Listen to Marilyn Manson’s ‘Killing Strangers’ from The Blacklist, Season 7, Episode 12, “Cornelius Ruck”

American rock band Marilyn Manson’s ‘Killing Strangers‘ showed up on the soundtrack of the NBC crime thriller The Blacklist this week — The Blacklist, Season 7, Episode 12, “Cornelius Ruck“.

The industrial rock track was heard during the gun battle.

Marilyn Manson’s ‘Killing Strangers‘ is from the alternative rock band’s ninth studio album The Pale Emperor, which was released in 2015.

The song itself was released earlier than that, however, as it was prominently featured on the soundtrack of the action thriller movie John Wick, which starred Keanu Reeves and Michael Nyqvist.

Marilyn Manson’s ‘The Pale Emperor‘ album cover art

Killing Strangers‘ was co-written by the band’s lead singer Marilyn Manson, aka Brian Hugh Warner, and music producer Tyler Bates.

The track is an anti-war song written as a result of an evening Manson spent watching the film Apocalypse Now with his father.

The movie sparked memories of the Vietnam War Manson’s father, and he then spent several hours talking about the horrors he had seen during the war and about the subsequent PTSD he had suffered from for years afterwards.

Manson said in interviews his father stressed how people that have never been in a war do not understand the extent of PTSD those who return from war suffer from, or how it makes it so difficult to ever adjust again to an ‘ordinary life’.

After all, when you spend time in a foreign country ‘killing strangers’, and all of it condoned by your government, how do you then get back to your own country and just switch all that off?

Killing Strangers‘ also comes with a superb music video of the band performing the track while interspersed with scenes from John Wick — some of them quite violent.

You can watch that video below, and also listen to Marilyn Manson’s ‘Killing Strangers‘ on the album The Pale Emperor in the Spotify player below that.

Related music: Thompson Twins’ iconic song ‘Hold Me Now‘ made an appearance on The Blacklist

 

About Michelle Topham

Brit-American journalist based in Austria, former radio DJ at 97X WOXY, and Founder/CEO of Leo Sigh. I've covered K-drama, K-pop, J-pop, anime, manga and music news for over a decade.