Born Villain

Born Villain cover
  • 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

LyricsMusic
Marilyn MansonMarilyn MansonTwiggyChris VrennaFred Sablan
Hey, Cruel World...XXX
No ReflectionXXXX
Pistol WhippedXX
Overneath The Path of MiseryXXXX
Slo-Mo-TionXXXXX
The GardenerXXX
Children of CainXX
DisengagedXX
Lay Down Your Goddamn ArmsXXX
Murderers Are Getting Prettier Every DayXXX
Born VillainXXXX
Breaking The Same Old GroundXXX

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

I-Ching book cover

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 of Evil painting by Marilyn Manson
The Flowers of Evil painting
by Marilyn Manson

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.

LyricsCommentary
Hey, cruel world...
You don't have what it takes
We don't need your faith
We've got fucking fate
The album opens with a statement of defiance against the tragedy of life.
Hey, cruel world...
You don't have what it takes [to take me down].

Then Manson contrasts faith, which is putting your trust in a god to help you through something, with fate, which is a predetermined course of events, and implies that fate is the better one. This statement might be inspired by Manson's interest in Greek mythology that is noticeable in this album. In Greek mythology, fate is a power that is even greater than that of the gods themselves, since even Zeus, king of the gods, who oversees all creation, is beholden to it. So "we don't need your god, we got something even stronger on our side" is what Manson is saying here.

It's also worth noting that Manson is one of those people who believe that "everything happens for a reason", which conceptually isn't far from believing in fate as the driving force in the universe.
Creator
Preserver
Destroyer
Ask which one I am.
There's no drugged-out devils or
square-halo angels
Walking among us
Creator, preserver, destroyer is the Hindu Trimurti (trinity) of gods Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva, respectively. Using the Trimurti as an analogy to a story, Brahma the creator is the one who supplies the setting by creating the world, Vishnu the preserver is best conceptualized as the hero, who attempts to save (preserve) creation, and Shiva is the villain who enacts change through destruction. So, within the context of the album, Shiva is the most fitting answer to "guess which one I am".

Square halos were sometimes used in religious paintings as a way to honor a pious man for donating or organizing the construction of a temple. In other words, people adorned with such halos were philanthropists honored by being represented as modern day saints. This is in contrast to the regular circular halo, which generally adorned the mythical figures of the faith (like Jesus, Mother Mary, and so on...). So, a square-halo angel is a modern-day angel.

Devils and angels are the villains and heroes in the mythological battle of good versus evil, so by saying there are no square-halo angels or drugged-out devils among us Manson seems to be saying that the world lacks modern day heroes and villains... except for him, as is implied by the beginning of the verse. The world lacks heroes and villains, and he is the only villain that exists.
I am among no one
I am among no one
I am among no one
No one
An outlaw is someone who lives by his own rules, and that sets him apart from everybody else. Hence, he is among no one. Also, to feed off the interpretation of the previous section, if the world lacks modern day heroes and villains, him being the only villain in town also makes him among no one in that regard.
Hey, cruel world...
You don't have what it takes
We don't need your faith
We've got fucking fate
Fate
Fate
Fate
The center of the universe cannot exist
When there are no, no edges
The center of the universe is an idiom that means "the most important thing". "No edges" means having no boundaries, no limitations, having limitless possibilities. So, Manson is saying that nothing can be the most important thing in the universe, when the possibilities are endless.

This is a sentiment that Manson echoed in multiple interviews for the era, talking about the importance of limitations in both personal development and artistic creativity. For example, in an interview for Vanity Fair he said:

I knew if I wanted to become something, I had to put limitations on myself. If you give me a piece of paper and a pencil, you only have so many options: You can stab someone with it. You can write a love letter. You can draw a picture. You can wipe your ass with it. You can make paper cuts. There are only so many options, but those limitations really create strength and from that comes creativity—which is what I had from the beginning. Nothing in front of me, no money. I had the pen and the paper, like when I first had to hustle the guy at Kinko's into printing the flyers for free.
-- Marilyn Manson, Vanity Fair
Hey, cruel world...
You don't have what it takes
We don't need your faith
We've got fucking fate
Fate
Fate
Fate

I am among no one
I am among no one
I am among no one
No one

Hey, cruel world...
You don't have what it takes
We don't need your faith
We've got fucking fate
Fate
Fate
Fate
Fate
Fate
Fate

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.

LyricsCommentary
Crushing
Cheating
Changing
We begin with a sort of outline of things that happened up to this point. He had his tragedies [crushing], he cheated [his ex-wife Dita said that one of the reasons she filed for divorce was infidelity], he went through changes. So, what now? Let's read on.
Am I deaf or dead?
Is this constricting construction
Or just streets with rusty signs
Of something violent coming?
Am I deaf or dead?
This seems to be a reference to "Deaf or Dead: an extraordinarily true story", a video produced by Jolanta Lapiak, an Ameslan literary artist, first released in December 2002. It is a story narrated using sign language about how Jolanta's deaf father was saved thanks to his deafness. When he was little, he and his 4 hearing friends liked to explore an old military site. Eventually, he had to separate from his friends to go study in a special school for deaf children far away, thus losing contact with his friends. A few months later, the 4 of them found some old WWII bomb shells at the military site, and the shells exploded, killing all 4 of them. If her father didn't have to go away for deaf school, he surely would've been with them when it happened. His deafness, normally regarded as a curse, turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
By invoking this story Manson is asking "Am I actually lucky to have been cursed with my hardships?"

