‘The Man That Came Back’ by Jessie Murph - Lyrics & Meaning

Amidst the rattling trap beats and seismic, dramatic composition that permeates Jessie Murph's 2025 studio album, Sex Hysteria, a stark piano ballad emerges.

The record is deeply personal as a whole, but no track finds Murph as candid and vulnerable as ‘The Man That Came Back’. Over the course of the intimate offering, the Alabama native recounts her tumultuous childhood courtesy of her alcoholic father, before explaining why she is still not able to forgive him, despite him returning.

With Gabe Simon taking the helm for this offering, ‘The Man That Came Back’ eschews the bold, twitchy production that pervades much of Sex Hysteria, in favour of a simple, evocative piano sample. Most of the track features Murph's soulful vocals gliding across the keys, with the atmospheric, sparse composition mirroring the intimacy of the lyrics. On an album full of captivating tracks, ‘The Man That Came Back’ stands out as the epitome of Murph's rich, visceral songwriting.

There's something about the fact that Sex Hysteria is full of references to a protagonist that is continually sexualised, that accentuates the tragic innocence of the image we then get of Murph as a terrified six-year-old child running from her father.

She begins by recalling all the sleepless nights where her father would scream and abuse her mother after drinking too much, powerfully conveying the fear she would feel.

Murph reveals that her father now claims to have found God and Jesus, and to have cleaned up his act, but underlines that she cannot forgive him for how poorly he treated their family. She heartbreakingly reels off the list of casualties in his wake, “The mother, the brother, the family you broke / And the daughter who grew up trusting no one / And the bruises on her skin, the holes that you left in the walls”.

Jessie Murph blames her father for her trust issues, and dismisses his attempts at reconciliation. She comments that if he is struggling to comprehend why she won't embrace his return, he can just talk to God about it. It's a heart-rending track, with Murph getting as honest as she's ever been, and Gabe Simon beautifully moulding the production around her vocals to capture the intricacy of the narrative.

“I was six years old
Running from the sound in my nightgown, screaming through the walls
He was angry, she was trying, I could hear it all
TV up loud as it could go
Just another night at home
You were raising hell, can't forget the smell soaked into your clothes
100 proof that burnt through that cigarette smoke
Always knew before you spoke
How the night was gonna go

-

Now you're diving, saying you're a different man
But who you were, it made me who I am

-

I still remember you
Blacked out, face down, asleep in your car
And the violence, the sirens that rang in the dark
And the last straw, the worst of all, the breaking of my mother's heart
And now since December you've shown up, say you're grown up, you just want to see us
You woke up sober, said you found Jesus
You don't understand why I still hate the man that came back
But you can talk to God about that

-

It was nine years ago
It was broken glass, it was getting bad, didn't wanna go
But she couldn't stay just to see the day she'd find you on the floor
She couldn't do it anymore

-

And you swear you'll never be that man again
But who you were, it made me who I am

-

And I still remember you
Blacked out, face down, asleep in your car
And the violence, the sirens that rang in the dark
And the last straw, the worst of all, the breaking of my mother's heart
And now since December you've shown up, say you're grown up, you just wanna see us
You woke up sober, said you found Jesus
You don't understand why I still hate the man that came back
But you can talk to God about that

-

You can talk to God about that
You can talk to God about that
Yeah, you can talk, you can talk, you can talk to God about
The mother, the brother, the family you broke
And the daughter who grew up trusting no one
And the bruises on her skin, the holes that you left in the walls
You can talk to God about it all
Oh, oh (You can talk to God about that)
Oh, oh (You can talk to God about that, you can talk to God)
You can talk to God about it all”

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