story inspirations

The story is a failed love story, inspired by Manson's tumultuous experience with love. He has written many songs, and even entire records (see Eat Me Drink Me, and The High End of Low) about the turmoil of failed relationships, and the narrative of the album follows the same pessimism that characterizes those records: how relationships just tend to fail, again and again, no matter what you do. That is why, in the NME interview quoted above, he described it as "the same story that everybody knows in life where every story ends the same way, every romantic story ends the same way".

There are also indications that the chaos of the 2016 elections had an influence on the record. The 2016 elections were unique because the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, was possibly the most polarizing candidate in American history. Narcissistic, unqualified for the position (by his own admission to Pierce Morgan), old fashioned, he seemed like the guy who would break everything if he were elected into office, and pat himself on the back while doing that. Liberal voters were acting like the world was coming to an end as they watched his popularity rising. Even Manson got caught up in the controversy: despite having very little interest in politics (in fact he hasn't even voted until 2009), he released a video on election day featuring a decapitated man in a suit that looked a lot like Donald Trump. Manson since denied in interviews that the beheaded person was supposed to be Trump, saying that it could be any person in a suit and that it was up to the viewer to assign identity to this person. However, the video was released on the day of the 2016 elections, so it definitely was intended to be a statement on the elections.

Some of the sentiments on this album, like the idea of society choosing its own disaster in the song Revelation #12, the good vs evil and "which side are you going to choose?" theme on SAY10, the biting sarcasm on Tattooed In Reverse (You can't play this game, you've lost all the pieces, I'm sure someone else will pay for your sins), all mirror that conflict of the 2016 elections, where people were voting for a candidate that many feared would be disastrous.

Story overview

In another interview Manson gave an outline for how he sees the narrative role of some of the songs:

To expand upon Manson's characterization of the album, here's how I think the songs tell the story:

Final comments

• The album was originally going to be called Say10, possibly in recognition of it being Manson's 10th album, but was later changed to Heaven Upside Down because Manson felt it better represented the album. SAY10 was a phrase that Manson coined in 12th grade, and rediscovered while rummaging through his childhood keepsakes.
• Although Manson's father died near the end of the recording, Manson said in an interview that his death did not influence the content of the album. This is in great part because Manson did not realize the degree to which his dad was ill, and so his death came to him as a surprise. He did say that he considers the album to have his father's spirit in it.
• The album features a lot of biblical references. You might want to familiarize yourself with the following stories: the Book of Revelation (especially chapter 12), Cain and Able, Tower of Babel, The Flood.

Song Analysis

Revelation #12

In today's age of Twitter, it might be worth starting by pointing out that the song name is "Revelation number 12", not "Revelation hashtag 12". Manson certainly seems to think it's worth clarifying, having said in an interview for Loudwire that:

Also in that interview, Manson confirmed the tempting association with the Book of Revelation:

It was definitely a reference to Revelations 12, with the great red dragon.

In other interviews, Manson identified it as one of the three songs that define the album, saying that its role is the opening act of the story.

This is a pessimistic and apocalyptic song, painting the picture of a society whose self-destructive tendencies are about to culminate into something catastrophic. The apocalyptic theme ties in with the reference to the Book of Revelation, which describes the events that would unfurl at the end of the world. It is also my belief that the song was inspired by the tumultuous 2016 elections, because of the following:

• As discussed in the introduction, we've seen indications that Manson, who normally ignores the elections, clearly had an artistic interest in the 2016 election, thanks to the album promo that he released on election day featuring a Trump-like character.
• The song was written in close proximity to the 2016 elections (the song was written in 2017, and the elections happened at the end of 2016).
• The "society headed for disaster" theme of the song, as well as the "society choosing its own disaster" theme, fits the way Donald Trump, the Republican candidate in the 2016 elections, was gaining in popularity, despite appearing to be someone who will cause great ruin if elected.
• A key detail of chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation is the appearance of a great red dragon, who is also identified as the devil and Satan. Like the dragon, Trump also appeared suddenly in the political scene, and considering how he was received by the liberals, he might as well have been a red orange dragon who's synonymous with Satan himself.
• The lyric "this is the time for US!" is written in an unusual manner: the word 'us' is capitalized. This could be just for emphasis, but it might also be a subtle hint towards the United States, since US is a common shorthand acronym for the United States of America.

