I’ve mentioned before how the music of the track started as my playing with a punk medley, before it became a track of its own. But the lyrical content has, until now, only been half-explained. I’ve also previously acknowledged that it is actually sung from the perspective of the Marquis de Sade (a detail one can surmise from the use of the term “libertine”). But why? And why so intensely transgressive?
If I recall the details of the conversation correctly, we (Jason, Matt and I) had been talking about Marilyn Manson and America’s fascination with him at band practice one night. I had contended that there was an Andy Kaufman component to the culture’s relationship with him. That rock music needed heel-like symbols of rebellion to shake the assumptions of common morality, to test what was genuinely its value system and what was an imposed order by so-called morality police.
Further, I made the point that such characters had always existed and always will. Rock music history was an endless succession of them, because the white culture that embraced black rhythm and blues had become so sterile and oppressive, cultural rebellion was inevitable. From Chuck Berry’s “My Ding-A-Ling” to Elvis’s pelvis to Led Zepplin’s lemons… There are way more examples than exceptions, really.
Donatien Alphonse François, the Marquis de Sade, was merely a notable example from the 1700s. These characters will always be welcomed because, deep down, most of the human race’s firmware is hardwired with the impulse to reproduce and these characters encourage us to edge closer to the bounds of our norms. The church of a given culture endeavors to temper carnal urges, and the congregation pretends to fight them. But we cannot help ourselves. It’s how we became so pervasive on this overwhelmed little planet of ours.
Since I was exploring such a topic, I decided to pretend the Marquis was a rock star himself and sing the track as though he were the vocalist. If you’re going to play with such a concept, you have to really go all-in because he wouldn’t have had it any other way. I did back off his tendency to more lurid descriptors, but I never toyed with the idea that this would be commercial. I wasn’t even sure it would make the final tracklist of swarm. It wasn’t a concept song, but rather its relevance had more of ambient application.
But then the track leak happened and well… If this band has a history of note, this is its most infamous chapter.
For what it’s worth, the song is not a glorification of the Marquis. He was an asshole who spent a tremendous amount of deserved time in prison and died broke and fully rejected by his social circles. Which is not altogether different than how Manson’s reputation has cratered in the intervening 24 years.
Oh, one more thing…
The line in the chorus that goes, “The saints are all in hell because everybody wants to…” makes reference to what is commonly regarded as one of the earliest recorded uses (around 1475) of the word itself. It appears in the poem, “Flen, flyys and freris.” It includes a line that, when translated, reads, “They (the friars) are not in heaven, since they fuck the wives of Ely.”
Again, this compulsion is older than the human race itself. I just put it over three chords and a drum machine.
Another suck, another lick
And I’m a saint with my teeth on your tits
I have the flesh, and now a soul
Warming the chair where the devil sits
We dispose of our shame
And we submit for whatever depraved
Do what we do with a lack of restraint
Who is the master where there are no slaves?
We vow to live immortal and by the cock
The saints are all in hell because everybody wants to…
The angel’s wings have all been plucked
The righteous are in bed because everybody wants to…
We’re storming the gates and breaking the locks
And now we take the kingdom because everybody wants to…
Armed with instinct and a stroke of luck
We’re breaking into heaven because everybody wants to…
Unload your shame and let it pass
You cannot provide for all that it asks
Forget the church and what they see
We’ll define what they call obscene
There’s no god with his looking glass
I wrote my name on an angel’s ass
So now you know that you can be free
Just spread your legs my libertine
We vow to live immortal and by the cock
The saints are all in hell because everybody wants to…
The angel’s wings have all been plucked
The righteous are in bed because everybody wants to…
We’re storming the gates and breaking the locks
And now we take the kingdom because everybody wants to…
Armed with instinct and a stroke of luck
We’re breaking into heaven because everybody wants to…