Song Meaning
The lyrics paint a picture of impending, vaguely defined trouble, arriving with a sense of almost farcical menace. The narrator receives warnings through a chain of secondhand information, building a nervous anticipation. The description of one of the approaching figures as having an idea involving a "hammer head shark" and "flatus" injects a bizarre, almost comical element into the threat, suggesting the danger is as much absurd as it is genuinely frightening.
The central tension lies in the narrator's reaction to this approaching, ill-defined threat. There's a clear impulse to flee, emphasized by the repeated "run, run, run, run, run." Yet, the nature of the threat remains so abstract – described through oddities like "nosehairs" and "amazing hand dexterity" – that the fear feels amplified by its lack of concrete form. The advice to "bury your head deep in the sand" and the praise for "anonymity" suggest a desire to simply disappear rather than confront.
The most striking aspect of the craft is the juxtaposition of mundane, even gross, details with the ominous pronouncements. The "hammer head shark" and "flatus" are jarringly specific yet nonsensical in context, creating a surreal atmosphere. This absurdity undercuts any potential for straightforward dread, transforming the impending arrival into something more akin to a bad, surreal dream. The relentless repetition of "Here they come" in the outro hammers home the inescapable feeling of their approach.
This lyrical approach is effective because it taps into a primal anxiety about the unknown and the uncontrollable. By refusing to clearly define the "bastards" or their intentions, the lyrics allow the listener's imagination to fill in the blanks, often with something far worse than any specific threat. The blend of the absurd and the anxious creates a unique, unsettling mood that lingers long after the words fade.