In the past, band members dressed in outlandish makeup and costumes, and engaged in intentionally shocking behavior both onstage and off. Their lyrics often received criticism for their anti-religious sentiment and references to sex, violence and drugs, while their live performances were frequently called offensive and obscene. On several occasions, protests and petitions led to the group being blocked from performing, with at least three US states passing legislation banning the group from performing at state-owned venues. They released a number of platinum-selling albums, including Antichrist Superstar (1996) and Mechanical Animals (1998). These albums, along with their highly stylized music videos and worldwide touring, brought public recognition to Marilyn Manson. In 1999, news media, infamously, falsely blamed the band for influencing the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre.
As this controversy began to wane throughout the 2000s, so did the band's mainstream popularity. Despite this, Jon Wiederhorn of MTV, in June 2003, referred to Marilyn Manson as "the only true artist today". Marilyn Manson is widely regarded as being one of the most iconic and controversial figures in rock music, with the band and its lead singer influencing numerous other groups and musicians, both in metal-associated acts and also in wider popular culture. VH1 ranked Marilyn Manson as the seventy-eighth best rock band on their 100 Great Artists of Hard Rock. They were inducted into the Kerrang! Hall of Fame in 2000, and have been nominated for four Grammy Awards. In the U.S., the band has seen ten of its releases debut in the top ten, including two number-one albums. Marilyn Manson have sold in excess of 50 million records worldwide.
Full Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Manson_(band)
Studio albums
Portrait of an American Family (1994)
Antichrist Superstar (1996)
Mechanical Animals (1998)
Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) (2000)
The Golden Age of Grotesque (2003)
Eat Me, Drink Me (2007)
The High End of Low (2009)
Born Villain (2012)
The Pale Emperor (2015)
Heaven Upside Down (2017)
We Are Chaos (2020)
Burning Flag
Marilyn Manson Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
And dumb it down
A good god is hard to find
I'll join the crowd that wants to see me dead
Right now I feel I belong for the first time
Multiply your death, divide by sex
Add up the violence and what do you get?
We are all just stars and we're waiting
We are all just stars on your burning flag
You can point your gun at me
And hope it will go away
But if God was alive
He would hate you anyway
My right wing is flapping
The left wing is grey
Let's hear it for the kids but nothing they say
They gyrate and G-rate on Election Day
We got our ABC's and our F-U-C-K
F-U-C-K
F-U-C-K
Multiply your death, divide by sex
Add up the violence and what do you get?
We are all just stars and we're waiting
We are all just scarred and we're hating
We are all just stars on your burning flag
You can point your gun at me
And hope it will go away
If God was alive
He would hate you anyway
We are all just stars and we're waiting
We are all just scarred and we're hating
We are all just stars on your burning flag
Stars on your burning flag
Stars on your burning flag
Stars on your burning flag
Stars on your burning flag
Stars on your burning flag
The lyrics of Marilyn Manson's song Burning Flag, from his fifth studio album The Golden Age of Grotesque, touch upon various themes such as politics, religion, violence, and identity. The first few lines criticize those who want to commercialize and dumb down everything, including the concept of God, which the singer believes is hard to find these days. The following lines seem to express a desire to belong to a community that shares a similar death-and-violence-driven mentality. The chorus suggests that we are all victims of our circumstances, as though we are stars waiting for a chance to shine, but we are scarred and hating because of the burning flag.
The verse that follows mocks politicians who get excited about the youth vote even though their actions do not reflect the interests of young people. The singer uses the acronym ABC's to criticize the education system and then uses the F-word to express frustration towards the current state of affairs. The second chorus emphasizes the nihilistic idea that we are all just stars on the burning flag, which implies that we are all doomed to suffer because of the sins of past generations. The last verse is a final jab at the idea of God, who the singer claims would hate those who point guns at others.
Overall, Marilyn Manson's Burning Flag is a commentary on the American way of life and how it can lead to a destructive and self-destructive society. The song suggests that everyone is trapped in a vicious cycle of suffering and hate, and it is up to us to break free from it. The singer wants to belong, but he does not want to belong to a world where violence and death are glorified, and everything is reduced to commercialism.
Line by Line Meaning
They wanna sell it out, buy it up
And dumb it down
They want to sell everything, buy it back cheap and make everyone ignorant.
A good god is hard to find
It's difficult to find a deity who's genuinely good.
I'll join the crowd that wants to see me dead
Right now I feel I belong for the first time
I'll join the mob that wants to see me gone, and for once in my life, I feel like I belong.
Multiply your death, divide by sex
Add up the violence and what do you get?
If you increase the number of deaths and divide by gender, and then add the violence, what result will you get?
We are all just stars and we're waiting
We are all just scarred and we're hating
We are all just stars on your burning flag
We, as human beings, are only stargazers hoping for better things, but often left with painful memories, with stars on your burning flag representing the nation suffering from internal conflicts.
You can point your gun at me
And hope it will go away
But if God was alive
He would hate you anyway
You can fire your weapon at me, but nothing will change. If God was still alive, they would hate you anyway.
My right wing is flapping
The left wing is grey
Let's hear it for the kids, but nothing they say
They gyrate and G-rate on Election Day
We got our ABC's and our F-U-C-K
F-U-C-K
F-U-C-K
My far-right views are prevalent, but the extreme left is weak. We laud the young people, but we dismiss their opinions. They celebrate and rate the new politicians, but we have both knowledge (ABC's) and curse words (F-U-C-K).
We are all just stars and we're waiting
We are all just scarred and we're hating
We are all just stars on your burning flag
We, as human beings, are only stargazers hoping for better things, but often left with painful memories, with stars on your burning flag representing the nation suffering from internal conflicts.
Stars on your burning flag
Stars on your burning flag
Stars on your burning flag
Stars on your burning flag
Stars on your burning flag
The repetition of the previous line emphasizes the idea that we're all in this together and part of the same burning flag.
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC, Peermusic Publishing
Written by: JEORDIE WHITE, JOHN LOWERY, BRIAN HUGH WARNER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
DrJKintobor
on (s)AINT
Top 10 rappers Eminem was afraid to diss
SabrinaOnlineFan96
on Use Your Fist and Not Your Mouth
I woke up today and wished for tomorrow, I don't wanna be like anyone else!
DrJKintobor
on The Speed of Pain
This song reminds me of Shadow the Hedgehog falling to Earth. The lyrics "I hope we die holding hands, always" refers to him and Maria.
DrJKintobor
on Spade
This is the saddest song on the album.
SabrinaOnlineFan96
on Cyclops
Correction, this song makes me think of the dark night.
SabrinaOnlineFan96
on HALF-WAY & ONE STEP FORWARD
This song is so dark, it makes me think of Endora from Sabrina Online: Skunk's Day Out.
SabrinaOnlineFan96
on I Want to Disappear
This is Zaphod Beeblebrox's theme from Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy.
SabrinaOnlineFan96
on Posthuman
This song reminds me of the Mike Teavee Oompa Loompa song from the 2005 Willy Wonka movie, which is funny since Johnny Depp is friends with Marilyn Manson.
SabrinaOnlineFan96
on Tattooed In Reverse
This song gives me Blitzo from Helluva Boss vibes.
SabrinaOnlineFan96
on Long Hard Road Out of Hell
This song reminds me of Shadow the Hedgehog.