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...
On January 24th 2025, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office issued the following announcement in the decision on the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault allegations against Brian Warner, a.k.a. Marilyn Manson: Within a few hours of issuing this statement, it was deleted from their website and all social media accounts and edited as follows. The difference between the two statements are they added an Update on top and they removed a line from the third paragraph which in the original statement said "necessitated by the facts and evidence in this matter." I have little doubt that Evan or Esme disputed this part of the statement and the LADA complied out of fear. Both Evan and Esme would never concede to having their "compelling evidence" downplayed. Eliminating this part of the statement instead allows them to ignore the evidence aspect and focus on the statute of limitations, which would help them elevate their victim status and promote their advocac...