Samples

"Bands of kids running up and down the street, just beating people and throwing bottles at them. Playing god..."

Source unknown, though personally it reminds me of a snippet from a news broadcast.

Tattooed In Reverse

When you reverse a video of someone getting a tattoo, what you'll see is something that looks a lot like a person getting a tattoo, except that the needle erases the ink, rather than adding ink. In other words, you see someone "unmarked", using a process of "marking". This is a metaphor for becoming a rebel through trying experiences. A mark is a sign of ownership, but it's also a metaphor for something that leaves a lasting impression on you. So to be "unmarked by marking" can mean "to become owned by no one through experiences that leave a lasting impression on you", and indeed, in this song the narrator describes himself as a wild horse that cannot be tamed, and claims that he spent time in great hardship, and that made him dangerous (there ain't nothing in my hourglass, just sand from a dead sea, and I made it my weapon).

This is a song of attitude. The narrator alternates between describing himself as a wild horse that cannot be tamed in the chorus, and being very critical of those around him, criticizing their religious belief and for being destructive failures. There doesn't seem to be an overarching point in the content of the criticism, like an idea that is being developed across verses, so it's not about making a point as much as it is about making attitude, and therefore it's best to view this song as a character study, and I think that if this album were a movie, this would be the scene where we meet our protagonist.

Samples

"Martyr" and "another great" at around 2:50. Source unknown.

WE KNOW WHERE YOU FUCKING LIVE

SAY10

This song describes adversity between two sides, like a good vs evil kind of conflict, except that it also states that Manson isn't playing by the rules of the other person's game. You can see it most clearly in the chorus: "you say god, and I say say10". Obviously, "say10" sounds like the name "Satan", so Manson is drawing a good vs evil contrast between himself and the other person, but at the same time, he isn't using the language of good vs evil to make that point. It's not "you say god, I say Satan", it's "I say say10". A similar twist can be seen in other parts of the song. For example, instead of "Cain and Able", the hostile brothers from the Old Testament, it's "cocaine and Able". At the same time, there is definite kinship between the side Manson attributes to himself, and the side of the devil. This can be seen in the second verse, where he describes himself as having goat horns, just like the devil. So, I think that the overall concept of the song is that he is a new type of antagonist, birthed out of the side of the devil, the original antagonist. This is similar to what happens in Revelation 13, which describes the appearance of a beast who got its power from the great red dragon that appeared before it in chapter 12: "And the dragon [Satan] gave him [the beast] his power, and his seat, and great authority". In other words, the sentiment in the song seems to be "I'm the new devil now".

There is also some cause to consider this song in the context of the 2016 elections. Although the song doesn't have obvious references to the elections, it speaks of two opposing sides, and it asks which side you will choose to believe in. Even the idea that Manson is putting himself "out of the game of good vs evil" can be connected to the elections, since Manson was quoted as saying that he won't be voting in the elections considering his choices are between "cat shit and dog shit". Finally, there's the album promo that Manson released on the day of the 2016 elections. The video used SAY10 as the soundtrack, and depicted a beheaded man who looked a lot like Donald Trump.

KILL4ME

This is the point when the story takes a turn. Our protagonist meets his love interest.

Saturnalia

Saturn was a Roman god of time, wealth, agriculture, renewal, and liberation. According to Roman mythology, he reigned over the region of Latium in a period that was characterized by great abundance, and was thus referred to as a golden age. Saturn was also identified with the Greek god Cronus, and therefore myths that were originally associated with Cronus, for example the idea that he devours his own children to prevent the prophesy that his children will one day overthrow him, was associated with Saturn too.

