ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #074

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#074: Pixies – ‘Here Comes Your Man’ (4AD Records ’89)

yes, I know: „uh, the sissy has gone for the hit single again – what a pillock!“. And of course you’re right, in all of Pixies‘ back catalogue, ‘Here Comes Your Man’ certainly is the hit single, probably even the most accessible of all of their numbers.

But le me explain why it is that I chose it nevertheless: to me, there were three choices, the first three singles in fact: ‘Gigantic’ from the year before, ‘Monkey Gone To Heaven’, also from 1989, and today’s offering. There were more singles, of course, some of them quite excellent, but let’s be honest: diminishing it down to those three was the obvious thing to do, right?

So why did I go for ‘Here Comes Your Man’ and not for one of the other two singles, despite of their brilliance and despite of ‘Here Comes Your Man’ being so, let’s say – „radio-friendly“? Well, amongst some of the rather weird theories I have developed in my life, I also came up with this one: once you have witnessed a band ‘growing up’ from their earliest days on, then you have the natural right to think whatever you want to think about this band and to say whatever you want to say to anyone who did not witness said band’s birth or at least their heydays. And no, all you 16-year-old chicks with your skinny jeans and your Ramones– and/or Nirvana-T-shirts who are reading this: I am neither ‘just an old fart’ nor ‘an overweight smart aleck’ – it is NOT my fault that you are so easily offended when your outfit is being questioned by me!!

(JC adds…….don’t worry Dirk, I’m 99.9999% sure that no 16-year old chicks read this blog!)

Back to Pixies and ‘Here Comes Your Man’. I bought ‘Come On Pilgrim’ when it came out and spent hundreds of Deutschmarks on their later output as well. So, to come to a point with all of this, taking this fact into consideration when it comes to my wonderful theory: if I think that ‘Here Comes Your Man’ is the right single of choice for me, then so it shall be!

I mean, come on: it is rather pop, rather commercial, yes, but bloody hell: it’s excellent throughout! Also, what you might not have known up until now is that Black Francis had written it when he was about 15. To my understanding, the band did not like it pretty much (apparently they referred to it as “the Tom Petty song“), and the same was true for the label – so much so that 4AD did not want it to appear on ‘Come On Pilgrim’ in 1987.

Still, and it’s clear that it’s one of those records you know by heart obviously – to me it hasn’t lost an inch of its greatness, I still could listen to it on a daily basis:

 

mp3: Pixies – Here Comes Your Man

Take care and enjoy,

Dirk