“All the Vilest Things” initially sounds like a song about retaliation. The speaker has been attacked, wounded, and subjected to things that were intended to destroy him, and much of the language is deliberately violent. Yet Manson's own explanation points in a different direction. He describes the song as being about “balancing your resentments” and determining the proper measure of punishment in matters of war. More importantly, he says that the song provides “a real balance to the idea of vengeance.” The lyrics suggest that this balance comes from recognizing the damage that has been done without allowing the desire for revenge to become the thing that defines what happens next. The opening establishes the situation immediately: “You tried your best To destroy me I don't want revenge Because you only Made me stronger.” There is no attempt to minimize what happened. The speaker acknowledges that someone genuinely tried to destroy him. What changes is his response t...
Though she had just released her second studio album some months before and was nominated for four Grammy's including Best New Artist in 2020, before February 4th of 2021, most people had never really heard of Phoebe Bridgers. All of a sudden, she is all over the media making an accusation on Twitter against Marilyn Manson to supplement the bombardment of accusations of domestic abuse and sexual assault against him made a few days earlier by Evan Rachel Wood and others. She obviously felt like she could contribute something, even though she herself was never acquainted with Manson either romantically or as a friend. Her claim was that she heard something suspicious from Manson one day as a teenager when she went over Manson's house with some friends, and by tweeting what this suspicious thing was, Phoebe Bridgers automatically was listed as one of Marilyn Manson's accusers, and became much more known then she was before. In fact, her name would become almost a household nam...