page_title: Running to the Edge of the World
section_title: Composition
hierarchical_section_title: Running to the Edge of the World / Composition
caption_attribution_description: David Bowie, shooting his video for Rebel Rebel in AVRO's TopPop (Dutch television show) in 1974
context_page_description: "Running to the Edge of the World" is a song by American rock band Marilyn Manson. The track is from their seventh studio album The High End of Low. The song is a soft rock power ballad with elements of blues, electronic music and 1980s heavy metal music that was written and produced by the band's eponymous frontman, Twiggy Ramirez and Chris Vrenna and co-produced by Sean Beavan. The track is about sex, death and destruction and features guitar and strings in its instrumentation and falsetto vocals from Manson. Music critics deemed the song a musical departure from the band's previous work and compared it to the music of other rock acts, particularly David Bowie.
  "Running to the Edge of the World" received mixed reviews from critics; some commended the band's change of pace while others felt that the song showed that Manson's art was in decline. A music video for the track was co-directed by Manson and Nathan Cox, and depicts the vocalist performing the song from behind a curtain before beating a woman until she either loses consciousness or dies.
context_section_description: "Running to the Edge of the World" was written and produced by Marilyn Manson, Twiggy Ramirez and Chris Vrenna, with Sean Beavan serving as a co-producer. The song is an acoustic soft rock power ballad that features elements of electronic music and 1980s heavy metal. It has a length of six minutes and twenty-five seconds, and features a "hauntingly restrained" guitar in its instrumentation and strings during the chorus. Manson sings in falsetto during its middle 8. According to John Robb of The Quietus, the song is about death and destruction; Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon interpreted it as being about sex and death, which she said made it thematically identical to "Eighty percent of the blues canon."
  PopMatters's Lana Cooper felt that the song's refrain "We don't seek death/We seek destruction" could be understood as a "bromance-tinged love letter from" Manson to Ramirez. In the track, Manson sings "Sometimes hate is not enough/To turn this all to ashes/Together as one/Against all others/Break all of our wings to/Make sure it crashes," lyrics which The Washington Post's Nancy Dunham saw as referencing the singer's divorce from Dita Von Teese. Cooper added that the song sounds like "you'd expect [it] to be played during a slow dance at the Jonestown prom after someone spiked the Kool Aid punch bowl."
  Alex Young of Consequence of Sound, Phil Freeman of AllMusic and Robb of The Quietus compared it to the music of David Bowie, with the latter specifically likening it to the singer's science fiction-themed 1970s work. John Lucas of The Georgia Straight found the song reminiscent of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" (1975) while IGN felt it had elements of "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" (1988) by Poison. Entertainment.ie's Lauren Murphy deemed the track a "lite" version of ballads by Oasis.
caption: "Running to the Edge of the World" garnered comparisons to the music of David Bowie.
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