A constricting construction is a prison, while streets are an open area where you are free to go somewhere. Is he his own prison, or does he still have open possibilities within him, and the ability to deliver something mighty (something violent coming)?
This'll hurt you worse than me
I'm weak, seven days, I'm weak
Don't run from me I won't
Bother counting one, two, three
This part describes how being weak makes you dangerous, which was one of the themes of the previous album The High End of Low. If this idea sounds counter intuitive (how can someone weak be dangerous?) here are some examples of how something like this might play out:
  • Someone tests your boundaries, you're too weak to enforce them, so you give-in, and become resentful. The resentment builds up, and eventually you lash out.
  • You never developed a thick skin, so you walk around the world like an open wound, incredibly touchy, feeling hurt by everything, reacting with aggression.
  • You're such a disaster that everybody who remain tethered to you because they care about you end up being dragged into hell along with you.
So, here's what the verse is saying:
I'm weak all the time ("I'm weak 7 days a week I'm weak"), and because that makes me dangerous, you'll end up suffering from this worse than I suffer from this myself (this will hurt you worse than me).

I won't bother counting one, two, three
...I'll just shoot you right away.
One trope of villains in cinema is when a villain captures someone, and is about to kill them, but instead of shooting them right away, he gives the victim a chance to escape by giving them a few seconds head start before coming chasing after them. This is really a fake chance at being saved because the villain has no intent of allowing the victim to escape, he just wants to watch them run for their life.
By saying "I won't give you a head start, I'll just shoot you right away", Manson reiterates the idea of being dangerous.
I don't know which me that I love
Got no reflection
I think I was a little lost as far I didn't know who I was, so I didn't know who to believe in when it comes to believing in yourself.
--Marilyn Manson, Apple Music interview, 2020

The above quote was in reference to a period in his life when he "lost track of his purpose", which can only be in reference to the Eat Me Drink Me and High End of Low eras, both preceding this album. This is what I think this lyric is talking about.

He has no reflection, so he can't see himself, and thus he doesn't know who he is, and therefore he doesn't know who to love or believe in.
Show myself how to make a noose
A gun's cliche, and a razor too
I'm not a death share vacation, vacant station
Made of scars and filled with my old wounds
And now he says he wants to be more than some tragic figure.

I'm not a death share vacation, vacant station
Made of scars and filled with my old wounds

Death-share vacation is a play on the term time-share, which is an arrangement in which a group of people team up to jointly purchase a vacation real estate that would normally be outside of their individual price budget, and each participant gets their own scheduled allotment of usage, often in one-week increments. By comparing himself to a death-share vacation Manson seems to be saying "I'm not just someone to have a short tragedy with and leave". With the subsequent line he also says, "I'm not just my damage and past traumas" (I'm not made of scars and filled with my old wounds).

At the same time, the verse actually starts with what seems like the opposite message. A noose, a gun, a razor- all methods for suicide. However, I think that the idea is still uplifting, because he's "taking his death into his own hands". He is not about to go down using just any method like some commoner. He has standards now.
For a long time, hanging was a common method of execution in the United States, especially in the Wild West, and thus it became a trope of Western movies that villains are dealt with by a hanging. So, by choosing a noose it's like Manson is saying "if I'm going down, I'm going to take the villain's death". It's another way of asserting his new role.
This'll hurt you worse than me
I'm weak, seven days, I'm weak
Don't run from me I won't
Bother counting one, two, three

I don't know which me that I love
Got no reflection

You, you don't even want to know what I'm gonna do to you

I don't know which me that I love
Got no reflection
No Reflection
No Reflection
I've got no reflection

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.

LyricsCommentary
You look so pretty when you cry
Don't wanna hit you but the only thing
Between our love is a bloody nose,
a busted lip, and a blackened eye
This verse establishes the kind of abuser we are talking about. We are not dealing with someone who is abusive for the sake of being abusive, like a psychopath who simply does it for enjoyment. Rather, there's a conflicting "need to hurt you to be able to love you" dynamic. When the abuser is in a fit of rage, the abuser projects an enemy image on the victim, and then the victim becomes unlovable in the abuser's eyes. When the victim cries, that display of vulnerability counteracts the enemy image, and disarms the abuser of their rage, and now the abuser can see the victim as lovable again.
You're a little pistol
And I'm fucking pistol whipped
As discussed in the introduction, I see this as either the revelation that the abuser is actually female, not male like most would assume, or as a statement that ironically the abuser feels victimized, because their aggression is rooted in being incredibly touchy (everything is a slight to them, everything wounds them deeply).
When I undo my belt
You melt and you walk away
With a red, red, red welt
(Or so they say)

You're a little pistol
And I'm fucking pistol whipped
I wanna have your ache, and beat you tooThis is a play on the phrase "have your cake and eat it too". He wants to have her pain, which is an act of empathy and is associated with intimacy, and also be the cause of the pain.
You're a little pistol
And I'm fucking pistol whipped

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.

LyricsCommentary
Stare into my Kodak Rome
Jack-hammer ice eyes
I never thought you'd see
The asphalt crack, crack, crack
Like black eggshell
"Kodak Rome" is a play on the name Kodachrome, which was a popular color film made by Kodak for 71 years (discontinued in 2006).

Rome was an incredibly important city in the old world, being the capital city of the Roman empire, the most influential empire at the time. It was referred to as Roma Caput Mundi, a Latin phrase which means "Rome capital of the world", so if someone were to stare at his Rome, it would mean that they stare at his core, or his most important part.
Referring to himself as "Rome" also sets up the city metaphor, which will be referenced further in the verse.

