Here He Comes

This is probably my least favorite song on the album "Before or After Science," so it is unlikely that my analysis will transcend that opinion.

The musical backing on this track reminds me of the "jam along" presets you can find on most cheap keyboards; "Here He Comes" sounds like the preset for "country" music -- the beat is freakishly consistent and minimal, with total repetition in just about every instrument. The patterns are monotonous and constant, altering only slightly to accomodate basic chord changes.

The lyrics, too (and vocal delivery), seem monotonous and cliched in many ways, but also surreal and most likely important to the overall arc of the album as a whole. The title "Here He Comes" strikes me as a very mundane lyric, lazily pilfered from the collective unconsciousness of pop detritus. The same goes for the following:

"with his sad blue eyes" -- this cliche seems especially shoehorned -- it extends the expected phrase length in what sounds like a deliberately awkward manner. "floating like a dove" -- yawn. "the deep blue sky" -- this seems intentionally sophomoric, but maybe I'm wrong.

The rest of the lyrics are rather surreal and, at some level, disconcerting -- especially in the context of the song's static arrangement and the insertions of poetic banality outlined above.

We learn that the boy "tried to vanish to the future or the past is no longer here" -- pretty strange stuff to hear in a country song. I would presume that "the boy" felt out of place in the modern Scientific society depicted in "King's Lead Hat," so he "tried to vanish to the future or the past" (ie, Before or After Science), and apparently succeeded, because he is "no longer here." His blue eyes were sad.

The boy "rose above reason," implying a transcendence of the tyranny of the King's Lead Hat (if you're not wearing a lead hat, you can float away, apparently). Each verse seems to lose track of itself -- we are told "here he comes," but then in the same sentence we learn that the boy "is no longer here" -- a direct contradiction as far as I can tell. The metric phrase length of each line of verse is disconcerting as well. This poetic dislocation seems to be engineered specifically to make the audience question what they are hearing -- and in doing so, question reason itself. The lyrics and the static music seem like a rebellion against energy itself, and traditional "rational" sense in some ways. The music frustrates and impedes, as if to say, "be patient; relax; don't over-analyze this."

Later, the boy "sees us following him all one at a time." Did the boy die? Did he transcend the tyranny of rationalism? Was he the first to reach the next plane, "after Science"? Regardless, the boy's message seems clear and the masses seem to have responded. Personally, I think Eno's lyrics are about embracing death and the serenity of escaping the human condition (or, as it may be, the King's Lead Hat).

"Checking out each other's supplies" -- what will you bring with you when you die? Probably not even your mind or your memories; thus, "who will remember him?" No one -- in death, "he" is us.

Eno seems to associate tiny bugs and miniscule life with the after-death state of stillness and oneness -- thus, "he" is "no longer alone among the dragonflies." This association will resurface in "Spider and I."