the NachtKabarett

All Writing & Content © Nick Kushner Unless Noted Otherwise

Miscellaneous and noteworthy facts which may or may not fall within the normal section guidelines of The NACHTKABARETT, or those worthy of attention to be reiterated here. Included in this grimoire are lyrical references, backwards masking, subliminal suggestions, superimpositions and many other hidden intricacies of Manson's works.

• The second to closing line of Portrait Of An American Family, hidden approximately 10 minutes after 'Misery Machine,'

  
  
  
  "Go home to your mother!
  Tell her this isn't some communist day care center
  Tell your mother I hate her
  Tell your mother I hate you!"
  
  
  

  is an audio sample from the infamously trashy John Waters' film Desperate Living.

   

   

• The scream of "Burn, You Fucker" in the song 'Dogma' is a sample from the John Waters' film Pink Flamingos.

   

   

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  Twiggy Ramirez, Courtney Love & Manson who is seen wearing a Twin Peaks shirt during the late 1994 'Self Destruct' tour with Nine Inch Nails

   

  
  

  The song 'Wrapped In Plastic' is an overt reference to the early 1990's hit TV series Twin Peaks by David Lynch (a longtime influence on Manson) and Mark Frost which still garners an obsessive cult following. Manson has said that one aspect of the song's title was the superficial ideal nature of suburban households who wrap their couches in protective plastic covers to keep their expensive sofa cushions pristine. Literally to keep out the dirt, which can be seen as a metaphor for their isolationist attitudes toward the repugnancy of those who are not part of their so-called "status quo". The irony though, as Manson has pointed out, is that the practice dually acts as the metaphorical aspect of keeping the dirt inside; the lie of the false veneer atop the sordid secrets kept desperately from prying eyes.

  Twin Peaks illustrated this verbatim. The series opened with the line, "She's dead. Wrapped in plastic," spoken over the line of a 911 call reporting the discovery of a dead body wrapped in a thick transparent plastic. It was high school prom queen, Laura Palmer, the pride and joy of the town Twin Peaks. As layers of complexity unfold it's discovered that she is not actually the all-American ideal teen dream she's perceived as but that she's addicted to cocaine, was actively working as a prostitute at an over-the-border casino/brothel in Canada and has a polar opposite secret life, that progressively unraveled to become much darker involving an evil entity which persecuted her, from whom she viewed death as being the only solace from.

   

  
  

  
  

  Video clip of Twin Peaks sampled in 'Wrapped In Plastic'
  Click to open in new window | 2.8 MB | 01m:04s | AVI format

   

  
  
  

  The series involved continual use of symbolism (both invented for the show and symbolism presently existing, from the Bible, Eastern philosophy, folklore, et al) and many bizarre, comedic elements were employed to counterbalance the heavy nature of the subject matter, including a young transvestite David Duchovny (pre- X-Files / Red Shoe Diaries). It was the sensation that had all of America asking "Who Killed Laura Palmer?" for two years. Who, or what, killed Laura Palmer was ultimately her father who would visit here nightly to rape her in an incestuous tryst. The crux of the series however was not merely this itself but that Laura's father was possessed by an evil spirit known only as "BOB", who originated from a netherworld known as the Black Lodge.

  The Black Lodge is a metaphorical alter dimension and has appeared in various Hermetic Western occult literature since the late Nineteenth Century, namely spoken of in Madame Blavatsky's 'The Secret Doctrine' (which Manson cited as having a large influence on Holy Wood) and also appearing in Aleister Crowley's 1917 novel, 'Moonchild.' In Twin Peaks, it is a very real place who's entrance is found in the nearby woods, and who's inhabitants exert their occult influence over the town via the thin veil separating the two.

  The series climaxes in episode 29, the last episode, where the show's protagonist FBI Agent, Dale Cooper, is able to enter the Black Lodge to confront "BOB" and the evil within it. Dream interludes throughout the series have shown glimpses into the Lodge including a doppelganger of Laura Palmer who has imparted clues to Dale since the second episode.

  The above is an extremely abridged synopsis and investigating the series further (which has been a personal favourite of the this author since the Bravo Network's re-airing in early 2000) is recommended. However, in the final episode when Agent Cooper once again encounters Laura Palmer's doppelganger, as the evil of Black Lodge begins to unfold, the harrowing scream she unleashes was sampled and appears as the opening and closing of 'Wrapped In Plastic'.

   

   

  

   

  Twin Peaks screen capture of an apparition of a white horse seen moments before the murder of Laura Palmer's "twin" cousin, Maddie, is murdered again by Laura's father, possessed by 'BOB'. An example of symbolism used by the series, a white horse has long been a symbol of death when used as a literary device, an allusion which finds its origins in the Bible.