Saturnalia was an ancient Roman festival and holiday that celebrated Saturn. It happened a few days before the winter solstice, and would last for about a week of non-stop celebrations. The Saturnalia celebrations were characterized by role reversal. Masters would serve food to their slaves, gambling was allowed, women were allowed into male-only spaces, and poor people were elected to serve as "kings of Saturnalia".

In an interview for Vice, Manson called Saturnalia "the romantic scene where the love affair is established", and in an interview with Yahoo! Music, said it "takes it into the story, the real heart of the record". In this song, the protagonist is described as Saturnus, his love interest as the Winter Solstice, and their love as the Saturnalia festival, a celebration that turns everything upside down.

JE$U$ CRI$I$

Blood Honey

This is the song in which the relationship goes horribly wrong. Having realized that his relationship is predicated on him being powerless, the protagonist, in his deranged, drugged-out state, abducts his lover in order to flip the power imbalance. It's unclear from the lyrics what the finale of this scene is, so you are free to imagine them going their separate ways after the madness subsides, but reading Manson's interviews from the era suggests to me that he imagined an end result in which the protagonist kills his lover. The clue to this can be found in the Vice interview that is quoted in the introduction section where Manson described this part of the album as: "and then it gets to the sensitive part and then the part where the person you really like in the movie dies".

Heaven Upside Down

This song is in the aftermath of the dramatic events of the story. It provides a resolution to all the different threads of the story:

• The up-and-coming apocalypse that Manson talks about in Revelation #12 arrives.
• He finally sees that he is the cause of his relationships always failing (I attract what I am).
• He sees his relationship from a point of clarity. He understands that it was like holding hands and spinning around.
• He sees his ex-lover for who she was/is (I ended up looking through you).

In an interview for Dazed Manson said this about the song:

At first reading you might think that it means the chorus (I tried to look inside you, I ended up looking through you, now you're trying to tell me you're not a ghost) is about Manson, not the ex-lover, but that is not the case. In the above quote, Manson is discussing the song as a whole. The song as a whole is absolutely about him, because it's about him realizing after a long streak of crazy girlfriends that actually, maybe he's the crazy one, but the ghost in the chorus is still the ex-girlfriend, another example of this pattern.

Threats of Romance

Anything that can cause pain can be used as a threat, and a romance can absolutely end in a lot of suffering and pain, or if you're the story's protagonist, then a romance definitely ends in such a way. That is why, for him, the prospect of romance is a threat.

In the Vice interview quoted in the introduction, Manson described this as the end credits song.

Artwork

Illustrations

The album booklet features these two illustrations:

Both are illustrations from different editions of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's play Faust. The illustration of the woman (Margaret, Faust's love interest) is from an edition illustrated by Engelbert Seibertz, and appears in chapter 18 of the play. It depicts the following text from the play:

In a niche of the wall a shrine, with an image of the Mater Dolorosa. Pots of flowers before it.

The illustration of the devil (or rather, Mephistopheles) is from Faust 2, illustrated by Franz Strassen.

The two images draw parallels between the story of Heaven Upside Down, and the story of Faust. In the original play, Faust is a scholar that's deeply dissatisfied by life. He meets Mephistopheles, the devil, and makes a pact with him: Mephistopheles will be Faust's servant, and strive to help him reach true satisfaction. Once that happens, Faust is to die and become Mephistopheles' slave in the afterlife. As part of their adventures, Faust meets and falls in love with Margaret, so Mephistopheles intervenes to get them together. However, this plan ends up bringing ruin upon Margaret. Heaven Upside Down is like what would happen if the play did not involve Faust. Instead, our Margaret falls in love with the devil himself, and that brings her ruin. Either way, when you get involve with the devil, it brings you ruin.

