Here Comes Your Man Lyrics
Outside there's a boxcar waitin'
Outside the family stew
Out by the fire breathin'
Outside we wait 'til face turns blue
I know the nervous walkin'
I know the dirty beard hangs
Out by the boxcar waitin'
Take me away to nowhere plains
[Pre-Chorus: Black Francis, Kim Deal, both]
There is a wait so long (So long, so long)
You'll never wait so long
[Chorus: Black Francis & Kim Deal]
Here comes your man
Here comes your man
Here comes your man
[Verse 2: Black Francis]
Big shake on the boxcar movin'
Big shake to the land that's fallin' down
Is a wind makes a palm stop blowin'
A big, big stone fall and break my crown
[Pre-Chorus: Black Francis, Kim Deal, both]
There is a wait so long (So long, so long)
You'll never wait so long
Here comes your man
Here comes your man
Here comes your man
Here comes your man
[Bridge: Black Francis]
Ay-yeah
Ay-yeah
Ah-ooh
Ah-ooh
[Pre-Chorus: Black Francis, Kim Deal]
There is a wait so long (So long, so long)
You'll never wait so long
[Chorus: Black Francis and Kim Deal]
Here comes your man
Here comes your man
Here comes your man
Here comes your man
Here comes your man
Here comes your man
Here comes your man
Here comes your man
Here comes your man
Here comes your man
Here comes your man
Here comes your man
Here comes your man
About
One of the purest pop songs in the Pixies' oeuvre, “Here Comes Your Man” was one of the anchors of the band’s 1989 masterpiece Doolittle. In contrast with the fractured compositional style the band became known for, “Here Comes Your Man” follows a straightforward verse/pre-chorus/chorus structure, with a short instrumental break in the middle – the very definition of a perfect three-and-a-half-minute pop single.
Black Francis told Esquire,
It uses a very common chord change in pop music, going from the D to the G to the A. It’s very singable. It’s got that riff, which I composed on a piano when I was about 14, so the song in different versions has been around since I was a teenager. When it came time to finalize lyrics and things, it goes off into scary hobo-ville. At some point it feels almost subversive to put things into the music like ‘Here comes your man.’ I don’t even know what that means in the context of the song. I think because it’s talking about sad old men, a sort of sarcastic comment, and it’s a world that’s dark and edgy inhabited by hoboes. It’s like a dark David Lynch movie. I guess I get a lot of satisfaction when people are pumping their fists in the air and singing like it’s some sort of simple love song—which would be fine, because there’s nothing wrong with simple love songs—but this is not that. Either that or they don’t care or aren’t interested, just like I wasn’t interested when I wrote it. We’re all on the same page. It’s sort of about something, but it’s not at all what it sounds like. It’s misleading.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
This is a pre-Pixies song that I wrote when I was about 15. It’s about winos and hobos travelling on the trains who die in the California Earthquake. Before earthquakes everything gets very calm, animals stop talking and birds stop chirping and there’s no wind. It’s very ominous.
- 1.Bone Machine
- 2.Nimrod’s Son
- 4.Caribou
- 5.Broken Face
- 6.Gigantic
- 7.Vamos
- 8.Hey
- 10.Debaser
- 11.Gouge Away
- 13.Here Comes Your Man
- 14.Tame
- 16.Into the White
- 17.Velouria
- 18.Allison
- 19.Dig for Fire
- 20.U-Mass
- 21.Alec Eiffel
- 22.Planet of Sound
- 23.Winterlong