  

   

  Coinciding, yet inverted, symbolism by Manson in the video for 'Tourniquet' during the Antichrist Svperstar era. A surreal scene in which a floating Manson is accompanied by the other band members in an ethereal, almost after-life reminiscent, setting (which is the climax of the video after something of a dead and decaying Manson is seen prior throughout) with a black horse juxtaposed amidst the apparently fallen souls in this scenario.

   

   

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  On the band's first nationwide tour opening for Nine Inch Nails in 1994, Manson opened each performance in attire evocative of Willy Wonka crossed with a demented puritanical evangelist. In this guise he recited Portrait Of An American Family's introduction, 'The Boat Trip', which is a dark interpretation of Willy Wonka's foreboding edict to the children entering the inner depths of his factory.

   

   

• Manson made several allusions to the Beatles on Portrait Of An American Family, undoubtedly as this was his spearheading endeavor so playing, in part, the role of a Charles Manson-esque dark messiah was a facet of his early inspiration and battlecry against the American Judeo-Christian theocracy in sheep's clothing.

  Charles Manson himself, as outlined in-depth in the book Helter Skelter, was an obsessed Beatles fan, believing that their notorious and esoteric White Album was a cryptic and coded forewarning of the apocalypse. As such, the song 'My Monkey', being partly a reinterpretation of a Charles Manson song, hearkens the Beatles' 'Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except For Me and My Monkey' from the White Album, with Manson actually using that line to introduce the song during live performances on the Portrait Of An American Family tour.

  Manson's first single single, 'Get Your Gunn' contains the title track remix 'Mother Inferior Got Her Gunn', which is a parody of the refrain of the Beatles', 'Happiness Is A Warm Gun' in which is sung,

  
  
  
  Mother Superior jump the gun
  
  
  

  Additionally on the single, the instrumental audio montage, 'Revelation #9', which was the introduction to many concerts on the Smells Like Children tour, was a parody of the Beatles' 'Revolution #9', again, from the White Album. The Beatles' original is itself a bizarre audio collage which Charles Manson was purportedly obsessed with, believing it contained the coded message of an imminent race war and retaliation against "the pigs" of the establishment. The Manson murders were, as Helter Skelter outlined, to act as the powder keg to ignite this war in which Charles Manson and his "Family" would emerge out of the rubble as leaders of the new society. Charles Manson himself likened the Beatles' montage as a coded metaphor for the Biblical Revelation verse 9.

  One of the locations which the album was mixed in was the studio dubbed 'Le Pig', owned by Trent Reznor. The house was where The Downward Spiral was recorded and the house, unbeknownest to Trent was 10050 Cielo Drive, Roman Polanski's former home and where his then wife Sharon Tate was murdered by the Manson Family. Further accounts can be read about in Manson's autobiography but the house is shown briefly in the Nine Inch Nails video for 'Gave Up' which features a then pre-rockstar Marilyn Manson as a mock guitarist.

  For more on Marilyn Manson's identifications and allusions to Charles Manson during the Holy Wood era see
  The Lamb Of God.com

   

   

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  The 1995 single for Lunchbox contains a cover of new wave pioneer Gary Numan's apocalyptic vision of the future, 'Down In The Park'. Manson would later join Gary onstage in early 1998 for a live duet of the song

   

  

   

  The opening sequence contains the harrowing proclaimation:

  
  
  
  We are using your brain as a receiver.
  We are unable to transmit through conscious neural interference.
  You are receiving this broadcast as a dream.
  We are transmitting from the year one-nine-nine-nine.
  You are receiving this broadcast in order to alter the events you are seeing.
  Our technology has not developed a transfer strong enough to reach your conscious state of awareness.
  But this is not a dream.
  You are seeing what is actually occurring for the purpose of causality violation.
  
  
  
  

  The quote is a sample from John Carpenter's 1987 film, The Prince of Darkness, which features a cameo appearance by Alice Cooper and is in part a psychological horror film dealing with metaphysics, quantum psychics and demonology from theoretical planes of existence. Also relevant is that the film, by way of one of the main characters who is a priest, presents the theme that present day Catholicism is based upon fallacies and the perversions of the truth, run by charlatans and self serving infidels. The plot of the film centers around a group of quantum physicists in partnership with a Catholic mystic who are attempting to stop Satan from incarnating upon the earth for the purpose of unleashing his father from an alternate prison realm to destroy mankind.

