There is a point in One Assassination Under God – Chapter 2 where the language of survival finally becomes the language of retaliation. “The Arsonist” is that point. The song is not simply about having survived an attempt to destroy you. It is about what happens afterward, when the person who has been burned decides that the fire did not finish him and that the scars it left behind have become part of his strength. Manson himself described the song as the moment when the narrative of the two chapters “crystallizes into a battle stance,” and, referring to the painting he created for it, said that the “burned scar tissue” had formed into armor. That description gets very close to the heart of the song. The fire has not disappeared. It has changed him. The title is important because Manson does not call the song The Survivor or The Victim . He calls it "The Arsonist." An arsonist deliberately starts a fire, and this changes the entire perspective of the song. The speaker is no...
48 hours after the release of "God is a Weapon", the music video has garnered 1.5 million views on YouTube and was trending there at #2 for music, while previously in just one day it had hit a million views and at its peak was trending at #4 for all YouTube videos. The song has been trending on all the major streaming services as well. The music video has inspired many reaction videos on YouTube als (most of which are very funny and worth watching at least for the reaction when they realize Marilyn Manson is a part of it), and out of the 20 or so that I saw it was received very positively, primarily because the song is often described as an earworm that is very pleasant to listen to which slowly builds up but doesn't take too long to do so, and the video has cinematic production value, while at the same time the lyrics and symbolism are thought provoking. These are perfect ingredients for a song to be listened to repeatedly. As for Falling in Reverse and their lead singer...