Discovering Pixies was like finding out that ghosts are real. Their music felt brand new and familiar at the same time—like it had been steadily playing in the background of all my favorite songs. I still remember the moment when a friend handed me a copy of Surfer Rosa. Songs like “Bone Machine,” “Broken Face” and “Gigantic” were a revelation. I’d played it to death by the time I got my hands on the band’s commercial breakthrough, Doolittle. From the opening bass line of “Debaser” and all the way through the anthemic ending of “Gouge Away,” Doolittle remains one of the most influential alternative rock albums ever. Interestingly, it was a mid-tempo song about drifters that gave Pixies their first hit. “Here Comes Your Man” would make a great short story.

The setting is a desolate rail yard. Box cars sit idle while desperate men stand around an open fire to fight the numbing cold. It’s a familiar scene for our narrator, the pointless monotony feeding his desire for the end to come. Despite it all, he waits patiently for death to arrive and take him away from his tired existence. And when it finally does arrive, it isn’t the shaking of a box car that rousts him from his daydreams but an earthquake. It’s not the ending he he’d hope for, but it answers his prayers all the same.

Read the full lyrics for “Here Comes Your Man” by Pixies right HERE.