analysis

Disposable Teens

There have been many songs throughout the decades that show rebellion in teenagers, such as “School’s out” by Alice Cooper,” Smells like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana and lastly, “Fight for Your Right” by the Beastie Boys. It has been a popular song topic in the rock community for many years. They all have been depicted in many ways, in the song “Schools out”, Cooper sings about teens rebelling against going to school. In “smells like teen spirit” Nirvana sings about teens rebelling against what their parents and authority is telling them to do. While in “fight for your right”, all the Beastie boys want to do is party and not be disturbed. Most artist sing mostly about one type of teenage rebellion, however, Marilyn Manson’s “Disposable teens” is the ultimate rebellion song, as he uses hidden and, creative lyrics which he sings about the rebellion of religion, government and his parents and authority. He does this all through the view of a teenagers eyes.

                Disposable Teens has many meaning to it, for instance, the lyrics “I’m a black rainbow, and I’m an ape of god” (Manson) is Manson’s way of saying that he is not a conformist to the religion of Christianity. By being a non-conformist he is saying he doesn’t want to do a monkey of god just dancing around doing what he is told. Also, because he is a “Black rainbow” (Manson)   he is negative and an outcast for not believing in what everyone else does.

                Manson then goes into talking about how he is ugly and a nescience to life and everyone around. “I’ve got a face that’s made for violence upon, and I’m a teen distortion, survived abortion.” (Manson)   He talks about how teenagers are told that they are not wanted and that they are ugly. He tells about rebellion on how teenagers can’t take it any longer and will eventually explode. Also, he is reaching out to all the teenagers who were told that they were a mistake in their parents so therefore he is just a nescience his parents and the people who know him. This leads into his next lyric which says, “A rebel for the waist down.” (Manson)   He bluntly says that he is a rebel by having sex and because of being told he was ugly and a “survived abortion” (Manson)  so he is rebelling to show everyone that he is not just another mistake in life.

                Further on through the song Manson starts talk sing “I wanna thank you mom, I wanna thank you dad, for bringing this F**king world to a bitter end.” (Manson)  This is Manson’s way of sarcastically saying thanks for nothing to his parents. He is rebelling against whatever it was that his parents hadn’t done for him in life thus, making his life bitter. It probably has to deal with his earlier lyrics of being a “survived abortion” (Manson) his parents didn’t want anything to do with him, and tried to get rid of him in eutero so instead they made his life miserable.

                Later on in the same verse, Manson goes back to the topic of religion.  He starts to talk about never really hating god but hating people who followed him. Which does a complete turn on his early lyrics, he hates that people follow a certain set of rules just because another group of people such as the church, tell them too.  He also goes to talking about saying “The ape was a great big hit” (Manson) which is calling god the ape.  So that plays into his previous lyrics about the followers of god, being monkeys who follow whatever they are told to do.

                Manson later on goes into saying that people talk about wanting a evolution, but they won’t do anything to start one.  He is saying that since everyone follows other people instead of being their own person that they are “Full of shit” (Manson) because they won’t do anything to initiate the beginnings of a revolution to make a change of things that they complain about such as the government. But the teens are will to do so.

                All throughout the song the Chorus is “Were disposable teens” (Manson) and that phrase is repeated each time. By calling teens disposable he is saying that the adults want nothing to do with them and they don’t care what happens to them. So they can simply just be thrown away and it not be a huge deal. This lyric ties the song together, by restating that because they are disposable then to get respect from everyone older person around them then they should rebel. In Manson’s song he is telling the teens that they should rebel against religion, authority and people who put them down and try to tell them to live a certain way of life.

                In his last verse Manson sings about “the more you fear us, the bigger we get, don’t be surprised if we destroy all of it.” (Manson)  Manson had many followers almost like a cult. He has in the past had people begging on his every word, willing to jump when he says so. So therefore when he says “the more you fear us the bigger we get” (Manson) he is saying that all of his followers that have had these sort of experience happen to them, that they can rebel against the things that they hate. So the more that everyone pushes them away and tries to tell them how to live their lives their group will only grow much larger. They will stop at nothing to destroy everything in their path.

                In conclusion, Manson’s “Disposable Teens” is the most in depth, secret message song about the rebellion of teens. His hidden message and creative lyrics made this song the best out of all the other hundreds of teen rebellion songs. Although, many others have made good songs about the situation, not one can come close to being as good as “Disposable Teens.”

Works Cited

Manson, Marilyn. Disposable Teens. EMI Music Publishing, 2000. CD