These are the things I hold onto
These are the things I use to deceive myself
I line them up in front of me
I judge them carefully
Then I throw them all away
I throw them all away
I am a small man
I am not a dangerous man
I love a child
I love a beautiful child
I love a child
I love a beautiful child
I will hold this child in my arms
And caress his soft head
Listen to him cry
Listen to him cry
I can kill the child
The beautiful child
I will kill the child
The beautiful child
This is my life
This is my choice
This is my damnation
This is my only regret
This is my life
This is my life
This is my sacrifice
This is my life
This is my only regret
That I ever was born
This is my sacrifice
Get out of my head

Swans – Beautiful Child

It is believed this song is a reference to the book “Les Chants de Maldoror” by the Comte de Lautreamont.

It is difficult to summarize the work because it does not have specific plot in the traditional sense, and the narrative style is non-linear and often surrealistic. The work concerns the misanthropic character of Maldoror, a figure of absolute evil who is opposed to God and humanity, and has renounced conventional morality and decency. The iconoclastic imagery and tone is typically violent and macabre, and ostensibly nihilistic. Much of the imagery was borrowed from the popular gothic literature of the period, in particular Lord Byron’s Manfred, Charles Robert Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer and Goethe’s Faust. Of these figures, the latter two are particularly significant in their description of a negative and Satanic anti-hero who is in hostile opposition to God. The last eight stanzas of the final canto are in a way a small novel dealing with the seduction and murder of a youth: a passage about growing your nails out for weeks on end until they are razor sharp, and then finding a young child and holding him and making him feel safe. When the child is comfortable, Maldoror (the ‘protagonist’ of the book) tells you to slice the child open with your nails, but not to kill him. Instead, you are supposed to let the child weep, and then taste his blood and tears.

Maybe Mr Gira could confirm if this is true?