They called you an animal
The Kangchenjumga demon
Wild man
Metoh-kangmi
Lying in my tent
I can hear your cry
Echoing 'round the mountainside
You sound lonely
While crossing the Lhakpa La
Something jumped down from the rock
In the remote Garo Hills by Dipu Marak
We found footprints in the snow
The schoolmaster of Darjeeling said
He saw you by the Tengboche monastery
You were playing in the snow
You were banging on the doors
You got up on the roof
Roof of the world
You were pulling up the rhododendrons
Loping down the mountain
They want to know you
They will hunt you down
Then they will kill you
Run away, run away
Run away
While crossing the Lhakpa La
Something jumped down from the rock
In the remote Garo Hills by Dipu Marak
We found footprints in the snow
We found your footprints in the snow
We brushed them all away
From the sherpas of Annapurna
To the rinpoche of Qinghai
Shepherds from Mount Kailash to Himachel Pradesh
Found footprints in the snow
You're not a Langur monkey
Nor a big, brown bear
You're the wild man
They say they saw you drowned
Near the Rongbuk glacier
They wanna hunt you down
You're not an animal
The lamas say
You're not an animal
The Kangchenjumga demon
Wild man
Metoh-kangmi
I can hear your cry
Echoing 'round the mountainside
You sound lonely
Something jumped down from the rock
In the remote Garo Hills by Dipu Marak
We found footprints in the snow
He saw you by the Tengboche monastery
You were playing in the snow
You were banging on the doors
You got up on the roof
Roof of the world
You were pulling up the rhododendrons
Loping down the mountain
They will hunt you down
Then they will kill you
Run away, run away
Run away
Something jumped down from the rock
In the remote Garo Hills by Dipu Marak
We found footprints in the snow
We brushed them all away
To the rinpoche of Qinghai
Shepherds from Mount Kailash to Himachel Pradesh
Found footprints in the snow
Nor a big, brown bear
You're the wild man
They say they saw you drowned
Near the Rongbuk glacier
They wanna hunt you down
You're not an animal
The lamas say
You're not an animal
Add your song meanings, interpretations, facts, memories & more to the community.
KB has humanised the Yeti. Fantastic!
The wild man is symbolic of our (human) search for the mystical. We search for it but in doing so we also destroy it. It feels like a song about wanting to touch what is sacred, but in not understanding it we end up applying our own interpretations and world views - this distorts the purity of what is sacred. Bush refers to the Lamas of tibet, and uses many exotic, almost esoteric, words like Kangchenjunga Demon and Metoh-Kangmi. This adds to the feeling of this being a song about something alien and so different from our normal understanding.
I love this song, I find it very moving, not just the concept, but the wonderful arrangements. The narrative comes to life, and I often find myself close to tears at the line "they want to know you, they will hunt you down, then they will kill you"
To me its all about god essentially.
I feel that as we modern humans "wiped out" the Neanderthals many years ago, that there are extra elements to us found sometimes in special humans which are not understood well. Neanderthals are around still and we should embrace that!
Wild Man can be seen to address elements of us modern humans who have some Neanderthal in them. We should embrace them, or what's left of them!