The Arcane Chamber of Sin - Miscellaneous Pages

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Marilyn Manson's Mechanical Animals: Dead Stars and Chemical Weddings

Contents:
An Overview
The Songs (Great Big White World - The Speed of Pain)
The Songs (Posthuman - Coma White)
Closing Notes

First, some opening notes:

Some of what I say may not follow obviously from the lyrics alone, because my general background knowledge about MM, religion, the occult and whatever influences my interpretation. However, I've tried to explain when this happens in a major way.
This is not an attempt at exegesis, that is, I am not trying to explain to you what MM intended to say with MA. Nonetheless, I refer to the "I" character on the album as either the protagonist or Omega, rather than as MM, for this reason.
This essay on MA is in many ways less in-depth than that of ACS. The reason for this is that although I find MA interesting, I don't personally get as much out of it as I did out of ACS, so I don't have as much to say, I don't feel as motivated to go into extreme anal detail about the artwork and so on.

With that out of the way, we can continue...

An Overview

In Mechanical Animals, I see the story of an individual, Omega, who is tortured by his own idealism. That is, he takes issue with many aspects of the world (similarly to how the protagonist of ACS does), i.e. its hypocrisy, superficiality and conformity, yet he does not hate the world enough to cast it away or destroy it (unlike the protagonist of ACS). This attraction to the world despite its flaws is manifested in Omega's attraction to Coma White, who is both a person and a drug.

Throughout MA, Omega criticizes his world, i.e. postmodern North American culture. Sometimes he implies that one should take some kind of action to improve things. Other times he implies that although he sees these flaws, he feels forced to resign himself to him, because his fight is getting him nowhere. This second sentiment arises particularly in consideration of Coma White - Omega cannot discard the world completely because of her/it (referred to henceforth as "her" for convenience sake). But because he is divided between his cause and his passion/addiction, in the end Omega loses both. I believe this interpretation is considerably more pessimistic than that of most fans and possibly even Manson's own.

The Songs

Although MA is not as cyclical as ACS, I think there is a similarity between them in that the songs can be divided into two groups. For ACS, these groupings were based on Nietzschean "undergoing" versus "overcoming." For MA, the groupings I see are based on (1) songs performed by Omega and the Mechanical Animals within the context of the story and (2) songs about Omega's personal life, especially as it involves Coma White. The division then works this way:

Omega's Songs: The Dopeshow, Rock is Dead, Post-Human, I Wanna Disappear, I Don't Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me), New Model No. 15, User-Friendly
Songs about Omega: Great Big White World, Mechanical Animals, Disassociative, The Speed of Pain, Fundamentally Loathesome, Last Day on Earth, Coma White

It should be noted though that this separation is less distinct than the song groupings of ACS. In general, on MA the faster songs are more definitive of Omega's "public" persona within the context of the story (i.e. the side of him that the audience sees) and the slower ones are more definitive of his "private" persona (the one that Coma White sees).

Great Big White World

Somewhat like ACS, the album opens with the protagonist's dismay at the world around him. But while "Irresponsible Hate Anthem" was more hateful (go figure), "Great Big White World" is more despairing. Despite Omega's position of rock-star-antichrist artistic power, the world has yet to be redeemed according to his liberatory, revolutionary vision. As a result, he feels alienated from his bland surroundings.
"The stars are no nearer..." i.e. the world of Omega's dreams is far from this one.
"..I dreamed I was a spaceman, burned like a moth in a flame, and our world was so fucking gone..." The stories of either ACS or Holy Wood may be seen as the "dream" referred to here - the protagonist has taken on the rock-star-antichrist role prophesized by ACS/HW, yet he awakens from the last world he destroyed to discover one that's just as bad if not worse.
"We are drained of our colors." Conformity bred by excessive commodification and commercialization. The preponderance of white suggests racial homogenization as well as general sterility. Sterility is also suggested by "Mother Mary, miscarry," i.e. the world is too sterile to support even its supposedly dearest ideologies, such as Christianity. Yet despite this, people "pray just like insects," i.e. they act instinctively/mechanically, without self-reflection.
"And Hell was so cold, the vases are so broken, and the roses tear our hands all open." Omega possesses a greater degree of passion and empathy than does the protagonist of ACS. Thus he is troubled by his world's banishment of even negative emotions - there is no warmth even in hell, and no vessel in which to hold the roses with their wounding thorns.
"All my stitches itch, my prescription's low, I wish you were queen just for today." Although Omega feels alienated and claims he is "not attached to your world," it is already as if he is dependent on the world despite his ideals. The wounds he sustained on his last adventure (whether as the ACS or as the protagonist of HW) have been imperfectly repaired, leaving him with a weakness: the same susceptibility to addiction as the people he rails against. Yet at this point he wants to overcome his weakness - although he craves his prescription (I presume Coma White), he seems to think that if he could just satisfy it for a little while, (e.g. for today) he could move onward tomorrow.