   

  

  Additionally, as a fateful or coincidental premonition of future events, the song 'Down in the Park' speaks of being "Down in the park with a friend called 5"

   

   

• The inlet of the aforementioned single, Lunchbox, contained a nude Manson sprawled out on red silk with matching lipstick. The image as well as the cover were part of a photoset circa late 1994 of Manson at his most Marilyn, an allusion to Marilyn Monroe's famous Playboy debut.

  As Marilyn Monroe was later dubbed 'The Goddess of Sex' it was also this photoset which Manson utilized to proclaim himself 'The God of Fuck' (most famously in the notorious t-shirt form from the mid Nineties).

   

  
  
  Marilyn Manson circa. 1994. An early allusion to Marilyn Monroe by Manson.

   

   

• Manson said that his motive for Smells Like Children was in essence to make a children's album for adults, evoking imagery of the 1970's of his generation and dually portraying certain characters which have much more sinister connotations than simply children's story protagonists. Very similar in a sense how Grimm's fairytales are children's favourites but often have incredibly dark, evil and cannibalistic themes.

   

   

  Willy Wonka is one such character that Manson was particularly fascinated with throughout Portrait Of An American Family and Smells Like Children, Wonka being certainly child's ideal playmate but one who can also be viewed as a pied piper with a dark ulterior motive behind his colorful outward persona.

  Examples of Manson evoking Wonka are numerous, from the Dope Hat video being a surreal and nightmare version of the Chocolate Factory to lyrical references and samples (many of which were removed due to copyright licensing issues on the proper release) to Manson stylizing the 'Marilyn Manson' logo as a parody of Willy Wonka's signature font and logo.

• Manson, Circus magazine May 1996 , his first mainstream nationwide cover appearance
  
  

   

  Marilyn Manson's first (or at least major) nationwide cover appearance was the May 1996 issue of Circus magazine, shortly after the 'Sweet Dreams' video projected the band into mass marketed notoriety. Though Manson has never made any direct nods to Alice Cooper, the dark and evil female first-named godfather of 'Shock Rock', Manson's wardrobe on this cover which introduced him to the mainstream is a very direct, albeit strategically subtle nod to Alice.

   

  Alice Cooper onstage at the 1969 Toronto Rock 'n Roll Revival where he earned international notoriety by throwing a chicken into the audience
  
  

   

  Aside from onstage self-beheadings and music infinitely more abrasive than the contemporary music of his peers in the late sixties, Alice Cooper's first act which earned him his everlasting notoriety occurred at the 1969 Toronto Rock 'n Roll Revival where a fan threw a live chicken onstage during his band's performance. Alice rather cavalierly threw the chicken back into the audience believing it would fly away. When it didn't the audience ripped the chicken to pieces, throwing it's dismembered body parts back onstage whilst it's feathers floated throughout the stage like confetti. It was this, unintentional act, which seared Alice Cooper's name into the subconscious of America which lasts to this day, and plastered his photo on the covers of tabloids across North America.

  Though the image are not the most descript, Manson's outfit on the May 1996 cover of Circus was a variation of what Alice wore in September 1969 during the infamous "chicken incident".

  Ironically, Manson would later (and falsely) be accused of mutilating chickens onstage and throwing puppies into the audience for the audience to dismember, as history repeats itself.

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  The live stage backdrop to 1995's 'Smells Like Children' Tour was a stylized 'Marilyn Manson' Ouija board, one of the most common and insidious forms of alleged divination, ironically mass marketed and sold as a children's board game to this day by Parker Bros.

  Then guitarist, Daisy Berkowitz, also frequently played on this tour a guitar whose body was a Ouija board. (Image forthcoming).

 

• A subtlely disguised inscription atop the Smells Like Children disc reads, "Keep This and All Drugs Away from Small Children".

   

   

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  The cover image of Smells Like Children is Manson portraying himself as "The Child Catcher" from the film 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang', who is able to smell children in order to capture them. The third track on the EP, 'Shitty Chicken Gang Bang', is a parody of the film's title.

  Note the all black attire, long raven hair and large bulbous nose as an immediate (and a largely natural) visual parallel to Manson.

  'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' was also screenplay written by Roald Dahl, the very same author of 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' aka 'Willy Wonka' whom Manson has continually evoked and hailed as a dark, insidious pied piper-esque character in the guise of a children's hero.

   

   

• As Manson revealed in his autobiography, The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell, the opening backwards masked speech in the opening of 'Tourniquet' is Manson lamenting, "This is the lowest point of my vulnerability".

   

   

• The opening quote of 'The Minute Of Decay' is a distored sample from the filmic version of 1984. As Winston reflects his life and his role in the dehumanized future society, he pens in his secret diary, "From a dead man, greetings".

