Marilyn Manson: Dope Show Meaning

Dope Show Lyrics

The drugs they say
Make us feel so hollow
We love in vain
Narcissistic and so shallow
The cops and queers
To swim you have to swallow
Hate today
No love for tomorrow
We're all stars now in the dope show
We're all stars now in the dope...

1. 1TOP RATED

   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Apr 12th 2009 !⃝

   This is, like so many other Manson songs, incredibly complex. Let's hit on the Hollywood AND drug themes for once, hey, kiddies?
   
   A "dope show" was a show in which drug addicts would be put on a stage so people could see the "horrors" drugs cause on people.
   
   I'm sure you all have seen the idiocy on television. Reality television shows depicting people behaving like fuckwads? That's the "dope show"; making money off hollow depictions of decadence, when the real corruption is in the people that sell this.
   
   "Drugs", like with most of the album, is really more of a metaphor for fame (rock 'n' rollers are notorious for their drug usage and addiction) and for things that you get addicted to, making you into a hollow, unfeeling creature... A mechanical animal. ;)

2. 2TOP RATED

   #2 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Jun 17th 2007 !⃝

   Contrary to first impressions, this song is not about the drug marijuana. It is about the dumb or 'dopes' in Hollywood. He talks of the fakeness and ridiculous life style that many in Hollywood lead. It also comments on the entertainment industry itself
   Some examples
   "Narcissistic and so shallow"- an obvious stab at the people in Hollywood.
   We love your face
   "We'd really like to sell you"
   Talking of the industry
3. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Aug 16th 2017 !⃝

   The art and sarcasm of Marilyn Manson who turned himself inside out to show us the outcome of what those ''phonies and fakes'' as the ''Pope's dopes'' that started to spread drugs and indulgencies to the innocent souls of California. which sadly helped o illuminate the natural bright side of Hollywood hills into the darkness it became. who's tables have been turning upside down now, that for too long have been progressively set in darkness by the ''god is dead'' misunderstood ideas of what to do next with the right message of God that really didn't die,just been rosed up in the lord and savior Jesus Christ, but instead of leading us there, these communist educators lead us into deeper narcissism and nihilism. this started before and eversince Hitler and the Nazis that tried to stop this death drive of those Bolshevik communists,with their universal, but atheistic and ungodly perverted ways of ideas that dadly took root in Germany first, couped up in N.Y. that unfortunately spread it's bolshevism into the Russian revolution of 1917. then escaped with the help of the ''pope's dopes'' to slowly take the evil root overseas again and convert change as a ''dope show'' of death in Hollywood California. General S. Patton once said, did we help to destroy the wrong enemy? only to give rise to the mickey mouse type circus carnival ''dope shows'' that we are all in now.
4. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Jun 11th 2012 !⃝

   I think these lines can be good example of the gist of the theme of the lyrics-- Hollywood & Drugs:
   
   "They love you when you're on all the covers
   When you're not then they love another
   The drugs they say
   Are made in California
   We love your face
   We'd really like to sell you"
5. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Nov 17th 2008 !⃝

   this song is not directly about drugs. it's about how people have lost true values for life. everyone is so worried about making everyone like them, it's like a tv show.
6. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   May 28th 2008 !⃝

   Actually it does have to do with drugs....the first line is "the drugs they say make us feel so hollow" so yea its talking about how fake hollywood is but also about the drugs that help make hollywood that way
7. anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Mar 31st 2008 !⃝

   This song has nothing to do with drugs. It's about Hollywood and how fake it is.

Latest Articles

• 
  A new era for Millennial favorite, Linkin Park
• 
  Anime to watch for the soundtracks… and other reasons you’re undateable
• 
  Dolly, we need you
• 
  The Stranger Things Effect: How new media is drawing Gen Z and Alpha's attention to aging media
• 
  The most underrated soundtrack of the early 2000s
• 
  Buy the Soundtrack, Skip the Movie: Brainscan (1994)