The Dope Show

Although Omega continues his criticism of the world around him, he is at the same time profiting via speaking his mind. "All the pretty, pretty ones" have made him celebrity-of-the-moment, and for the moment he is loved because he's "on all the covers." Although he knows this fame and affection will not last, he is willing to enjoy stardom for now.
"The drugs..." In the first verse, Omega talks about drugs in terms of the hollowness of addiction. In the second verse, it is made more explicit that "drugs" here does not only refer to substances, but also to stars like himself, "made in California" (i.e. Holly/Holy Wood) - "We love your face, we'd really like to sell you."
"The cops and queers." Taking cops as representatives of control/order and queers as representatives of unconventionality/freedom, the implication is that anything can be commercialized (made into a "star in the Dope Show.") regardless of its content such that even rebellion (like Omega's own) becomes a commodity. But if he wants anyone to hear him, this is a necessary evil, hence "To swim you have to swallow."

Mechanical Animals

This song is primarily about Coma White and Omega's evolving relationship with her. That is, although he despairs about the artificiality of people and the world that they've created - to the point that they don't even seem human, only mechanical animals - there is some kind of attraction between himself and Coma White. But is this attraction evidence of his human emotions, or evidence of a susceptibility to addiction built into him just as it is built into all the fake people around him?
"I was a hand grenade that never stopped exploding. You were automatic and as hollow as the 'o' in God." Omega still sees himself as a revolutionary. He sees Coma White as one of the mechanical animals that are losing out on being human. But "automatic" can imply an automatic weapon as well as an automaton, and God might not be such a hollow concept were it not for the corruption of the world - this implies that Omega does see some small potential in Coma White.
"I am never gonna be the one / save the world from you. But they'll never be... anything at all." On one hand Omega sees Coma White as part of the problem - they aren't really compatible, and perhaps she is a very big part of the problem if he worries so about saving the world from her. But on the other hand, he has enough empathy for her to feel sorry for her because, due to the shallowness of people around her, she will never be treated as a human being, whether for good or for ill.
"You were my mechanical bride..." This verse suggests that although Omega sees Coma White as artificial, he also sees the potential of attraction / some kind of relationship with her. (On a tangent, I also think this verse is contains some of the best, cleverest lyrics MM has written so far.)
"This isn't me, I'm not mechanical. I'm just a boy, playing the suicide king." Omega concludes that his emotions are geniune, based on his humanity rather than some kind of preprogrammed response used to control him. But at the same time he sees a risk of self-destruction inherent in his feelings. The "suicide king" refers to the King of Hearts in most decks of playing cards. This is equivalent to the tarot card King of Cups. The King of Cups is associated with the possibility that love or potential love is distracting one from one's work (from Omega's perspective), people who are antagonistic toward others due to their own insecurity (possibly Omega again) and the idea that although someone seems distant they may still be a viable romantic interest (Omega seen from Coma White's perspective.)

Rock is Dead

Basically, more of Omega bitching about the sold-out, soulless, contrived, bullshit-driven world. He realizes on some level that he is trapped in a self-defeating enterprise (i.e. rock n' roll) yet the upbeat, aggressive feel of the song suggests that at this point he nonetheless intends to continue his crusade - even if he is trapped, at least he can inform others that the trap exists.
"All simple monkeys with alien babies, amphetamines for boys and crucifixes for ladies." Possibly a comment about eugenics - the simple monkeys are human parents, the alien babies are the genetically-alterred offspring they idealize (probably on the basis of conformist traits mass-produced under a guise of perfection). Men are socialized to be addicted to seeking more (e.g. drugs), women are socialized to be addicted to giving up things (e.g. martyrdom), but both are being stifled as free individuals.

