The Man Comes Around (song)
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"The Man Comes Around" is the title track from Johnny Cash's American IV: The Man Comes Around, released in 2002 (see 2002 in music). It is one of the last songs Cash wrote in his life.
Only three of the fifteen tracks on this album were actually written by Cash; "The Man Comes Around" is the only one that Cash wrote for the album. It is partially sung and partially spoken, containing numerous Biblical references, predominantly from the Book of Revelation.
The song is introduced by a spoken portion in which Cash describes the coming of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, sounding of thunder and led by a white horse. The musical portion then begins with Cash reciting that a man (Jesus Christ) has arrived to pass judgment, and the world will be in terror as people await theirs. The chorus indicates that these events are accompanied by trumpets, pipers, and "one hundred million angels singing".
The chorus also repeats the point that "the whirlwind is in the thorn tree", a reference to Job 38:1 in which God appears to Job as a voice in a whirlwind.
Cash then returns to spoken form, ending the song with a quote from Revelation 6:8:
- And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts
- And I looked and behold, a pale horse
- And his name that sat on him was Death
- And Hell followed with him
The main musical motif is heard as the accented grand piano-like C note following the IV-V chords. It is also played repeatedly in the chorus. This gives the song its distinctive "finality" in terms of mood/style.
An alternate, "early take" of the song appears on the Unearthed box set (2003).
This song was used during the opening montage for the 2004 film Dawn of the Dead as well as the credits for the film The Hunted.
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