This Is the Song of Which Marilyn Manson Is Most Proud

In a recent appearance on BBC Radio 1‘s Rock Show with Daniel P. Carter, Marilyn Manson which of his songs he was most proud of writing. And while you might expect his answer to have been on of his big hits — “The Beautiful People” or “The Dope Show” or whatever — he actually chose a lesser-known cut off his third album, 1998’s Mechanical Animals:

“’The Speed of Pain.’ It was a poem I wrote. I was on an airplane, I was reading in Time magazine about the amount of time it takes for your brain to acknowledge pain from your body. And it inspired me to write about something else… For whatever reason I have some obsession that I can not explain, if you asked me, if you tortured me I couldn’t explain it; About flowers, Valentine’s Day—maybe I didn’t get enough Valentine’s when I was a kid, I’m not really sure what the obsession is, but it comes up a lot.

“Because I’m not someone who particularly likes flowers…”

It’s a bit odd that Manson seems so honed-in on the floral aspect of the song, since flowers are only mentioned once, right at the top…

They slit our throats
Like we were flowers
And our milk has been
Devoured

…but, hey, it’s Marilyn Manson. We should just be grateful he’s as coherent as he is.

ANYWAY, I’ve always really liked this song, and all of Mechanical Animals, for that matter. I dunno if this is Manson’s best song, but I back his selection and commend him for not trying to pull some serious bullshit like pick a song from High End of the Nap Time or whatever.

[via The PRP]