Here Comes Your Man

Francis said he wrote it at about 14 or 15. The Pixies recorded it for the 1987 demo, but the band called it the Tom Petty song, and Gary Smith said there was something too straight about it. Ivo Watts-Russell left it off Come On Pilgrim as too obviously commercial and felt it too close to Mink DeVille's Spanish Stroll, and 4AD later turned down another recording of it for the single after Surfer Rosa, choosing Gigantic. Francis said he felt embarrassed by it during Doolittle, but Norton liked it, so he threw him a bone. Norton recorded the backing track while Francis was away and the song gained a new arrangement and an extra verse.

It opens with the so-called Hendrix chord Santiago favored, and Santiago's riff doubles a 12-string Rickenbacker and a Telecaster. Francis told NME that it is about winos and hobos who die in a California earthquake. The single came out in June 1989 and reached number 3 on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart and number 54 in the UK. In the video, directed by Neil Pollock and Jonathan Bekemeier, Francis and Deal open and close their mouths during the verses without trying to sing along. Spin's Jon Dolan called it the most accessible song ever by an underground-type band. Santiago recalled that Arsenio Hall's show wanted the band to play it, and they said they would do Tame instead, and the show declined. The song is sung by the main character in the 2009 film (500) Days of Summer and plays in the series finale of Stranger Things.