Cruci-Fiction in Space

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"Cruci-Fiction in Space"
Song by Marilyn Manson
Album	Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death)
Released	November 13, 2000
Recorded	1999–2000 at the Mansion in Death Valley, California
Genre	Alternative metal
Length	4:56
Label	Nothing, Interscope
Writer	Marilyn Manson
Composer	Twiggy Ramirez, John 5, Madonna Wayne Gacy
Producer	Marilyn Manson, Dave Sardy
Media

"Cruci-Fiction in Space" is the eighth track on the 2000 release Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death).

Contents 1 Analysis 2 Appearances 2.1 Albums 3 Versions 4 Lyrics 5 Trivia

[edit] Analysis

A massive, stamping track of daunting symbolic density; it deserves to be gone through line-by-line so bear with me. "-this is evolution: the monkey, the man, then the gun" - we're barely out of our primitive state: violence is thus inevitable: hell is other people. We must continue to evolve. "If Christ was in Texas/the hammer, the sickle, the only son" - again equating the Kennedy assassination with the Crucifixion and bringing in the emblems of Communism, Castro, Oswald; "the only son" --JC, certainly not multi-brothered JFK, so probably intended to make one think of John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..." Why? out of guilt? "This is your creation/the atom of Eden was a bomb" - this atom/Adam pun is blinding, suggesting no less than the seed of human destruction planted in the race's very creation. Brighter than a Thousand Sons. (Greater minds than mine have wondered if this is really the sort of thing an omniscient deity ought to do, especially if it was going to require the slaughter of an innocent lamb from the sacred bloodline to patch it up later.) "If Jack was the Baptist/we'd drink wine from his head" - JFK as John the Baptist, the forerunner and prophet of Christ, suggesting here a baptism of blood and wondering what exactly we all drew from his shattered skull. "I am a revolution/pull my knuckles down if I could" ( harking back to "godeatgod"); "I am a revelation/and I'm nailed to the Holy Wood." Whew. What does this mean? That he's/we're trapped in this pattern of sacrifice and punishment and implacable eye-for-an-eye atonement and outright red-eyed deathlust, which no prophet of change can withstand? That we're doomed to Give The People What They Want? Holy Wood/Hollywood: not so much Church and State as Church and state-of-mind, zeitgeist, the expectations of mass-produced fantasy. If we can't "pull our knuckles down" - which I think refers to outgrowing the ape state - we have no chance. (If I didn't know better I'd hazard the guess that Manson was here suggesting JFK's assassination - celebrity death, TV death, ritual king-slaying, mass-marketed canonization - was the prophecy of his own arrival; that in some sense Kennedy, killed 44 days and six years before Manson would even be born, was the Baptist to Manson's Christ. Maybe.)

[edit] Appearances

[edit] Albums

• Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death)

[edit] Versions

• "Cruci-Fiction in Space" — Appears on Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death).
• "Cruci-Fiction in Space" (Live) — Appears on the Guns, God and Government World Tour DVD.

[edit] Lyrics

    this is evolution
    the monkey
    the man
    and then the gun
    if Christ was in Texas
    the hammer
    the sickle
    the only son
    this is your creation
    the atom of Eden
    was a bomb
    if Jack was the Baptist
    we'd drink wine
    from his head
    
    this is evolution
    the monkey
    the man
    and then the gun
    
    I am a revolution
    pull my knuckles down
    if I could
    I am a revelation
    and I'm nailed
    to the Holy Wood
    
    this is evolution
    the monkey
    the man
    and then the gun
    
    we are dead and tomorrow's canceled
    because of things we did yesterday
    we are dead and tomorrow's canceled
    they crucify us in our space
    in our space
    in our space...
    
    this is evolution
    the monkey
    the man
    and then the gun
    ...flies are waiting

[edit] Trivia

• "Cruci-Fiction in Space" was used in a commercial for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 game, "The Darkness". The commercial can be found here.