Symbols

This symbol is Manson's variation on the Cross of Lorraine, a symbol which he adopted for himself many years ago. Manson used this symbol to represent the Celebriterian Corporation, his self-proclaimed art movement which never really took off, and also in various pieces of visual art, such as: Eat Me Drink Me era photoshoots, flash animation on his website during The High End of Low era, The Pale Emperor live set, merchandise, his unreleased Holy Wood novel (the way the text and guns are organized), and many other examples.

The name "Cross of Lorraine" actually came to represent multiple variations of the "double cross", three of which can be seen here. In the most common version (left), the top horizontal line is shorter than the bottom one. A less common variant is the fully symmetrical one (middle), which is the version Manson uses. Thus, the version we see in the Heaven Upside Down artwork can be considered an extended version of the cross, designed to break the symmetry and thus make it possible for the cross to be upside down. You can also consider it a variation of the Patriarchal Cross (right), also turned upside down, but that is a moot distinction because it too falls under the umbrella of the Cross of Lorraine.

This is a spiraling hexagram. I think the idea behind this symbol is related to the fact that the word hexagram is often shortened to just "hex", which also happens to mean "curse". So, this is a spiraling hex, or spiraling curse, which is appropriate for an album that claims to be telling a recurring story about how love always fails, like a curse that keeps on repeating itself.

Beyond The Record

The Heaven Upside Down era yielded six 5 singles, 6 music videos (+a promotional clip), four 3 B-Sides, and 1 promotional website. The 6th single (and 4th B-Side) was a cover of The End by The Doors, but it was unpublished after The Doors objected to the cover on the grounds that it deviated too much from the original. The remaining B-Sides were all covers of other bands: Stigmata by Ministry, Cry Little Sister by Gerard McMahon, and God's Gonna Cut You Down by Johnny Cash.

WE KNOW WHERE YOU FUCKING LIVE Promotion Campaign

To promote the album, the website weknowwhereyoufuckinglive.com was created. It featured a signup form where people could provide their email and address. People who signed up received a promotional email announcing the new record and first single (WE KNOW WHERE YOU FUCKING LIVE), were entered into a contest to win tickets, and also received a personalized video that featured satellite images of their home address (or whatever address they put in the form). This was the announcement:

Lee Martin, who executed the project of creating and emailing the personalized videos, shared some details of the project on his Twitter.

SAY10 Album Promo

On election day, Manson released a short video which used the SAY10 song as soundtrack. The video included Manson tearing up the bible (specifically, he has it open in the first Samuel book), and an image of a decapitated man who looked a lot like Republican candidate Donald Trump. In an interview with The Daily Beast that accompanied the video release, Manson said:

The unbeliever in this case is played by Manson, who sits on a throne (commands authority) and tears up the bible (is an unbeliever).

In an interview with NME, Manson denied that the man in the video was supposed to be Trump, saying that his identity is up to the viewer to determine:

He further explained that the video was not a representation of his own opinion, but rather something designed to stir conversation:

I did not have an agenda against anyone in particular, I just wanted to make people think. I just wanted to throw something out there and put their mind askew and maybe stir up their thoughts and not talk about my opinion.

Music videos

WE KNOW WHERE YOU FUCKING LIVE

Manson and a group of armed nuns terrorize a neighborhood during an eclipse, and assault a family in their home. Concept came from the director Bill Yukich.

SAY10

The release of the SAY10 music video was accompanied by a press statement from Manson, which read as follows:

After the balloons have all shriveled up and are swallowed in the puddles of puke and idealism, don't look to Me for sympathy. I am here to be all that I am accused of not being. And to be blamed for what you made Me. The shots you will hear are from a mouth disguised as a gun. Don't call this art. This is a hard cock in a room full of vampires and the music, man. The music is My foul blood on your faces.