Disassociative

Lack of authentic feeling drives Omega to have a breakdown. ("The nervous system's down.") Alienation and loneliness get to him, leaving him vulnerable.
"I can tell you what they say in space..." Omega looks down on the world, coming from a perspective so different than that of people around him that he feels like an alien.
"I can never get out of here, I don't wanna just float in fear, dead astronaut in space." He begins to wonder if his perspective may in fact itself be delusional - perhaps the world that so troubles him is the only one, perhaps he is only making himself miserable. If this is the case, he is not so much an alien (totally other by default) as an astronaut (a "normal" person who chooses to make himself other).
"Sometimes we walk like we were shot through our heads my love. We write a song in space like we're already dead and gone." "My love" refers to Coma White, even though Omega's relationship with her at this point is more fantasy than actual - at least he wouldn't be so alone then. He begins to think that entertaining the relationship only in his head only(writing the song in space, i.e. a love song) feeds his loneliness, and hence his sense of being dead.

The Speed of Pain

Omega senses that Coma White has the same capabilities for feeling agony and loneliness that he himself has. All the heartbreak they could experience together is vivid in his mind, yet he decides in the end that he would prefer this pain, this eventuality, than feeling nothing at all.
"They slit our throats like we were flowers..." They, i.e. powers that be, destroy peoples' humanity as if doing so were as inconsequential as flicking the head off a dandelion. Omega sees both himself and Coma White as victims of this casual disregard.
"When you want it, it goes away too fast..." Omega is keenly aware of all the pitfalls of emotional involvement, and knows that Coma White is too - "Just remember, when you think you're free the crack inside your fucking heart is me."
"There's a knife for every day that I've known you." Omega also keenly feels his attachment to Coma White.
"I wanna outrace the speed of pain for another day." Part of Omega is attracted to the numbness of "Disassociative." He would rather not subject himself to the emotional traumas he expects, and yet he is drawn to the possibility of at least feeling something. "Lie to me, cry to me..." suggests similar sentiments - perhaps any emotion is better than none at all.
"I would keep all your secrets wrapped in dead hair." I'm not too sure about this except that it suggests a longing for physical tangibility - embodiment and its associated flaws as opposed to the supposed perfection of a disembodied, digital mind.

Posthuman

Putting regrets of solitude behind, Omega becomes more properly involved with Coma White. He feels that things are better now and tries not to focus on the troubling superficialities he nonetheless senses.
"She's got eyes like Zapruder, a mouth like heroin. She wants me to be perfect like Kennedy." Zapruder having captured Kennedy's assassination on film, the implication is that while Coma White wants Omega to be successful (in his career, vision, etc.) she also has a morbid fascination with him. The reference to heroin also suggests that she encourages his self-destruction.
"Say, 'Show me the dead stars, all of them sing.' This is a riot, religious and clean." Omega wonders if the martyrdom of past stars is something he should strive for or just more commodification of art. He leans toward the former, partly due to his exhileration with Coma White. His belief in his own ability to start some kind of revolution is renewed, and he doesn't even mind if it's a slightly sanitized revolution.
"This isn't God... God is just a statistic... God is a number you cannot count to." Under Coma White's influence, Omega becomes more accepting of the digital side of life that he previously decried as utterly superficial. Despite a world full of mediated experience, he feels spiritually inspired. But Coma White with being "pilgrim and pagan... in all of her dreams she's a saint like Jackie-O" (i.e. superficially she can take on any spirituality, so long as she looks good in the public eye) this may yet prove to be just another hollow shell in the guise of authenticity. "All that glitters is gold" (spoken by Coma White) suggests further that Coma White is content with surfaces, a trait that Omega accepts for now but is sure to be troubled by as time passes.