  For more see
  Literary Vices

   

   

• A prominent image contained within Marilyn Manson's autobiography, "The Long Hard Road Out of Hell", is a depiction of Dante Alighieri's nine circles of Hell. The circles are described in great detail in Dante's, "The Divine Comedy", as the poet Virgil serves as Dante's guide through the various levels of Hell. (Image forthcoming)

   

   

• The persona Manson embodied during the Mechanical Animals era, the rockstar named Omega, is the Greek word meaning 'The End'. In the Book of Revelation chapter 22 verse 13 Christ proclaimed,

  
  
  
  I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
  
  
  

  Manson revealed that the title and personification represented the final stage of his evolution and transformation.

  For more see
  Marilyn Manson Logos & Symbology

   

   

• The subtitle of Holy Wood (In The Shadow of the Valley Death) is an inversion of the famous line from Psalm 23 verse 4.
  
  

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
  I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;

  
  thy rod and thy staff they comfort me
  
  

  Manson went so far as to act of the allegory of this verse and its following, Psalm 23:5, onstage during the Guns, God & Goverment tour.

  For more see
  Marilyn Manson: The Third & Final Beast

   

   

• The song "President Dead" is exactly 3 minutes and 13 seconds song, the precise frame number of Kennedy's fatal gunshot from the Zapruder film.

  For more see
  Kennedy: King Kill 33°

   

   

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  The words which are spoken at the beginning of Coma Black, are: "A loved one laid his head in her lap. Red roses fell to the floor, and the world stood still." A reference to Jackie O holding Kennedy's head after his assasination.

   

   

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  In the music video for 'Disposable Teens', there are several shots of Manson dressed in Papal attire, in front of a mural depicting the Archangel Michael casting down Lucifer; one of the key events to occur during the end times, as prophesized in the Book of Revelation.

• One particular line within the lyrics of 'The Fight Song', "The death of one is a tragedy. The death of a million is just a statistic" references a quote Joseph Stalin once uttered to Churchill at Potsdam, in 1945, "The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic."

   

   

• The song title 'Para-noir' is a malapropsism of 'paramour,' the root word meaning a lover, mistress or adulterous woman.

  For more see
  Art & The Golden Age of Grotesque

   

   

• The Golden Age of Grotesque bonus instrumental track 'Baboon Rape Party' contains a sample from the film SALO: The 120 Days of Sodom, a film which Manson was admittedly obsessed with during the era. One of the "baboon" noises in the song is of one of the sex slave girls of the film crying while being forced to eat the shit of one of her libertine imprisoners.

  For more see
  Celluloid

   

   

• The opening instrumental to The Golden Age of Grotesque, 'Thaeter,' contains a sample from the film 8½ by Federico Fellini. 14 seconds into the album's introduction, the squeaking noise that is heard is a sample from 8½'s very famous surrealist opening sequence, considered to be one of the greatest opening scenes in film history.

  For more see
  Celluloid

   

   

• "Lest We Forget" is a phrase commonly adorned on memorials in reference to World War II, roughly meaning "In fear that we shall forget history, it shall repeat itself". The opposition which perenially mounts against him made the title of his 'Best Of' retrospective a fitting allusion as a likening to the war which Manson fought, and that which his militant detractors waged in attemp to destroy him, throughout the 10 years the album documents.

   

   

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  The above photo of Tim Skold was shown in Marilyn Manson's Journal in the entry entitled 'no salvation, no forgiveness' in early 2004 revealing news of the (then) forthcoming Greatest Hits album and the cover of 'Personal Jesus'.

  The photo is titled 'Stringmata Martyr', as an allusion to the Bauhaus song 'Stigmata Martyr', the founders of goth rock.

   

   

• Manson in a 2004 promo shot, holding a glass of louched Serpis. Click to purchase

  
  
  
  

   

   

   

   

• The eighth track of Eat Me, Drink Me, 'Are You the Rabbit?' features two lines which previously appeared on Doppelherz, the short film accompanying The Golden Age of Grotesque. The first referenced lyric, "I know the insurance won't cover this" is taken near verbatim from its original debut as, "The insurance will not cover this". The second lyric, taken verbatim, is "I'm a kickstand in your mouth".

   

   

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  "Rebels without applause", a line taken from 'Mutilation is the Most Sincere Form of Flattery' is an allusion to the 1955 film, "Rebels Without a Cause", staring James Dean; a celebrity who appeared among many others in a series of flashing images during several performances throughout the Guns, God and Government world tour.

  The working title for said track was quoted by Manson as being, 'Rebels without applause'.