Man That You Fear
| "Man That You Fear" | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 "Man That You Fear" cover | |||||||
| Promotional single by Marilyn Manson from the album Antichrist Superstar | |||||||
| Released | 1997 | ||||||
| Format | CD single | ||||||
| Recorded | Nothing Studios, New Orleans | ||||||
| Length | 6:10 | ||||||
| Label | Nothing Records | ||||||
| Writer(s) |
Marilyn Manson (lyrics) Twiggy Ramirez, Marilyn Manson, Madonna Wayne Gacy, Daisy Berkowitz (music) | ||||||
| Producer(s) | Trent Reznor and David "Rave" Ogilvie | ||||||
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"Man That You Fear" is a promotional-only single from Marilyn Manson's second studio album, Antichrist Superstar, and is the final song on the album. The song is inspired by what Manson had to grow up with and how it turned him into what he is now, a man or monster that people now have grown to fear. The line, "Sticking to my pointy ribs/ Are all your infants in abortion cribs" refers to a story told in The Long Hard Road Out of Hell in which Manson as a child found a coffee can with something rotting inside. His mother told him it was discarded meat, but later told him that it was actually an aborted fetus. The song was initially penned during Manson's cousin Chad's wedding ceremony.
From Manson's autobiography, The Long Hard Road Out of Hell... "The wedding was the first time I had been in a church since I was a kid, and I felt uncomfortable throughout the long service. I wore my black suit with a red shirt, a black tie and sunglasses. Everybody seemed to be staring at me disapprovingly. Not only was the priest giving me dirty looks, but so was the rest of my family. As they all piously recited their prayers and sang hymn after hymn, I studied each and every one of them coldly. I imagined walking down the aisle in Chad's place, but marrying a black woman or a gay man and watching the confusion and anger that would result. I imagined responding to the priest's question, 'Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, till death do you part?' by dousing myself in gasoline and lighting it. I couldn't figure out why I turned out different than everybody else. I had the same education, the same advantages, the same disadvantages. It was then that I came up with the lyric that would end the album, 'The boy that you loved is the man that you fear.'"
On the album version, the final two minutes repeat the phrase "When all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed." The synthesized voices at the end of the song appear courtesy of the MacInTalk speech feature of Apple's Macintosh computers.
Music video
In the music video, directed by W.I.Z., Manson portrays a man who is condemned to die. He is "chosen" by a blindfolded child who spins around pointing her finger. When she stops spinning, she removed the blindfold and sees the trailer home that she is pointing to — the home of the condemned. The video features all events of his last day on earth, leading up to his death by stoning in an isolated location of the desert. The random nature of the stoning is a reference to the Shirley Jackson short story The Lottery.
The procession into the desert involves various strangely dressed characters, including a child in wearing a mask in the form of a horse's head and a character waving a stick and dancing in circles, which may be references to the 1973 film The Wicker Man, in which the main character is led in a similar procession to be sacrificed.
The procession makes more references to the Alejandro Jodorowsky film Santa Sangre where a funeral takes place and all the characters are pretty much similar to the same characters in the video.
The Music video in particular also has stark contrast to the short story, "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson where a woman is stoned after having her name randomly drawn from a black box in the town square.
Track listing
US Promo Release
- "Man That You Fear" (Radio Edit) - 4:18