I Want to Disappear

Although Omega briefly experiences a sense of rejuvenation from Coma White, he is already starting to come down and have doubts. He becomes torn once more between the relative peace of an emotional vacuum and the extreme highs and lows of his life as a star in love.
"I'm a million different things, and not one you know." The first verse is mostly Omega's disillusionment and fears of what he is becoming. But this line contains some consolation: in the betrayal of his ideals, Omega becomes a contradiction, hence harder to "know" i.e. market and dillute.
"I wanna die young..." In the second verse, Omega embraces the extremes of his fame so as to add to the chaos he now embodies. Even his complaints of boredom and impending degeneration ("By the time I'm old enough I won't know anything at all.") come across as celebratory - if he can't defeat the world, at least he can rip off its goodies.
"Hey, and our Mommies are lost now..." The chorus suggests the troubles of broken homes: isolation, uncertainty and abuse. Omega's lifestyle is presented as an alternative to those young people who reject their conditioning (mentioned in "Rock is Dead") or otherwise feel alienated. He is thus given a market niche appealing to the "alternative" crowd. But perhaps part of the reason why Omeag wants to disappear is because he knows deep down that he is on a self-destructive path of excess, and that the powers that be are using him to encourage impressionable minds to similarly destroy themselves so that they won't threaten any hierarchies either.

I Dont Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me)

As with "Rock is Dead", mostly Omega bitching about the world around him. But the title phrase suggests that whereas before Omega was railing and struggling, now he is beginning to think that addiction/slavery of some sort is inevitable. He still wants to speak out, but the form of his message (an upbeat, decidedly "hip" tune) belies the critical value of its content.
"Norm life baby, 'We're white and oh so hetero and our sex is missionary.'" The verses are all quite similar and take the form of Omega speaking for the people around him. But when Omega takes on this voice, it becomes questionable whether he himself has validated his surroundings by speaking for them, and in the process compromised himself.
"You and I are underdosed and we're ready to fall. Raised to be stupid, taught to be nothing at all." Omega and his fans are publically known as self-destructive misfits. This outcome it to be expected from the way things were heading in "I Want to Disappear." Omega is aware that he is a false alternative in this sense, i.e. the lifestyle of which he is part of the marketing package is not truly liberating: it is just liberating enough for the misfits to buy into it without threatening the status quo.
"There's a hole in our soul that we fill with dope and we're feeling fine." The statement applies to Omega as well as to those around him. His "dope" is Coma White. He has duped himself into believing that since he is still getting his message out, his revolution against the shallow world is proceding, even though in fact he and his fans are steadily being engulfed by that world.

New Model No. 15

Omega remains outwardly upbeat but inwardly despises himself for having sold out to the world that he hates: he has become fake, vague, homopolitan, predictable and subject to the control structures he was trying to buck. ("Correctly Political," i.e. he says just what a revolutionary is "supposed" to say in order for them to be marketable.)
"Better in the head and in bed at the office I can suck it and smile." Sedated into normality (by Coma White?) Omega is able to accept sucking up to corporatism (the office). He's better in bed in the sense that he's whoring himself out.
"I'm spun and I know that I'm stoned and rolling." References to Spin and Rolling Stone magazines - again, giving into commodification because his Coma-White-induced daze allows him to remain content.
"Don't let them know how far you go or that you use your lovers. Oh look you're like a VCR - stick something in to know just who you are." Omega begins to realize that Coma White defines herself on the basis of his hollow image, and so to some extent has manipulated him into this position so that she can enjoy the delusion of having her own identity.
RE: the number 15 - 15 is the number associated with The Devil tarot card. Omega as a pre-packaged devil, a cool symbol of rebellion stripped of any real potency by the profit-machine that supports him. Also, 15 is between 14 (a "karmic debt" number associated with addiction) and 16 (a "karmic debt" number associated with ego inflation): Omega walks the line between falling prey to the world and its addictions, and falling prey to his destroying himself if he tries to put himself above that world.

User Friendly

Omega sees all the more how he is being used by Coma White. But on some level he can't really complain because he is also using her.
"I've bled just to have your touch, when I'm in you I want to die." Omega has sacrificed his ideals in order to have Coma White, i.e. to make himself into what she wants him to be, a product for her to enjoy and define herself by. The death he refers to here is both an expression of ecstasy and a desire for self-annihilation driven by his dissatisfaction with what he's become.
"Will you die when you're high? You'd never die just for me." Will Coma White's neediness end when she has everything she wants from Omega - when he fulfills his own prophesized self-destruction by overdosing in true rock 'n' roll fashion, thereby completing the image she wants him to have? Her morbid fascination with him disgusts Omega, especially since he now sees that her drive for fulfillment is based on selfishness instead of love. She is only using him, i.e. "I'm not in love, but I'm gonna fuck you 'till somebody better comes along." But on the other hand, in the sense that she is a drug that he uses, this line could just as easily come from him as from her.
"Relationships are such a bore, delete the ones that you've fucked." Omega and Coma White are whores to each other, using each other only to get what they want. There is no real attachment, only a need/addiction to having someone there, i.e. whoever is useful at the time.

