"Long Hard Road Out of Hell" is a song by American rock band Marilyn Manson and British trip hop band Sneaker Pimps. It was released as a single from the soundtrack to the 1997 motion picture Spawn. An arena rock and gothic rock song, "Long Hard Road Out of Hell" was written by Marilyn Manson and Twiggy Ramirez and produced by Manson and Sean Beavan. Its lyrics are about self-loathing and its title is derived from John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667). After the track was written, the Sneaker Pimps' Kelli Ali was recruited to perform background vocals on it, as the Spawn soundtrack featured collaborations between hard rock artists and electronic music artists. The Sneaker Pimps were dissatisfied with the final track and wanted a remix of it to be released as a single instead; conversely, Manson deemed it a personal favorite.
"Long Hard Road Out of Hell" received mixed reviews from music critics; some found it heartfelt while others felt it was too indistinct from other Marilyn Manson songs. Commentators noted that the track encapsulated the evolution of the band's sound from the industrial music of Antichrist Superstar (1996) to the glam rock of Mechanical Animals (1998). Manson initially approached Jonathan Glazer to direct the video for the track, but rejected his concept for it; Glazer later used his concept for the video for Radiohead's "Karma Police" (1997). The music video for "Long Hard Road Out of Hell" was directed by Matthew Rolston. It depicts Manson in a dress and a group of models who initially appear to be female but are revealed to be male. The clip garnered acclaim from critics for its imagery.
Background and release
Marilyn Manson's eponymous vocalist told the Phoenix New Times that he wrote "Long Hard Road Out of Hell" "while on the road." He said that the song "changes someone's singing and writing at the same time, the rhythm of your vocal." Though it was not written for the film, the song was released on the soundtrack album for Spawn (1997), a film based on the comic book character of the same name; the soundtrack was curated by Happy Walters. Todd McFarlane, the creator of Spawn, told Billboard: "If any artist epitomizes my anti-hero Spawn, it's Marilyn Manson."
Similar to the Judgment Night soundtrack, another Walters project which featured a fusion of hip hop music and rock music, the Spawn soundtrack consisted of collaborations between hard rock or heavy metal bands and electronic music acts. "Long Hard Road Out of Hell" features backing vocals from Kelli Ali, the front-woman of British trip hop band Sneaker Pimps. Neither Ali or her band-mate Liam Howe felt that the rock bands featured on the soundtrack were very good, but thought that collaborating with one of the bands would give them the chance to, in Howe's words, "polish a turd." Manson would recall that while recording the song, "The guitar player of the Sneaker Pimps had just got hit in the foreskin and he told me about it, which is a dumb as fuck thing to do, because the first thing I did was hit him in the dick, and I'm sure that probably added to the tension in the room."
The two bands became engaged in a brief dispute soon after the song's release. Ali complained that the Sneaker Pimps were not present during the song's final mixing, and that they were never issued a master tape. She went on to call the song "crap." Manson responded by calling the Sneaker Pimps' involvement "a bit of a favor, in a sense, because we had already written the song, and I was interested in finding a girl to sing back-up vocals on it, and [they] were asking to be involved. I wasn't that familiar with them. I thought the girl's voice was great. When we worked on the song, I think they were a little upset because there wasn't much for them to do. The song was already done." He also refuted claims that the Sneaker Pimps were never issued with a master recording, suggesting that they had created a remix for the song, but had refused permission for it to appear on the single when they were informed it would appear as a b-side, instead of being released as the main single version.
"Long Hard Road Out of Hell" was released as a single alongside its instrumental, a remix of the song called the "Critter Remix" and the instrumental mix of "Kick the PA" (1997) by Korn and the Dust Brothers. Manson has called "Long Hard Road Out of Hell" "one of my favorites". The track shares its title with Manson's autobiography, The Long Hard Road Out of Hell (1998), and was included on the band's greatest hits album, Lest We Forget: The Best Of (2004).