When I initially posted my 30 post Song Challenge, each cursory glance at the list would have a couple of key signposts. One of these was this one: a song that would be played when you kill someone. It really is in glaring opposition to many of the other subjects, but really part of the inherent challenge anyway.
Maybe it's due to my cinematic sensibilities or maybe I am just a bit twisted, but there is something very beautiful about the whole matter. I think there is a delicate balance created in the eloquent stickiness of creating life and the thought of creating death under the same terms. No one gets to choose their entrance into this life or their exit strategy, generally.
Feeling civilized and evolved gives us a holier than thou attitude when it comes to assigning death. It is seeped deep within our nature to do the most primitive things, but many of us just resign ourselves quietly to our more civilized natures whilst sending others off to squash that cockroach, kill our food, and hunt down our mortal enemies. But it's not mass slaughter or food processing that really springs to mind when I ponder all of this. It's the intimate face-to-face primal passion spiraling out of control that intrigues me.
Opening with a single bell hit and seemingly narrated by clear toned dark vicar Nick Cave, listening to Red Right Hand is akin to a religious experience. It shuffles along at a steady pace, intensifying in subtle bursts, complete with a tight structure and supposedly highly improvised lyrics. If you're committing suicide consult the Smiths, but if it's someone else entirely then it's Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds that you need.
. . . . .
Take a little walk to the edge of town
Go across the tracks
Where the viaduct looms,
like a bird of doom
As it shifts and cracks
Where secrets lie in the border fires,
in the humming wires
Hey man, you know
you're never coming back
Past the square, past the bridge,
past the mills, past the stacks
On a gathering storm comes
a tall handsome man
In a dusty black coat with
a red right hand
He'll wrap you in his arms,
tell you that you've been a good boy
He'll rekindle all the dreams
it took you a lifetime to destroy
He'll reach deep into the hole,
heal your shrinking soul
Hey buddy, you know you're
never ever coming back
He's a god, he's a man,
he's a ghost, he's a guru
They're whispering his name
through this disappearing land
But hidden in his coat
is a red right hand
You ain't got no money?
He'll get you some
You ain't got no car? He'll get you one
You ain't got no self-respect,
you feel like an insect
Well don't you worry buddy,
cause here he comes
Through the ghettos and the barrio
and the Bowery and the slum
A shadow is cast wherever he stands
Stacks of green paper in his
red right hand
(Organ solo)
You'll see him in your nightmares,
you'll see him in your dreams
He'll appear out of nowhere but
he ain't what he seems
You'll see him in your head,
on the TV screen
And hey buddy, I'm warning
you to turn it off
He's a ghost, he's a god,
he's a man, he's a guru
You're one microscopic cog
in his catastrophic plan
Designed and directed by
his red right hand
(Organ solo)
He's a...
He's mumbling words you can't understand
He's mumbling word behind his red right hand.
