Songs You May Have Missed: Marilyn Manson – “Man that you Fear”

Lindsay — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 05:00:34 +0000

Family get-togethers at the holidays usually include at least three cousins asking me, “How did you go from Marilyn Manson to Britney Spears?” or, in reference to the general time period where I caught shit for listening to Manson, “Remember when you used to wear those boots?” Well, the simple answers, my dear family, is that I still listen to Marilyn Manson even with my newfound love for Britney. And my platform boots from Hot Topic broke in 2003, or I’d probably still wear them.

I wasn’t allowed to own Antichrist Superstar. In fact, I think I sneakily bought Mechanical Animals while at the mall with my friends. My parents tried their best to shelter me from the freaky man with the prosthetic boobs. They failed. When I was finally able to listen to Antichrist Superstar in its entirety (downloading albums with dial-up was hard!), I was amazed. I still think it’s a fantastic album. My favorite song was, and likely always will be, “Man that you Fear.” If my parents could look beyond the lyrical content, they would have found a beautiful song.

Upon reading the various interpretations of the song, I do kind of see the song as being about Manson’s (or, it could be argued, the narrator for Antichrist Superstar) reaching a godlike status. However, by itself, the song really played in to my too-much-eyeliner, baggy pants, “fuck it all” persona of teenagerdom. I mean, really, what better mantra could a teenager have than “I was born into this / everything turns to shit”? Oh, wait, I know! Teenage life can be summarized by the electronic voices that end the song:

When all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

(P.S. Universal doesn’t want me to embed it, so you’ll have to go here to check it out.)

small.town.girl » Marilyn Manson

Songs You May Have Missed: Marilyn Manson – “Man that you Fear”