Fundamentally Loathesome

Omega slips from seeing Coma White primarily as a person to seeing her primarily as a drug. He is so deeply enmeshed in the system he hates now that he can no longer bear the pain that would come with trying to fight his way out of it. So instead he longs for numbness and the absence of sensation. Conveniently, those are the very things that the corrupt world is most easily able to hand to him.
"But I'll just suffer in a hope to die some day, while you are numb all of the way." Omega envies Coma White because she is not feeling the torment that his ideals cause him. He wants what she has, a world with no pain - she is not a person but a drug, and he can have her world if he does this drug.
"When you hate it you know you can feel but when you love you know that it's not real." Omega changes his mind about whether he'd rather have only negative emotions versus no emotions at all. Due to his cynicism, any happiness he does feel seems fake to him, pre-packaged, commodified and so on, so he cannot even enjoy any positive aspects of his relationship with Coma White.
"The living are dead and I hope to join them too. I know what to do, and I do it well." The living are dead in that they do not enjoy any kind of authentic existence in the mediated, medicated world in which they live. In order to join them, Omega need only give into the same addictions, i.e. to hand his freedom over to an agent of control such as Coma White.
"Shoot myself to love you, if I loved myself I'd be shooting you." On one hand, Omega sees that he is destroying himself over Coma White, and that if he were stronger in his devotion to his ideals, he would be destroying her instead. But on the other hand, Omega allows himself the luxury of a rock star ego ("Shoot myself" like shooting heroin) because it makes Coma White happy, and if only his love for her were stronger he would give up everything for her alone (i.e. "shoot her" like heroin). This is the central point of indecision that ultimately brings about Omega's downfall.

The Last Day on Earth

Omega gives into his need for Coma White - he subsequently feels guilty for questioning her, for not devoting himself to her totally before, for emphasizing his quest for liberation over the humaness of his emotional connection to her. But at the same time, Omega has run out of time to complete his mission. The superficial world is dying, but he is being destroyed along with it, rather than being the one to destroy it.
"Yesterday was a million years ago. In all my past-lives I played an asshole." Now that he's firmly in the grasp of his emotions, Omega's ideals seem distant and he regrets not giving himself over completely to Coma White before.
"We are trembling in our crutches. High and dead, our skin is glass. I'm so empty here without you I crack my xerox hands." Omega senses that he has been broken by the world he once saw as his adversary. But everyone around him is also broken, deprived of an authentic existence. Instead they are only alive on the surface, minds all but destroyed by drugs and other addictions. Omega is just a copy of the things he wanted to overcome, yet he convinces himself that his loneliness and his absolute need for Coma White make him at least slightly more human than the others, even though his is just one more addiction.
"I know it's the last day on earth... we'll never say goodbye." Again, a statement of his devotion - if everyone and everything is going to die anyway, all his high visions lost, at least he won't be alone.
"The dogs slaughter each other softly. Love burns its casualties." The world is dying gradually rather than suddenly. People break down slowly, like machines (e.g. "Damaged provider modules.") Omega can feel himself breaking down. He imagines that others blame him for the destruction ("I know they want me dead.") since he was marketed as an image of revolution against the world's excesses. This notion cuts him off from other people and the world, even as he suffers as they do, leaving him with only Coma White to hold on to.

Coma White

In the end, Coma White perishes with the world because she is an integral part of it. But Omega originally was from another world - he only let himself succumb to this one, first imagining himself as an alien, then an astronaut, then just another human being. But he was wrong, he could have been more, and so instead of dying with her he is left alone.
"She's standing on an overpass in her miracle mile." Come White has achieved her ultimate goal ("miracle mile," i.e. Omega's complete devotion to her) yet she is detached from it ("standing on an overpass").
" 'You were from a perfect world, a world that threw me away today to run away.' " Although Coma White has Omega under her power, she realizes that because he is otherworldly, there will always be that barrier between them, preventing them from dying together. She resents Omega's idealism, even though he has discarded much of it now - it is as if now that they are, perhaps, the only two people left alive, since has no one left to move on to now if she discards him, she resents what she sees as his flaws more than she did before.
"Her mouth was an empty cut. She was waiting to fall. Just bleeding like a polaroid who lost all her dolls." Coma White will be dead shortly, leaving Omega alone. She knows it herself and perhaps needs to know that she will be missed, hence the guilt-tripping, accusing him of throwing her away. Also, if one takes Coma White as representative of all the addiction in this world, she has "lost all her dolls" in the sense that all the fake pepole that she toyed with are now gone.
"A pill to make you numb... but all the drugs in this world won't save her from herself." On one hand Coma White is the pill mentioned in the chorus, a representative of the world's craving for fast fixes and self-destructive instant gratification. This is Omega's enemy. But at the same time he feels sorry for her because there is still a human side of her that will be lost when she perishes. All the pretenses and hedonistic indulgence of the past cannot change that loss, nor can Omega himself.

Closing Comments

My interpretation of MA is influenced by several other artistic presentations (musical and otherwise) that it reminds me of:

The Man Who Fell to Earth. A movie starring David Bowie, about an alien who comes to earth on a mission to save his family back home, only to become distracted by the various temptations and follies of human life. To be honest, I don't "get" this movie, but I can see some parallels between the alien protagonist and Omega, and between the stupid human woman (I think she's an idiot anyway) and Coma White. The relationship in the movie reminded me of drug addiction just in that I couldn't see rationally why the alien would be attracted to this woman, and yet he couldn't seem to leave her alone even when it was undermining his mission.
William Burroughs' Naked Lunch. I have the book in mind more than the movie. The book's atmosphere, more than its actual plot (?? - read it and you'll see what I mean) influenced my view of MA. The world of Burroughs' Nake Lunch is positively saturated with addictive substances and activities. I pictured the world that Omega struggles against to be similar.
The Wall. I think the protagonist of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" has a similar character flaw to Omega, i.e. that he can't make a firm decision between his ideals and his emotional attachments. He takes on a fascist persona, but ends up having to put himself on trial because he cannot uphold the ideal of emotional coldness and near-universal disdain that he preaches. Similarly, Omega takes on a revolutionary persona but is destroyed in the end because he needs Coma White. In both cases, the character might have gotten on okay had they either remained an artist with a human soul or become totally cold toward humanity, but because each made exceptions, they got screwed in the end. By contrast, I believe the ACS went the full distance: instead of trying to win the world's approval by force (like the guy in The Wall) or trying to win the world's approval by selling out to it (like Omega) he turned his back on the world in a declaration of his own divine validity. He still used the world to put himself into a position of power, but he was not drawn in the way Omega was - even if one wants to interpret ACS with the ACS dying at the end, I still think he came to a better end than Omega did. (Better to die on our feet than on your knees, so to speak.)

Excuses as to why this essay took so bloody long to write:

1998-2000: Here I am all inspired by ACS, and then I hear the lyrics on MA. It makes me think to myself, "Great, before you were your own God, and now you're a useless drug addict. Good for you, asshole." At the time, I lacked certain experiences that allowed me to appreciate the attraction that such addictions might have for one. Toward the end of this period, I finally managed to have such experiences, which gave me insight into how one might be tempted to see the shadows of spirituality in a chemical. So I meant to start working on this essay, but...
2001-2002: ... then I found myself the third coordinate of a love triangle, the other two coordinates of which reminded me suspiciously of Omega and Coma White. i.e. one of those relationships where the guy complains incessantly about how the girl makes him miserable and it's ruining his life, but he won't leave her alone. I didn't want to write the essay because I felt my feelings would compromise my interpretation, plus thinking about the whole thing in any way, shape or form made me miserable (unless I was working on Mourning After Pill, which was born out of that particular ordeal). Fortunately these things pass with time. I think I've had a healthy transition as a result, from being someone like Omega, whose will is divided between their spiritual and romantic needs, to being someone more like the ACS, whose will is more focussed. Most of the waking world doesn't seem to think this is healthy, in as much as it is inimical to the whole eternal-love-marriage-children-white-picket-fence package of bullshit, but they can go fuck themselves. :)