This person has Jack-hammer ice eyes. To have an icy stare is to look at someone fixedly, often with hostility or rudeness, and the Jack-hammer part amplifies this intense, piercing quality even further. If this person has jack-hammer eyes, then the act of seeing something is an act of drilling into it, and indeed this person sees drills the asphalt to the point of cracking it. This connects us to the Rome metaphor. Rome is a city. Cities have asphalt pavements. If he is a city, drilling into the asphalt is drilling into him.

Taken together, the verse says something like "you stare at my core with that intense, piercing gaze, and you cracked me. Never thought you'd manage to do that".
Don't ever say I never warned you from the start
Don't ever say I never warned you from the start
You're not a shovel and I'm not your dirt
You're not a shovel and I'm not your dirt
It's not your job to clean me up.
Is there any way to unswallow my pride?
Can I fuck myself down?
Why die when you can kill the father?
Dad is missing an 'e'
Here Manson is regretting all the times he didn't stand up for himself and didn't take care of himself.

You swallow your pride when you choose to not push back against someone that disrespects you, and now he wishes he could reverse that choice.

To fuck yourself up is to mess yourself up. Now he wishes to reverse that by fucking himself down.

Why die when you can kill the father?
This line is inspired by the story of Oedipus. Oedipus was fated to kill his father and marry his mother. When Oedipus' biological father learns of this prophecy, he maims Oedipus and orders his servant to leave him to die. Instead, the servant takes pity of Oedipus, so he gives him away for adoption.
So, what this line is saying is: "why die when you can go on to fulfill your fate instead" (by killing the father)?

Dad is missing an 'e'
Dead = Dad + e.
No Macbeth
Confessed Oedipus,
No longer present tense
Both Macbeth and Oedipus can be metaphors for either a tragedy or villainy. The part about "confessed Oedipus" is a reference to the point in the story where he discovers that he is the one who killed his father (becomes confessed about his crime). It's the point in the story where he transforms from being a villain to being tragic.

So, the easiest interpretation for this lyric is that it is talking about "look how low I've sank":
"I'm no Mactbeth (villain), I'm a confessed Oedipus (tragic), I'm a has-been (no longer present tense implies that he is a past tense)".
No no no no no reason
No no no no no reason
No no no no no reason
It's possible that the "no reason" line, which Manson apparently liked so much that he had it tattooed on his wrist, was inspired by the movie Rubber, which Manson stated was his favorite movie of 2010. The movie opens with an introduction monologue that says that movies are full of things that have no reason, because life is full of no reason things:

In the Steven Spielberg movie ET why is the alien brown? No reason. In Love Story, why did the two characters fall madly in-love with each other? No reason. In Oliver Stone's JFK, why is the president suddenly assassinated by a stranger? No reason. [...] You probably never gave it a thought, but all great films, without exceptions, contain an important element of no reason, and you know why? Because life itself is filled with no reason. Why can't we see the air around us? No reason. Why are we always thinking? No reason. Why do some people love sausages and other people hate sausages? No fucking reason."

When asked about why did he quote Macbeth on this song, Manson said "You know why I did it? No reason at all. I just got 'No Reason' tattooed on my wrist. You know why? No reason."
High and overneath
I won't regret
Letting you live
Even if you forgot
What you never
Saved me from. So I say 'whatever'
Or fornever

For for for for for fornever
For for for for for fornever
For for for for for fornever
'Whatever'
This verse seems to be a reference to the song "15" from the previous album The High End of Low. The High End of Low was largely inspired by Manson's break up with Evan Rachel Wood, and the song 15, which ends the album, is kind of like the Phoenix reborn after burning down into ashes in the song before it. Some of the things that were said in that song are:

I can get by now, I'm not really dead
But I really needed someone to save me
If you don't know what forever feels like,
I'll show you what it feels like without it

There was also a bit about:

Not letting you win won't satisfy me
I'll teach you about loss

...which is an "I'll show you" sentiment.

I won't regret letting you live
But now it seems like he got over the "I'll show you" part.
Even if you forgot what you never saved me from
Referencing what was said in the song 15.
So I say 'whatever' or fornever
Fornever is a play on the word 'forever'.
Fornever = forever never. Again, this is about letting go. On the previous album it was "I'll show you what it feels like without forever [ever after]", and now it's just 'whatever'. Forever became fornever.
The Rape of Persephone
Was choreographed by all the wrong Greeks
The Rape of Persephone
Was a marketing scheme
Rape rape rape per so phony
Rape rape rape per so phony
Rape rape rape per so phony
Rape rape rape per so phony
Unfortunately, I don't have a good interpretation to this part of the lyrics, but here are some thoughts:

It was common in ancient Greece to have cults that centered around specific gods, and the cult of Demeter and Persephone was one of the biggest, most popular and longest living cults in ancient Greece, lasting for 2000 years. They organized a bi-yearly festival called the Eluesinian Mysteries, which pretty much everybody in Greece attended at some point in their life. The festival was a long initiation ceremony, which included a dramatic recreation of the myth of Persephone's abduction.

So, it's possible that when Manson says that the rape of Persephone was choreographed by all the wrong Greeks, he's referring to the dramatic recreation of the myth in the Eluesinian Mysteries. He is saying that it was done by the "wrong people", perhaps implying that they did not do the story justice, or did it out of the wrong motives. This is further hinted at by the fact that he calls the myth a marketing scheme, perhaps referring to the way the cult of Persephone and Demeter used it to market itself to the population of ancient Greece. It seems that Manson disagrees with how the myth was treated, and maybe it has something to do with the fact that the figures from the myth that are worshipped are the victim (Persephone) and the hero (Demeter), not the villain (Hades), who Manson would prefer.
High and overneath
Overneath
Overneath
Overblown
Unbeloved
Cannot be low
From the top of my lungs
to the bottom of my heart
I scream
At the chasm in between
And the path of misery
From the top of my lungs
This is an idiom that means "as loudly as possible".
To the bottom of my heart
"Bottom of one's heart" is an idiom that means "sincerely".

He screams as loudly and as sincerely as possible at the chasm in between and the path of misery. We can imagine why he would like to scream at the path of misery. It's hard not to have a sentiment of 'fuck you' to such a path of hardship. But what is this "chasm in between"? Well, a chasm is usually a metaphor for a vast difference between two things. Since one of the themes of the album is "I'm not who I need to be", then the chasm he speaks of is probably the chasm between who he is now and who he wants to be.
High and overneath

No no no no no reason
No no no no no reason
No no no no no reason

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.

LyricsCommentary
You've got your hell's teeth smiling at you
It keeps your brain safe as it all eats at your face
"Hell's teeth" is an idiom that means "an exclamation of frustration, anger, or surprise". For example: "Oh, hell's teeth—the printer isn't working, and my paper is due in five minutes!"

"Smiling at" is also an idiom. To smile at someone means to bestow great fortune, happiness, or beneficence upon them. For example, if lady luck is smiling at you, it means that you're about to have good fortune.

In what way do expressions of frustration/anger/surprise bestow their gifts upon you? They do so in the sense that they are a core component in the appeal of talk shows, especially the Jerry Springer variety. People watch to gasp in astonishment, to get angry about the guests, and above all, to feel superior, which is why "it keeps your brain safe". Watching these shows is a way to reassure yourself that "I'm the normal one because I'm not like these people".

Why does it also eats at your face? I think it's derived from the imagery. If these people are "watching hell's teeth", then hell's teeth are projected towards their face, and what does it look like when teeth are flying towards your face? It looks like someone trying to eat your face.
And don't worry, we'll blur it out
And no one ever will know
This is a sarcastic comment on how censorship often only pretend to be hiding something. For example, if a woman flashes her tits to the camera, and the tits are blurred out, how much of it did you really hide? Sure, we may not see the tits, but we still know exactly what happened. It's not like it's saving any of the woman's dignity just because the tits themselves technically weren't displayed.
This is my beautiful show
And everything is shot in slow motion
Pump in the laughter of dead-audience applause
And teenage rape candidates
I think we got ourselves a 'real hit'
This is another sarcastic verse outlining the format of talk shows, going over the checklist for a 'real hit'.

Pump in the laughter of dead-audience applause
When a show is recorded in front of a real audience, it's called a 'live' audience. The opposite of using real audience reaction is to use pre-recorded audience reaction, and the opposite of a 'live' audience is a 'dead' audience.

And teenage rape candidates
The next thing on the checklist for a 'real hit' is the teenage rape candidates, which is a very blunt and cynical expression of how sex is used to draw attention. The peak sex appeal is found in young women, so if we dial up the "young" part they become so young they turn into teenagers, and if we dial down the morals, sexual appeal turns into rape targets, and so we reach peak sarcasm.
Don't we wish that we could feel something
More than hate and morbid panic?
Morbid panic
Hate and morbid panic
You could say that hate and morbid panic are two predominant attention drives for TV. Hate is self-explanatory, and morbid panic can be anything from incessant fear mongering to moral panics.
This is my beautiful show
And everything is shot in slow motion
And I'm the host with Vaseline
I hide behind bulletproof glass
And I can feel your tits with my new camera
Equipped with a flash
Fast-food-nude, I hate you all, but somehow
You find me incredibly charming
This verse describes what a scumbag the host is.

Vaseline has a connotation of being used as lubricant for masturbation, so the fact that he has Vaseline with him suggests that he is getting off on the spectacle. He is behind bullet proof glass because he is immune to the effects of being 'shot' by the camera. Nobody watches talk shows to judge the host, it's always the guests that get all the metaphorical fire. The word 'hide' invokes the impression that he is a coward.

And I can feel your tits with my new camera]
When someone is being photographed, they do not expect to be felt up, so by using a camera that allows him to do that, he is overstepping personal boundaries and indulging in more than what the photographed person bargained for. Essentially this is a commentary about how, armed with the camera, the host is probing into the guests' privacy for entertainment in a way that oversteps boundaries and is also pictured as creepy.

fast-food-nude, I hate you all
This host is also described as an asshole; foul spirited and derogatory (fast-food-nude). Fast-food has the connotation of being cheap throwaway food, the kind of food that is maybe fun, but isn't respected as 'good' nutrition, and is like a vacuous indulgence. So, a fast-food-nude is the same concept but with sex. A hookup, or casual porn use, are an example of a fast-food-nude.

Yet somehow, despite being such a douchebag, the audience continues to find him charming. They don't see him for what he is.
Slow motion
Slow motion
This is my beautiful show
And everything is shot in slow motion

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.

LyricsCommentary
I'm not man enough to be human
But I'm trying to fit in
And I'm learning to fake it
Don't ever meet their friends
Tells you too much or not enough
Or worse, exactly the wrong thing
In any relationship, meeting the other person's friends is a milestone moment. It introduces an outside perspective to the relationship, or in other words, it introduces a degree of reality into the fantasy of the person, which makes the fantasy start crumbling.
Every nuance, every detail
Every movement, every smell
Sound, phrase, inflection, the way she laughs
These are all the things that you either obsessively fetishize
Or make yourself grow to love
Although you are supposed to be done growing
She is still growing
Here we go, reality rushes into the fantasy with the details. If you're lucky, these are all the small things that you adore about the person, or maybe you love the person despite those things, but regardless, you are left having to deal with these details.

Then it gets worse, now she's outgrowing you.
It's like a garden with two flowers
One just blooming and casting a shadow, just like yours
And then it becomes a struggle
Of sunlight or rain or weeds
She is outgrowing and overshadowing the other side in the relationship, and it becomes a power struggle.
She and every she
Is doomed to be your idea of her
He wants the fantasy, not the person behind the fantasy, so every woman he dates is doomed to be his ideal of her.
I'm not man enough to be human
But I'm trying to fit in
And I'm learning to fa-fa-fa-fake it
Why is he talking about not being human? I think it's because being human means having real relationships, not fantasy relationships, but he finds it hard to do the human thing.
But worse so, back to the point
You are no longer the flower and the sun
And most importantly the garden or the gardener
Once the other person outgrows you, you become less significant to them. You're not their caretaker, you're not what nourishes them, you're not their world (garden).
A muse, your amusement, I am used
It's all ruined if you meet their friends
He transitions from being a muse, to being an amusement, to just being used. If only he didn't step into reality…
She and every she
Is doomed to be your idea of her

I'm not man enough to be human
But I'm trying to fit in
And I'm learning to fa-fa-fa-fake it
Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fake it
Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fake it
Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fake it
Fa-fa-fa-fake it
You never wanted to share
Your concept of your creation
With any other gods or worshippers
Your book isn't burned
It was never written
I think that this verse is about the unattainability of the fantasy, likening it to a god who wouldn't let others worship it.
I'm not man enough to be human
But I'm trying to fit in
And I'm learning to fa-fa-fa-fake it
Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fake it
Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fake it
Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fake it
Fa-fa-fa-fake it

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.

LyricsCommentary
The day they covered us in the dirt
Like stars in the ground that will grow into dead flowers
This part is outlining the concept of the flowers of evil; that beauty can also be found in evil/suffering, or that beauty can grow out of evil/suffering.

The day they covered us in the dirt
That's a description of seeds being planted, but it can also work as a metaphor for being smeared or mistreated (covered by metaphoric dirt), for example by being called degenerate.

Like stars in the ground that will grow into dead flowers
Manson compares the seeds to start. Stars are often metaphors for figures of awe, for ideals incarnate, for radiating potential, and they normally exist in the sky, which is itself a canvas of awe that is associated with 'positive' qualities like divinity and enlightenment. In other words, like flowers, stars are also things of beauty, normally located in a place associated with positivity, so claiming that they can be found in the dirt as well, is akin to Baudelaire's idea that a thing of beauty can be found in Mal.
Your body's on me like sleepless spiders
Your touch is so empty, your touch is so empty
This part describes an unpleasant sexual encounter, which is akin to how sexuality was often treated in Baudelaire's poetry, often mixed with themes of various unpleasantness.

It could also be an allusion to Baudelaire's objectively unpleasant, and seemingly loveless relationship with Duval (seemingly loveless from her side).
I've been running from the bloodless for fear of exile
For all of my sorceries that shun the light
That shun the light
And now we're talking about running away from persecution for creating evil art (sorceries that shun the light). Bloodless is a word with multiple interpretations, one of them being "lacking in vitality", or "lacking in human feeling". I'm guessing its use here is meant to deride the prosecutors for not being able to appreciate great art.
The day they covered us in the dirt
Like scars in the ground that will grow into dead flowers

I've been running from the bloodless for fear of exile
For all of my sorceries that shun the light
That shun the light

Light, light, light, light

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.

LyricsCommentary
Sacrifice won't suffice
Resurrection needs your death to happen twice
Fall on my heart and burn and forge your tortured black-smitten
Into the sharpest fucking sword
Sacrifice won't suffice
Resurrection needs your death to happen twice

Resurrection is a symbol of transformation; the old you die, and a new you is born. The song begins with the idea that if you want to transform yourself, you can't pay for it by offering something as a sacrifice, rather you have to pay the ultimate price of dying. Armed by that idea, we step into the next part of the lyrics.

Fall on my heart and burn
and forge your tortured black-smitten (heart)
Into the sharpest fucking sword

"Fall on my heart" is a play on the phrase "fall on my sword", which is a form of ritualistic suicide that dates back to the Roman empire. It was generally committed as a voluntary self-punishment for a grand failure. Today the phrase means to accept responsibility or a blame for a problem/mistake.

In this verse, the self-inflicted suicide is by falling on your heart, an act that invokes the fires that forge that heart into an actual sword, a thing that is much stronger than what it used to be. Death and transformation through sacrifice.
Don't assume that I'm always with you
It's just where my mortal body happens to be
There are stories of Buddhist monks who are capable of performing out-of-body travel to send messages to various people. In Paramahansa Yogananda's biography, there's literally a scene where young Paramahansa is sitting next to a yogi who projected his consciousness away to send a message, while Paramahansa had to sit and wait for him to come back. The yogi's mortal body was there with him, but the yogi's consciousness was somewhere else.

Being able to project yourself is a feat that only highly trained yogis are able to master, and so it's associated with a high degree of spiritual enlightenment. Hence, this verse invokes the imagery of someone who attained spiritual enlightenment.
No Sin-eater to slay us children of Cain
Watching monkey suicide,
Sunday AIDS and church wine wash it away
No sin-eater to slay us children of Cain
Sin-eaters were people who "ate" the sins of a deceased person via a ritualistic meal. The point of the ritual was that the sin eater was taking upon themselves the sins of the dead person so that the deceased could enter the afterlife without sin. It was rather exploitative work from a theological perspective because a sin-eater was barred from entering heaven, and was considered a contemptible person in their community, cursed to live in isolation. Usually, sin eaters were poor people who succumbed to this line of work out of necessity.

So, the children of Cain have inherited their sin from the father, and there's no sin-eater that could ever take it away from them. They are doomed to be sinners forever.

Watching monkey suicide
Manson has a history of referring to humans as monkeys in his lyrics, so "watching monkey suicide" could mean "watching humanity destroys itself". Then, they go to church for Sunday AIDS and church wine for a quick fix of absolution:

Sunday AIDS and church wine wash it away
In the 80s, AIDS was a huge moral issue, and undoubtedly many church sermons took it as an opportunity to preach about sin. So, I think that "Sunday AIDS" means "Sunday sermon about sin". Church wine is generally consumed during communion, a ceremony in which people eat crackers that represent the body of Christ, and drink wine that represents the blood of Christ. In certain Christian denominations, communion is a standard part of the Sunday ceremony.

Taken together: they have their weekly does of sin sermons and communion, and consider themselves absolved.
Christ consciousness manifest to the Golden Ratio
5 or 500 million years ago
Christ consciousness manifest to the Golden Ratio
"Christ consciousness" means "higher consciousness", or "peak enlightenment", and it is often discussed in connection with Paramahansa's teachings, who believed that Christ epitomized the same state of superior enlightenment that is held as a goal by adherents of Buddhism.

The Golden ratio is a mathematical concept that was discovered by the ancient Greeks.
Two numbers a > b > 0 are in the golden ratio if `(a+b)/a=a/b`. The ratio is roughly equal to 1.618.

The Golden Ratio is significant because it was later discovered that this ratio appears all over nature. The number of petals in a flower, the number of seeds in a sunflower, the number of spirals in pinecones and pineapples, the splits of roots and tree branches, the structure of shells, hurricanes, and the spiraling of galaxies, the ratio between male and female bees in a colony, the dimensions of the DNA helix, as well as the proportions in the bodies of humans and animals, all follow the Golden Ratio, just to name a few, so it's a rather profound mathematical number.

Given the above, it doesn't sound all that farfetched to suggest that something as profound as Christ Consciousness would also follow such a law of nature. By connecting the two concepts, Manson is following Paramahansa's concept of seeking unity and commonalities between spirituality and science.

5 or 500 million years ago
I have no idea how to interpret this part.
We were 15-foot high and to die was a Bardot Bridge(t) we never thought we'd cross
To burn down behind and below
We were 15-foot high and to die was a Bardot Bridge(t) we never thought we'd cross
It's hard to tell what "15-foot high" means in this verse. We know that 15 is a sort of "magic number" for Manson; it appears many times throughout his work, and he even has it tattooed behind one of his ears. It's a number that sort of represents Manson himself. But that by itself doesn't explain why the number is applied to height.

My personal theory is that it's related to a religious meme that circulated around the time when the album was written: that Adam and Eve were 15-feet high. The meme itself seems to be based on shoddy reasoning, and in fact there are much better theories about the height of Adam (for example, the Quran actually states his height outright, and it's not 15 feet), but nevertheless, this idea was apparently popular enough at the time that you can find people online asking about it, and I can definitely see Manson finding it very appealing.

The idea that this is a reference to Adam and Eve also fits with the rest of the lyrics:

to die was a Bardot Bridge(t) we never thought we'd cross
"We'll cross that bridge when we get there" is a phrase that means "to delay dealing with something until it becomes a problem". In this case, the something in question is death itself.

Initially, Adam and Eve had no knowledge of death, hence they never thought they'd have to deal with something like that. Knowledge of death was the bridge they did end up crossing once they ate from the Tree of Knowledge, and once they learned of their mortality, there was no going back, hence they "crossed to burn down [the bridge] behind [us]" in the lyrics (burning the bridge is an idiom for destroying the ability to go back to the way things were).

Also, once they learned to distinguish between good and evil, they gained the ability to sin, so burning down in hell below became a real possibility. Hence, they "crossed the bridge to burn down below".

What's a Bardot Bridge and why is it spelled "Bridge(t)" in the lyrics?
"Bardo" is a Buddhist concept. It's a transitional state between death and rebirth, which suggests that Manson sees the transition from a paradisal blissful ignorance to a state of awareness of one's mortality and of good and bad, as a sort of death and rebirth, since the "enlightened" Adam and Eve were no longer the same people that they were before they ate from the tree.