The music video co-stars Johnny Depp, Manson's close friend, and is divided into two storylines. Storyline one features Johnny and Manson playing the biblical brothers Cain and Able (respectively), according to a press release. The two share a sex dungeon and seem at odds with one another. Towards the end of the video, some of the women from the sex dungeon recreate the photo Raising The Flag On Iwo Jima, and Able is killed over bloody money.

Raising The Flag On Iwo Jima is one of the most iconic photographs from the second world war. It was taken at the end of the Battle of Iwo Jima in the final stages of the Pacific War, and was widely reproduced in thousands of publications, even winning the Pulitzer Prize for Photography. In the music video, it's Cain's women who reenact this symbol of victory, and soon after Able is killed, so I think that the reenactment represents Cain's victory over Able.

In the other storyline a woman who seems to be doing nothing but masturbate all day finds a haunted book dropped at her doorstep, and makes the mistake of reading it. She is then haunted by a spirit that sexually gropes her, and eventually tries to kill her in a dream. This part of the music video pays homage to A Nightmare On Elm Street, Johnny Depp's first acting role. In Nightmare On Elm Steet, Freddy Krueger is an evil spirit that murders people in their nightmares. References to the movie include:

The evil spirit protruding through the walls:

The evil spirit groping the woman is similar to how Freddy Krueger is able to physically interact with his victims once they fall asleep:

The scene where the evil spirit is chasing the woman with a knife inside of a tunnel is similar to Krueger chasing people in their dreams. This scene is best interpreted as a dream scene because it's completely divorced from the setting of the music video.

KILL4ME

The music video takes place in an upscale brothel. Johnny Depp is spying on one of the prostitutes from a secret room connected to spy cameras, and appears to be documenting the happenings. He starts to become obsessed with the prostitute, visiting her at night when she's sleeping, but one day he enters her room and realizes that this is a different woman. Meanwhile, Manson, dressed as one of the prostitutes, discovers the spy room. Realizing that something's wrong, Johnny begins to suspect that he might be watched himself. Eventually, he receives a message directing him to a hidden section of the brothel, and participates in an orgy.

Tattooed In Reverse

This music video is heavily inspired by the American Horror Story: Cult trailer, with some scenes pretty much lifted from the trailer. The medical torture scenes are reminiscent of American Horror Story: Asylum, with the dark operations room, the bald doctor, the sex with the patients, and the dark corridors.

American Horror Story Asylum	Tattooed In Reverse

It's possible that the intent of the medical procedures is to cure Manson and the woman patient of their sex addiction, since they exhibit highly promiscuous behavior throughout the video. In American Horror Story: Asylum, two of the patients actually face sterilization as punishment for having sex.

Finally, Manson's appearance in the video resembles Alex DeLarge from the film A Clockwork Orange. This is another film in which a person with degenerate tendencies (Alex DeLarge) undergoes a treatment that's akin to torture in order to be cured of his degeneracy.

Cry Little Sister

God's Gonna Cut You Down

In this music video, Manson plays multiple characters: the outlaw on the run, the murder victim, the preacher that will be there when the outlaw is hanged, and also a strange character wearing a crown of thorns made of needles and covered in black feathers. Ravens often represent ill omens, and are associated with loss. The crown of thorns is associated with Jesus Christ. Together, we get a religious omen of loss, or in other words, a message that says God's gonna cut you down.

Another interesting detail is the snakeskin jacket Manson is wearing in some of the shots. This jacket is similar to the one Nicolas Cage wears in the David Lynch movie Wild At Heart, which Manson previously referenced in the Portrait of An American Family song Lunchbox (and also the music video). Wild At Heart is a story about two lovers on the run. Sailor, the male character, is a guy with an edge. At the beginning of the movie, he serves jail time for killing a man (in self-defense), and after his release from jail, the two decide to run away together, thus breaking Sailor's parole. Sailor refers to the jacket as "a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom". We can see Manson imitating Sailor's look below, and fanboying with Nick Cage in the same jacket: