Wicked Little Town

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Wicked Little Town is a song from the soundtrack of the off-Broadway show and film, Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Composed by Stephen Trask, the song is a poetic reflection on the doomed love between the characters, Hedwig and Tommy Gnosis.

The original song is basically about a person who falls in love with someone in a wicked town that seems to be impossible to escape. In the story of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Hedwig first sings it as a love song to Tommy. In the film Hedwig sings a low-fi version of the song to Tommy when they meet in a donut shop, and a full, rock ballad reprise version was created for later in the film for Tommy to sing to Hedwig. Now a rock icon with his career imploding after his relationship with Hedwig was revealed, Tommy sings that he is sorry for how much he has hurt Hedwig, that he never understood she was "more than a woman or a man" and that now he finally sees how much he took from her by stealing her songs. He also tells her that her ideas about soulmates and cosmic destiny are preventing her from moving on ("Maybe there's nothing up in the sky but air...") and then, wishing her well, he slips away into the darkness, leaving Hedwig in tears.

It is notable that a line in the song, "If you've got no other choice, you know you can follow my voice" is literally played out in the story, as Hedwig stalks Tommy around the country from concert to concert, "following his voice". It could also be said that Tommy followed Hedwig's voice, given his hero worship of her, his taking on the Tommy Gnosis persona she devised, and his theft of her songs.