"Coma White" is a song by American rock band Marilyn Manson and the last track from the album Mechanical Animals.

Critics offered varied interpretations of its meaning, ranging from a song about a drug-addicted woman to a critique of celebrity culture.

Manson explained that it was intended as a tribute to men like Kennedy and Jesus who "died at the hands of mankind's unquenchable thirst for violence."

After the release of Antichrist Superstar (1996), an album which sparked controversy among Christian fundamentalists, Marilyn Manson didn't want to resume playing the role of a bogeyman.

"[3] In 1999, Manson said that the song "Coma White" was inspired by his relationship with Rose McGowan, elaborating: "A lot of the pain she's gone through, I started to feel, and the record kind of documents me coming to terms with emotions and caring about somebody for the first time.

Stereogum's Joseph Schafer found the lead guitar riff of "Coma White" "cruel, frigid, and glitchy" and similar to Adrian Belew's work for Trent Reznor.

Schafer felt that the drums in the song sound like the collaborations between Robert John "Mutt" Lange and Def Leppard on the album Hysteria (1987).

[7] He also wrote that the tracks' "snare and cymbals seem a bit damp, ringing and warbling just intermittently enough to suggest the laws of audio physics fraying at the edges.

[7] The track has a "sibling" song from Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) (2000) entitled "Coma Black", which is also a ballad.

[14] According to Ann Powers of Rolling Stone, the song, like several tracks on Mechanical Animals, focuses on a person's final moments before death and suggests themes of betrayal.

[16] Schafer wrote that "Coma White" displays "all of Manson's favorite themes — the seductive evil of prescription medication, lost love, [and] the paralyzing effect of celebrity culture".

"[7] Loudwire's Graham Hartman deemed "Coma White" the second-best Marilyn Manson song, behind only "The Beautiful People" (1996).

[18] Alec Chillingworth of Metal Hammer opined that "'The Last Day On Earth' and 'Coma White' as a couplet could arguably be the band's most emotional output to date."

[19] Merritt Martin of the Dallas Observer praised the song and found it superior to the band's album The Golden Age of Grotesque (2003).

[20] Rolling Stone's Ann Powers wrote that "Coma White" "suggest[s] a banishment from the garden, a betrayal so fundamental that it can barely be remembered.

[31] The MTV premiere of the video was delayed in the spring of 1999 due to the Columbine High School massacre,[32] which the band was falsely accused of inspiring.

[33] The premiere was delayed again in the summer of that year due to the death of John F. Kennedy Jr.[32] Manson issued a statement about the video through his publicist which MTV's Rob Mancini said was an "attempt to nip any potential controversy in the bud.

"[26] He added that the video was "in no way mockery" and "a tribute to men like Jesus Christ and JFK who have died at the hands of mankind's unquenchable thirst for violence.

"[32] Matthew Jacobs of HuffPost, in an article analyzing various cultural portrayals of Kennedy, deemed the video "tame" and "a touching tribute to a fallen legend".

[30] The Dallas Observer's Laura Mann ranked the "Coma White" clip fifth on her list of "The Ten Best Videos Banned By MTV".

[32] Robert Everett-Green of The Globe and Mail said "Lord knows why Manson yoked his song about a druggy doomed woman to a video that resets the assassination".