As for the spelling, it's a play on the name Brigitte Bardot. Brigitte was a French actress who was known for exploiting her nudity for publicity. By being a pioneer in using her nudity for publicity, she essentially made society cross the bridge between a time when that was unacceptable, to a time where it was possible to do.
No Sineater to slay us children of Cain
Watching monkey suicide,
Sunday AIDS and church wine wash it away

Don't assume that I'm always with you
It's just where my mortal body happens to be
So take your little black book
I see the way that you look into it
I'll eat it and I'll cut my tongue
And all the pages you spread,
'sweet as honey', you said
But I'm choking on your bitter stories
This is where Manson gives us his final conclusion: that the Christian ideas about sin are toxic and that he resents them. The resentment is expressed at the beginning of the verse, where he threatens to eat the little black book (the bible) and then make it so that he'll never be able to recount its contents (cut his tongue). This is akin to a sin-eater who rids the world of sin by containing it within himself.

Then, he comments on how unpleasant all of this theological guilt-mongering is. "Sweet as honey" is a reference to Psalm 119:103 "How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!", but the words in that book aren't sweet at all. They're bitter like poison, and he is having a hard time swallowing them.
No Sineater to slay us children of Cain
Watching monkey suicide,
Sunday AIDS and church wine wash it away

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.

LyricsCommentary
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
Lyrics posted on Marilyn Manson's Facebook page 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.

LyricsCommentary
I'm not of this world
you're not in this heart
this isn't in me

To open this box
you can't shoot the lock
I hide everything
so you can't see
Not only does he not want her to see his secrets, but he also says that he doesn't love her (you're not in this heart), and that he doesn't think he has it in him to be open like that anyway (this isn't in me).
Wanna fight?
Wanna fuck?
Wanna die?
Try your luck...
Lay down your goddamn arms
Here we see some aggressive pushback to the aggressive attempts of opening the box, saying that this is going to turn into a fight and daring the other person to try.
There isn't a key,
you can use on me
There isn't a key,
so lay down your arms
arms
arms
In this song, the gun is playing the role of a key because like a key it can open a lock (by destroying it). So "lay down your arms" means "stop trying to unlock me with your shotgun".
You're a book
every page is written in words I cannot read

So I burn
gotta burn
gotta burn
gotta burn it
By saying that he can't read her, he either says that he doesn't understand her (she is incomprehensible to him), or that he has no use for her, since a book that you can't read is useless.

Then he invokes the book burning metaphor. Before the internet came along and immortalized information, book burning was used to erase not just the book itself, but also the cultural legacy that was contained within it, so he is saying that he wants to get rid of not just her, but everything about her as well.

It's possible that the idea of referring to a person as a book came from Mark Twain, who once said "every person is a book, each year a chapter".
Wanna fight?
Wanna fuck?
Wanna die?
Try your luck...
Lay down your goddamn arms

There isn't a key,
you can use on me
There isn't a key,
so lay down your arms
arms
arms

So I burn
gotta burn
gotta burn
gotta burn it

Murderers Are Getting Prettier Every Day

Samples

Police siren.

LyricsCommentary

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:

No, they're not [made]. That's the irony there. Thanks for noticing that. You're not born a villain. And the refrain of that song's chorus is, 'I'm a born villain/Don't pretend to be a victim.'
People assume that you're born into it, but when you grow up with people always telling you that you're doing bad things, that is nurture, not nature. So Born Villain is a contradiction in itself.

LyricsCommentary
I could give you a dozen
fresh,
cut,
pink, or red, or white
I wonder if they knew what they
would grow to become
Most of the first verse sounds like he's talking about inflicting cuts, until we get to the colors and finally realize that he's talking about dozen flowers, not dozen lacerations. The flowers in question are roses, based on the color selection. A dozen roses are a symbol of love and romance.

Here we have someone who is creating a gesture of love, yet everybody assume he is making a gesture of violence thanks to the misdirection in the writing. If your virtues are interpreted as sins, then you're not really given room to be virtuous, so how could you turn out to be anything but a villain?

I wonder if they knew what they would grow to become
This is a very appropriate question to ask about villains. Every monstrous adult was once an innocent child full of potential. Who knew they would take that route?

But in the context of the verse, the question is actually directed towards the victims. Even though to us he is making a gesture of love, to the flowers he is the villain that murders them with a knife, and it's an ironic twist on the misdirection at the beginning of the verse. We thought he was a villain, turns out he was a lover, unless you are the flowers.

I think that the point of this line is to introduce through irony the concept of "becoming" into the song.
become become
become become
be be be become
As stated in the introduction, this word gets a lot of attention in this song, supporting the idea that it's at least partly about becoming a villain.
you'll have to cut it down
and burn me into splinters
or I'll unwrap the string
that was me,
around your finger.
And I'll hang you in
your bedroom burial ground
In this metaphor, there's a tree and a string, the two minimal requirements for hanging someone. He is the string, and he's wrapped around her finger (based on the bedroom metaphor, it's probably a 'her'). "Wrapped around her finger" is an expression that means that he is fully controlled by her. So taken together Manson is saying: "if you don't destroy me, I'll get from under your control and destroy you myself".

