Marilyn Manson returns with ‘We Are Chaos’

American Songwriter participates in affiliate programs with various companies. Links originating on American Songwriter’s website that lead to purchases or reservations on affiliate sites generate revenue for American Songwriter . This means that American Songwriter may earn a commission if/when you click on or make purchases via affiliate links.

His 11th studio album, co-produced with Shooter Jennings, comes out on 9-11; the title-song and first single is here now.

The first single from Marilyn Manson’s new album is being released today, and we’re happy to have it for you. It is the title song to his eleventh studio album, WE ARE CHAOS.

The new album, which was produced by Marilyn with Shooter Jennings (Brandi Carlile, Tanya Tucker) was completed right before the pandemic lockdown. It will be released on September 11, 2020. It’s the follow up to his 2017 album, Heaven Upside Down, which marked his seventh consecutive Top 10 debut on the album charts.

Videos by American Songwriter

Marilyn Manson. Photo by Perou.

“When I listen to WE ARE CHAOS,” said Marilyn, “it seems like just yesterday, or as if the world repeated itself, as it always does, making the title track and the stories seem as if we wrote them today.  This was recorded to its completion without anyone hearing it until it was finished. There is most definitely a side A and side B in the traditional sense. But just like an LP, it is a flat circle and it’s up to the listener to put the last piece of the puzzle into the picture of songs.” 

“This concept album,” he continued, “is the mirror Shooter and I built for the listener – it’s the one we won’t stare into. There are so many rooms, closets, safes and drawers. But in the soul or your museum of memories, the worst are always the mirrors. Shards and slivers of ghosts haunted my hands when I wrote most of these lyrics.”

“Making this record,” he said, “I had to think to myself: ‘Tame your crazy, stitch your suit. And try to pretend that you are not an animal’ but I knew that mankind is the worst of them all. Making mercy is like making murder. Tears are the human body’s largest export.”

The title song/single, “WE ARE CHAOS,” being released today, comes with a video directed, photographed and edited by the great Matt Mahurin, whose recent photobook of Tom Waits is one of the most beautiful and poignant additions to our music library in a long time. The man is a serious artist, and his coillaboration with Marilyn sings of that darkly compelling mystery realm of his work with Waits.

It is Manson, however, who created the painting on the album’s cover, Infinite Darkness, designed to accompany this song cycle. His paintings have been shown all over the world in galleries and museums from Miami to Vienna to Moscow. 

Pre-order the album here: WE ARE CHAOS

“We Are Chaos”
By MARILYN MANSON

If you say that we’re ill
Just give us your pill
Hope we’ll just go away
But once you’ve inhaled death
Everything else is perfume

Maybe I’m just a mystery
I could end up your misery
Maybe I’m just a mystery
I could end up your misery

In the end we all end up in a garbage dump
But I’ll be the one that’s holding your hand

We are sick, fucked up and complicated
We are chaos, we can’t be cured
We are sick, fucked up and complicated
We are chaos, we can’t be cured

Maybe I’m just a mystery
I could be your misery
Maybe I’m just a mystery

Marry with the left hand
So far so far from the mad’ning crowd

We are sick, fucked up and complicated
We are chaos, we can’t be cured
We are sick, fucked up and complicated|
We are chaos, we can’t be cured

Am I a man or a show, or moment
The man in the moon
or a man of all seasons
Will I be in at the kill
With you?

We are sick, fucked up and complicated
We are chaos, we can’t be cured
We are sick, fucked up and complicated
We are chaos, we can’t be cured
We are sick

Log In