The High End of Low One Year Later...

2009, the sound of it still gives the chills. Indeed it was an incredibly disastrous year for most of us because it represented on a personal level and specially to Manson one simple word: Loss.

"everyone will come, everyone will come, to my funeral to make sure that I stay dead"

 (Four Rusted Horses,2010)

Did you realize how many times The High End of Low used the words "death" and "loss"? You´d be surprised, enough to make you think that finally everything that made the music and the art of Manson had fallen into a void, a bottomless pit. And because of this a mysterious aura might have infected many of you fans with gruesome thoughts,  and yes, Death became even scarier than the Devil.

So let´s start off  by analyzing in this blog with one of The High End of Low´s "fatal attractions"; "Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon":

"death to the ladies first, then the gentlemen all sorts of tax-free-face-lift-abortions-nervous-breakdance
satanic girls gone wild, truly fucking suicidal."

Death is also about decadence, something that ends and siezes to inspire. Manson has taken influences from many decadent art movements, like the era of Weimar Berlin and reprised with amazing results in "The Golden Age of Grotesque". Coincidentally in the music video of  "Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon" some girls with picket signs have a Blackface very similar to the one Manson wore in 2003.

"fuck, eat, kill, now do it again, it's arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon, fuck, eat, kill, etc."

The song has very subtle implications that women and men literally devour each other as if they were some sort of black widow. The song "Wight Spider" seems to be more specific. Compared to the analogies to vampirism in "Eat Me, Drink Me" we see yet another level of consumption, whether it´s psychological, physical and emotional.

There is an urban term called  psychic vampires which refers in general to the emotional drain of of a victim.

"i wish i was still dead, but the tv said, it´s just a "tropical depression."

A pun is used to define depression, a popular resource in many of Manson´s songs. It´s been known also that the rain does have a certain effect of bringing people down or getting "the blues".

 

"is it the news? or is it the noose?, results may vary, side effects are very, arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon"

Manson´s decadence extends to the influence of the media, a subject he covered a while later on the interview made by Michael Moore:
 

"Because that's not the way the media wants to take it and spin it and turn it in to fear. Because then you're watching television, you're watching the news, you're being pumped full of fear."

(MM, Bowling for Columbine, 2002)
 
 
IN HIS OWN WORDS:
 
In reference to being asked about the song title , "Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon":
 

"Oh, I think it is completely unshocking and completely intentionally redundant and that was the whole point of it. I really go out of my way to make that fit into the record. In the context of the record, it refers to something I said that day going to the studio. It was my commentary on how shameless and hopeless and uninteresting things are now. When you have to put ‘goddamn’ and ‘motherfucking’ into a title that already has ‘Armageddon’ in it... you know! I was just making a point. Anyway, I didn’t write it - the Bible wrote it - I just added a couple of new words to it..."

(Interview for The Stool Pigeon Music Newspaper, 06/2009)

THE VIDEO

Many of the visual aspects for the video of "Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon" are inspired by the movies of Jodorowksy. Two of them are "El Topo" and "The Holy Mountain".

Other aspects are basically ideas like the use of the podium, commonly seen among Manson´s stage props since "Antichrist Superstar". This time the "shock " logo was replaced with the dollar sign, and in other promotional media a version of two crossed dollar signs emulated a swastika or triskele.

The drums played in the video resemble the iones used during "The Golden Age of Grotesque" era, as well as the girls in U.S. flag patterned bikins complete with Blackface. This turns out to be more of a parody or mockery of Manson´s previous eras.

According to legend,

Manson also claimed that the song was inspired by an instance where he was driving to the studio and witnessed a 'ruckus' with the police, and that it has a very intentional "Adam Ant/Gary Glitter throwback vibe." (Noisecreep. May 20, 2010)

WATCH  "Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon":

The High End of Low has to be one of the most lyrically complex albums from Marilyn Manson´s productions so far. Because Death and decadence, loss and loneliness have many interpretations, so does this record. Enjoy the video!