Open Forum: Here Comes Your Man

Song lyrics. Always a subject of interesting, and sometimes vigorous, drunken debate. In fact, a couple weeks ago, I climbed up on the intoxication soapbox to ramble on about how The Pixies' "Here Comes Your Man" is about homicidal, or possibly cannibalistic, railroad-riding vagrants. Even sober, I'd stand by this assessment. A couple days later, my friend, who was on the receiving end of said drunken rant, took to the internets to see what she could find. Her conclusion that the song was about the bombing of Hiroshima. Veery Eenteresting. The two wildly differing interpretations made me wonder what else was out there. And so, the forum is opened on just what, if anything, Frank Black is talking about in Here Comes Your Man.

Possibility 1: Killer Hobos: Boxcar-dwelling hobos wait for someone to walk by, hit him on the head with a "big, big stone", serve him up in a tasty "family stew" and escape when the train starts moving again. It's gotta be right, because the wine and I said so.

Possibility 2: The Bomb: August 9th 1945. US bomber the 'Bockscar' dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The bomb was called 'Fat Man'. This one seems to be pretty popular among the self-appointed experts in the comments sections. Beat out the references to WWII and Nazis at least.

Possibility 3: Old-school funeral procession: Back in the old days, bodies were transported by train. When the train was arriving at the station with someone's dead loved one, they used to say "Here comes your man". How's that for not softening the blow? Better than just tossing 'em out, I guess, but still an unlikely explanation for the song.

Possibility 4: 'Waiting for the Man': About the anticipation of waiting on a drug purchase, possibly in response to the Velvet Underground song. People who wait on drug connections always want songs to be about waiting for drug connections. Get a job.

Most likely explanation: A pre-Pixies song that Frank Black wrote when he 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...It's like the earth is shaking, and what can you do? Nothing." [Interview with Frank Black, NME, 1989]

So yes, my interpretation was twisted, a little bit sick and shows my general lack of trust in hobos, but at least I wasn't that far off. The Open Forum is now closed.