Here Comes Your Man
Encyclopedia
"Here Comes Your Man" is a song by the American alternative rock
band Pixies, written and sung by the band's frontman Black Francis. Produced by Gil Norton
, it was released as the second single from the group's second album Doolittle
in June 1989.
Written by Black Francis as a teenager, "Here Comes Your Man" was recorded for the band's 1987 demo tape, but not included on either Come On Pilgrim
or Surfer Rosa
, as the songwriter was reluctant about releasing the song. Critics saw "Here Comes Your Man" as the Pixies' breakthrough song; Jon Dolan of Spin
magazine commented that it was "the most accessible song ever by an underground-type band." The song reached number three on the U.S. Billboard
Modern Rock Tracks chart.
song", according to Kolderie. Producer Gary Smith
said, "There was some reluctance to do 'Here Comes Your Man' because it was too pop, there was something too straight about it." When 4AD
label head Ivo Watts-Russell
handpicked the tracklisting for the group's debut release Come on Pilgrim
, he intentionally left out "Here Comes Your Man". Watts-Russell stated that he liked the song, but "it felt just too obviously commercial and I didn't know what we were doing with [the band]". Watts-Russell also felt it was too reminiscent of Mink DeVille
's "Spanish Stroll". For a post-Surfer Rosa single, 4AD rejected another recording of the song; they later chose "Gigantic
", with "River Euphrates" on the B-side.
Francis reflected in 2004 that during the recording of the group's second album Doolittle he felt embarrassed by "Here Comes Your Man", but since producer Gil Norton really liked the song, the songwriter "threw him a bone". Norton recorded the band performing the song's backing track when Black Francis was not available. The song featured a different arrangement from previous recordings of the track, and Black Francis added another verse to it.
, favored by Pixies guitarist Joey Santiago
and used on "Tame", reminiscent of the opening to "A Hard Day's Night
" by The Beatles
. The acoustic guitar plays a D–G–A chord progression, while Santiago plays a Byrds
-style guitar riff which is the result of him double-tracking a 12-string Rickenbacker
and a Telecaster.
In an interview with NME
, Francis commented on the meaning of the song:
The word "boxcar" was apparently a starting point for the song's lyrics, and Francis has suggested that this was in part inspired by the song "Carnival of Sorts (Box Car)" by R.E.M.
: "I probably liked the word 'boxcar' because I heard it on the R.E.M. song, from their first record."
. The cover image, chosen by Francis, comes from a photograph cover designer Simon Larbalestier took of a bulldog terrier for a gallery showing. The Pixies rarely played "Here Comes Your Man" at concerts or at promotional events. Music writer Ben Sisario described this stance as "vintage college-rock
'tude--the hit, the pop song, should be avoided as inauthentic, while the aggro, anticommercial song represents legitimacy." Ivo Watts-Russell stated if Black Francis had been possibly persuaded to release the version of the song recorded during the session for the "Gigantic" single—which he described as "totally streamlined and ready for radio"—that "maybe if a major label company was able to convince people to take a more commercial route, maybe Pixies would have sold a whole bunch more records than they did. But those steps were just not required back in 1989". The song reached number three on the U.S. Billboard
Modern Rock Tracks chart.
Joey Santiago later recalled: "The tour manager asked, 'Hey, Arsenio Hall
wants you to come on the show.' We said, 'Well, what do they want to hear?' He said, 'Here Comes Your Man.' No way. We told them we would love to go on, only if we did the song 'Tame'. And they said, 'No, thank you.'"
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
band Pixies, written and sung by the band's frontman Black Francis. Produced by Gil Norton
Gil Norton
Gil Norton is a British record producer known for his work with such bands as Pixies, Echo & the Bunnymen, Foo Fighters, Tribe, Jimmy Eat World, Dashboard Confessional, Feeder, The Distillers, Maxïmo Park, Counting Crows, Terrorvision, The Triffids, Del Amitri, James, The Feelers, The Beekeepers,...
