Posthuman by Marilyn Manson Lyrics Meaning – Decoding the Anti-Establishment Anthem

You can view the lyrics, alternate interprations and sheet music for Marilyn Manson's Posthuman at Lyrics.org.

Lyrics

She’s got eyes like Zapruder, mouth like heroin
She wants me to be perfect like Kennedy

This isn’t God, this isn’t God
This isn’t God, this isn’t God
God is just a statistic!
God is just a statistic!

Say, “Show me the dead stars, all of them sing” (Hey! Hey! Hey!)
This is a riot, religious and clean (Hey! Hey! Hey!)
(Hey! Hey! Hey!)

God is a number you cannot count to
You are posthuman and hardwired

She’s pilgrim and pagan, soft-worn and social
In all of her dreams she’s a saint like Jackie O

This isn’t God, this isn’t God
This isn’t God, this isn’t God
God is just a statistic!
God is just a statistic!

Say, “Show me the dead stars, all of them sing” (Hey! Hey! Hey!)
This is a riot, religious and clean (Hey! Hey! Hey!)
“Show me the dead stars, all of them sing” (Hey! Hey! Hey!)
This is a riot, religious and clean (Hey! Hey! Hey!)

God is a number you cannot count to
God is a number you cannot count to
God is a number you cannot count to
You are posthuman and hardwired

“All that glitters is cold”
“All that glitters is cold”
“All that glitters is cold”

Say, “Show me the dead stars, all of them sing” (Hey! Hey! Hey!)
This is a riot, religious and clean (Hey! Hey! Hey!)
“Show me the dead stars, all of them sing” (Hey! Hey! Hey!)
This is a riot, religious and clean (Hey! Hey! Hey!)

Ladies and gentlemen
Omega and the Mechanical Animals

Marilyn Manson, a paradoxical figure in rock music; both a cultural icon and an agitator, continually challenges the mores of society through scintillating anthems. ‘Posthuman,’ a track that dives into this contentious world, stands as an intricate tapestry of ideological defiance. Richly embroidered with metaphors, the song weaves together a critique on contemporary existentialism and the modern perception of deity.

Through ‘Posthuman,’ Manson probes into the threads of our societal construct, tearing at the seams of what we perceive as sacrosanct. This track delves into not only the controversial aspects of our times but also questions the foundations on which we’ve built our understanding of identity, faith, and what it means to be truly contemporary in a society that incessantly idolizes perfection.

Eyes that Witness: Profound Undertones of the Zapruder Reference

The song opens with a hauntingly evocative image: ‘She’s got eyes like Zapruder, mouth like heroin.’ Instantly, Manson conjures the visage of vigilantism mixed with seduction. The allusion to Zapruder, the man who famously filmed the Kennedy assassination, is a potent metaphor for the inescapable truth—the grim realities that our society would rather gloss over. The ‘mouth like heroin’ phrase draws a parallel between addiction and the pursuit of perfection, suggesting a toxic and obsessive infatuation with image and ideals.

Manson isn’t merely painting a picture of a woman; he’s encapsulating an ethos, the culture that is addicted to glamour and scandal, that obsesses over the macabre details of public tragedies. This profound parallel draws the listener into a world where the sensational becomes routine, and the extraordinary turns into something to be consumed, pointing a finger at the media-obsessed society in which we live.

The Mantra of Disbelief: Breaking Down ‘God is just a statistic!’

The emphatic declaration ‘This isn’t God, this isn’t God, God is just a statistic!’ resonates as a rebellious cry against the commodification of the divine. Manson presents the idea of God not as a transcendental being but as a mere figure, a calculation that humans toss around to give weight to their arguments or to justify their doings. It is a searing critique of how spirituality has been debased to a point where it’s no longer about the quest for truth or enlightenment, but rather about numbers, influence, and control.

Manson’s bold claim underlines the spiritual void in postmodern society, where the sacred is trivialized, packaged, and sold back to the masses. Through his ferocious lyrics, he urges the listener to see through the charade, to recognize that the statistical God is a man-made construct designed to manipulate and maintain the status quo.

Dead Stars and Mechanical Animals: The Song’s Hidden Message Unveiled

The recurrent motif of ‘dead stars’ in the chorus ‘Show me the dead stars, all of them sing’ carries a hidden message about fame’s ephemerality and the empty pursuit of legacy. Dead stars, emitting light long after their demise, symbolize the hollow afterglow of faded celebrities and forgotten ideological figureheads. Even in their absence, they continue to echo through the cultural firmament, ‘singing’ their forgotten songs to a world that once adored them.

By juxtaposing these celestial relics with the imagery of a ‘riot, religious and clean,’ Manson creates a dichotomy of chaos versus order, purity versus contamination. It questions our reverence for the relics of the past and criticizes the sanitized version of history we idolize. Manson isn’t just drawing attention to a disillusioned society; he is underscoring our blind worship of what has long ceased to be relevant, suggesting a need to move away from the posthumous idolization to understand the complex present.

An Ode to Imperfection: The Fall from Grace of the Camelot Ideals

By invoking the imagery of ‘pilgrim and pagan’ and comparing the dream of saintliness to ‘Jackie O,’ Manson is laying bare the fallacy of the aspirational figures from the blood-stained Camelot era. With these lines, he dismisses the pristine image of celebrities like Jackie Kennedy Onassis, preferring to depict them as syntheses of conflicting identities—both the prim and self-controlled personas that the public consumes, and the hedonistic, primal undercurrent that simmers beneath the surface.

The critique is substantial—Manson targets the idyllic yet insidious pursuit of perfection embodied by such figures, chiseling away at the idea that we should aspire to these impossible standards. In a ‘posthuman’ world, one marred by false idols and deceptive veneers, Manson’s lyrics invite the listener to embrace the flaws and to recognize the inherent humanity in deviations from the expectant norm.

‘All that glitters is cold’: Manson’s Memorable Lines and Their Bleak Reality

The quietly powerful refrain ‘All that glitters is cold’ is a significant counterpoint to the old adage ‘All that glitters is gold.’ Here, Manson is tapping into the vein of uncomfortable truth that what society values—fame, image, superficial charm—often leads to a sense of chill and emotional detachment. The coldness he refers to could be the mechanized nature of human interactions in the digital age, where genuine emotions are often sidelined for appearances and surface-level engagements.

Through this bleak rendering, Manson muses on the futility and vain grandeur of chasing after the glittering façade presented by society. He is heralding the awakening to a raw reality where the coldness of the glitter is a metaphor for the lifeless pursuit of ingrained cultural and societal norms that we are conditioned to chase after, regardless of the cost to our authentic selves.