Is this an act of someone who is inherently evil, or retaliation that never would've happened had he not been dominated?
There is a taste for blood
and it's something deep inside
there is a taste for blood
and it's deep inside
A description of being innately evil.
become become
become become
be be be become
I don't ever want god
to hear our screams
and mistake them for prayers.
Why doesn't he want God to mistake the screams for prayers? Because then God might answer those "prayers". Screams imply something horrible, so if God were to answer these screams as if they were prayers, it doesn't seem likely that something good will come out of it. I think that this part might be in the lyrics to add the idea that sometimes you become a villain by some cosmic mistake. Maybe you became a villain because God fucked up...
And you know I'm loaded
but not which chamber
touch me and I'll go
Click click click click click
Click click click click click
Click click click click click
Here he compares himself to a revolver that has one bullet in an unknown chamber. He has the capacity for destruction, and you never know when he's going to go off. This begs the question, who's at fault when he finally blows up? You can say that the potential for destruction was within him, and lay the blame on him, but then again, a gun doesn't go off by itself. You knew he was loaded, and you kept touching him anyway, so who's the bad guy here?
There is a taste for blood
and it's something deep inside
there is a taste for blood
and it's deep inside

become become
become become
be be be become

And you know I'm loaded
But not which chamber
Touch me and I'll go
Click click click click click
Click click click click click
Click click click click click
I'm born villain
don't pretend to be a victim
Based on Manson's comments in an interview quoted above, "don't pretend to be a victim" is because "you nurtured me into this role, so you inflicted me unto yourself".

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.

LyricsCommentary
And then I found how to be what you want
when I was out looking for something new

Digging too deep
and now it's too late
we just keep on
breaking the same old ground
In this verse, Manson is utilizing one of his favorite techniques of taking a figurative phrase, and treat it like literal imagery. Breaking the same old ground becomes actual digging. By having the same fight again and again, they were repeatedly digging in the same spot, and thus they dug themselves into a hole (or a grave?) too deep to escape from, meaning that there's no way to salvage the relationship anymore.

Only after they split up, did he finally learn about himself what he needed to be for that to not happen.
So you think that I asked for this
well, let me show you what I think of your lips
And you think that I asked for this
come on, use your fist
The chorus is written like an argument where all words have failed, and now they're on the verge of coming to blows.

well, let me show you what I think of your lips
come on, use your fist

"Just punch me already", he goads. "Let me show you what I think of your lips" he threatens. Lips are used to express love and desire, but now it's like "screw your gestures of love".

So you think that I asked for this?
This part is defensive. It sounds like he's being blamed for how the relationship turned out, and he's replying with "why are you laying the blame on me? Do you think I wanted to end up like this?"".
And then I found how to be what you want
when I was out looking for something new

Digging too deep
and now it's too late
we just keep on
breaking the same old ground

So you think that I asked for this
well, let me show you what I think of your lips
And you think that I asked for this
come on, use your fist

When I found how to be what you want
I was out looking for something new
digging too deep
now it's too late
we just keep on
breaking the same old ground
breaking the same old ground
shhhhhh...
shhhhhh...
This is the point where the sample of the argument plays out. The woman is in a frenzy of fury, and as she screams Manson says "shhhhh..." as if in reply to the screaming.
I am owned by death
and
I'm in love with oblivion
This is a defiant statement of freedom.

"I am owned by death" essentially means "only death owns me", because death doesn't share the things it owns with anybody.

By saying "only death owns me", he is effectively saying "no person owns me", and that's a sentiment that can be a cathartic pushback against a romantic partner that tries to scream you into compliance.

As for the second part, "I'm in love with oblivion", in the context of the failed relationship theme, the choice of the words "in love" is meaningful, because he's not in love with her. He's in love with something that is by definition the absence of her. It is also quite understandable that if your current environment is hell, because your relationship is nothing but conflict, you'll want to escape from it, and generally men do so by checking out, which means escaping into the nothingness in your head where it's peaceful. In times of great stress, oblivion becomes particularly appealing.

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.

Johnny called me up a couple months ago and said, "Hey do you wanna come over and work on something?"" So we started playing blues songs. I said, "Hey, my record's done, but we should really do a song to add to the end of it, as if it were a movie." The movie is over and the end title credits are playing. This is the song that adds to it.

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".

Lyrics
You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte
And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner
They'd be your partner and...

You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?

You had me several years ago when I was still naive
You said that we made such a pretty pair
And that you would never leave
But you gave away the things you loved and one of them was me

I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee and...

You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?

I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee and you're so vain

Well I hear you went up to Saratoga and your horse naturally won
Then you flew your lear jet up to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun
Well you're where you should be all the time
And when you're not you're with some underworld spy or the wife of a close friend
Wife of a close friend and...

You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?
You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?

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.

Born Villain cover

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.

Born Villain logoI-Ching trigrams

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 MountainBorn Villain
The Holy Mountain opening scene
The Holy Mountain opening scene
The Holy Mountain opening scene
The Holy Mountain opening scene recreation in Born Villain
The Holy Mountain opening scene recreation in Born Villain
The Holy Mountain opening scene recreation in Born Villain
The Holy Mountain eye giving sceneThe Holy Mountain eye giving scene recreation in 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 DammitBorn Villain
Toby Dammit Shakespeare sceneToby Dammit Shakespeare scene recreation in 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:

Images from Campaign book
Campaign book poster
The Campaign Born Villain poster that is photographed in Campaign

Singles

No Reflection single coverSlo-Mo-Tion single cover

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

I chose that song as the first single because I thought it was almost if the record were a movie, that's the song I would use for the trailer, because I thought it represented the album. It had the spirit of the record and it had the attitude of the album. [...] You obviously don't want to give away an entire movie in a trailer for a movie, and that's the way I thought of the song and that's why I picked it.

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.

The witch, the liar, and the wardrobe
The witch, the liar, and the wardrobe
Twiggy wearing a conic wizard hat
Twiggy wearing a conic wizard hat

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).

You got your hell's teeth image
You've got your hell's teeth smiling at you

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.

Manson using the Knuckle Buster microphoneManson using the smoke gun on stage