, it was released as the second single from the group's second album Doolittle
Doolittle (album)
Doolittle features an eclectic mix of musical styles. While tracks such as "Tame" and "Crackity Jones" are fast and aggressive, and incorporate the band's trademark loud–quiet dynamic, other songs such as "Silver", "I Bleed", and "Here Comes Your Man" reveal a quieter, slower and more melodic...
in June 1989.
Written by Black Francis as a teenager, "Here Comes Your Man" was recorded for the band's 1987 demo tape, but not included on either Come On Pilgrim
Come on Pilgrim
Come On Pilgrim is the debut mini-LP release by the American alternative rock band Pixies, released in September 1987 by 4AD.- Background :...
or Surfer Rosa
Surfer Rosa
Like Come On Pilgrim, Surfer Rosa displays a mix of musical styles; pop guitar songs such as "Broken Face", "Break My Body", and "Brick Is Red" are featured alongside slower, more melodic tracks exemplified by "Where Is My Mind?". The album includes heavier material, and prominently features the...
, as the songwriter was reluctant about releasing the song. Critics saw "Here Comes Your Man" as the Pixies' breakthrough song; Jon Dolan of Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
magazine commented that it was "the most accessible song ever by an underground-type band." The song reached number three on the U.S. Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Modern Rock Tracks chart.
Background and recording
Black Francis recalled that he wrote "Here Comes Your Man" around the time he was age 14 or 15. Years later after the Pixies were formed, producer Paul Kolderie noted the group didn't want to record "Here Comes Your Man" for its demo "The Purple Tape". The group referred to it as "the Tom PettyTom Petty
Thomas Earl "Tom" Petty is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T...
song", according to Kolderie. Producer Gary Smith
Gary Smith (record producer)
Gary Smith is an entrepreneur, record producer, and artist's manager known for his work recording albums by alternative rock musicians since the mid-1980s at Fort Apache Studios...
said, "There was some reluctance to do 'Here Comes Your Man' because it was too pop, there was something too straight about it." When 4AD
4AD
4AD is a British independent record label that was started in 1979 by Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent, funded by Beggars Banquet Records, and is still active today...
label head Ivo Watts-Russell
Ivo Watts-Russell
Ivo Watts-Russell was joint-founder with Peter Kent of the English indie record label 4AD. He has also produced several records, himself preferring to use the term "musical director" to explain his role in the creation....
handpicked the tracklisting for the group's debut release Come on Pilgrim
Come on Pilgrim
Come On Pilgrim is the debut mini-LP release by the American alternative rock band Pixies, released in September 1987 by 4AD.- Background :...
, he intentionally left out "Here Comes Your Man". Watts-Russell stated that he liked the song, but "it felt just too obviously commercial and I didn't know what we were doing with [the band]". Watts-Russell also felt it was too reminiscent of Mink DeVille
Mink DeVille
Mink DeVille was a rock band known for its association with early punk rock bands at New York’s CBGB nightclub and for being a showcase for the music of Willy DeVille. The band recorded six albums in the years 1977 to 1985. Except for frontman Willy DeVille, the original members of the band played...
's "Spanish Stroll". For a post-Surfer Rosa single, 4AD rejected another recording of the song; they later chose "Gigantic
Gigantic (song)
"Gigantic" is a song by the American alternative rock band Pixies, co-written by bassist Kim Deal and lead vocalist/guitarist Black Francis . The song appeared on the band's first studio album, Surfer Rosa, released in 1988...
", with "River Euphrates" on the B-side.
Francis reflected in 2004 that during the recording of the group's second album Doolittle he felt embarrassed by "Here Comes Your Man", but since producer Gil Norton really liked the song, the songwriter "threw him a bone". Norton recorded the band performing the song's backing track when Black Francis was not available. The song featured a different arrangement from previous recordings of the track, and Black Francis added another verse to it.
Music and lyrics
"Here Comes Your Man" opens with the Hendrix chordHendrix chord
In music, the dominant 79 chord is sometimes known colloquially as the Hendrix chord or Purple Haze chord, nicknamed for guitarist Jimi Hendrix...
, favored by Pixies guitarist Joey Santiago
Joey Santiago
Joey Santiago is a Filipino-American guitarist and composer. Active since 1986, Santiago is best known as the lead guitarist for the American alternative rock band Pixies. After the band's breakup in 1993, Santiago produced musical scores for film and television documentaries, and he formed The...
and used on "Tame", reminiscent of the opening to "A Hard Day's Night
A Hard Day's Night (song)
"A Hard Day's Night" is a song by the English rock band The Beatles. Written by John Lennon, and credited to Lennon–McCartney, it was released on the movie soundtrack of the same name in 1964...
" by The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
. The acoustic guitar plays a D–G–A chord progression, while Santiago plays a Byrds
The Byrds
The Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973...
-style guitar riff which is the result of him double-tracking a 12-string Rickenbacker
Rickenbacker
Rickenbacker International Corporation, also known as Rickenbacker, is an electric and bass guitar manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California...
and a Telecaster.
In an interview with NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
, Francis commented on the meaning of the song:
The word "boxcar" was apparently a starting point for the song's lyrics, and Francis has suggested that this was in part inspired by the song "Carnival of Sorts (Box Car)" by R.E.M.
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...
: "I probably liked the word 'boxcar' because I heard it on the R.E.M. song, from their first record."
Video and imagery
A music video, co-directed by Neil Pollock and Jonathan Bekemeier, to promote the single shows the band playing its instruments through a distorted fish-eye lens, the camera variously panning horizontally across the performance space and vertically over the individual band members. Keeping in the spirit of the mimed performance, Francis and Deal open and shut their mouths in time with their prerecorded vocals, yet make no attempt to articulate their lips in synch with the words that they are supposed to be singing. Instead, they simply keep their mouths wide open with blank expressions for the duration of each verse. Francis stated that "Water on the brain" was the theme of the clip.Release and reception
"Here Comes Your Man" was released as a single in June 1989, and the song's music video received some airplay on MTVMTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
. The cover image, chosen by Francis, comes from a photograph cover designer Simon Larbalestier took of a bulldog terrier for a gallery showing. The Pixies rarely played "Here Comes Your Man" at concerts or at promotional events. Music writer Ben Sisario described this stance as "vintage college-rock
College rock
College rock is a term that was used in the United States to describe 1980s alternative rock before the term "alternative" came into common usage. The term's use of the word "college" refers to campus radio stations located at institutions of higher education in Canada and the United States, where...
'tude--the hit, the pop song, should be avoided as inauthentic, while the aggro, anticommercial song represents legitimacy." Ivo Watts-Russell stated if Black Francis had been possibly persuaded to release the version of the song recorded during the session for the "Gigantic" single—which he described as "totally streamlined and ready for radio"—that "maybe if a major label company was able to convince people to take a more commercial route, maybe Pixies would have sold a whole bunch more records than they did. But those steps were just not required back in 1989". The song reached number three on the U.S. Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Modern Rock Tracks chart.
Joey Santiago later recalled: "The tour manager asked, 'Hey, Arsenio Hall
Arsenio Hall
Arsenio Hall is an American actor, comedian, and former talk show host. He is best known for his talk show The Arsenio Hall Show, which ran between 1989 and 1994, and his roles in the films Coming to America and Harlem Nights.Hall is also known for his appearance as Alan Thicke's sidekick on the...
wants you to come on the show.' We said, 'Well, what do they want to hear?' He said, 'Here Comes Your Man.' No way. We told them we would love to go on, only if we did the song 'Tame'. And they said, 'No, thank you.'"
Track listing
All songs written by Black Francis, unless noted.- "Here Comes Your Man" – 3:00
- "Wave of Mutilation" (UK Surf version) – 3:00
- "Into the White" (Black Francis and Kim DealKim DealKimberley Ann Deal is an American singer, songwriter and musician, best known as the bassist of the alternative rock band the Pixies and the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist for The Breeders. Deal first joined the Pixies in January 1986 as the band's bassist, adopting the stage name Mrs...
) – 4:42 - "Bailey's Walk" – 2:23