This article needs additional citations for verification .(August 2014) |
"Red Right Hand" | ||||
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Single by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds | ||||
from the album Let Love In | ||||
B-side |
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Released | 24 October 1994 | |||
Recorded | September – December 1993 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 6:10 (album version) 4:46 (single edit) | |||
Label | Mute | |||
Songwriter(s) | ||||
Producer(s) | Tony Cohen | |||
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds singles chronology | ||||
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Let Love In track listing | ||||
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"Red Right Hand" is a song by the Australian rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. It was released as a single from their eighth studio album, Let Love In (1994), on 24 October 1994 by Mute Records. A condensed version was included in the single, while the longer version was included with the album. The title comes from John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), in which it refers to the vengeful hand of God.
The song has become one of Nick Cave's signature songs, being performed at most of his concerts; only "The Mercy Seat" has appeared in more of his live sets since 1984. [5] It has since become best known for its use in the Scream film series and later as the theme song to the British period crime drama TV series Peaky Blinders , which resulted in the song receiving a re-release single in 2014. It has been covered by ex-partner PJ Harvey, Arctic Monkeys, Iggy Pop, Jarvis Cocker and Snoop Dogg, among others.
In 2005, Cave was a guest performer on his former girlfriend Anita Lane's cover of the song.[ citation needed ]
The liner notes for Murder Ballads state that the phrase "red right hand" is from a line in John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost that refers to divine vengeance. The opening song on the album, "Song of Joy," states of a murderer: "It seems he has done many, many more, / quotes John Milton on the walls in the victim's blood. / The police are investigating at tremendous cost. / In my house he wrote 'his red right hand'. / That, I'm told, is from Paradise Lost."
The aforementioned appearance in Paradise Lost (Book II, 170-174) is: "What if the breath that kindled those grim fires, / Awaked, should blow them into sevenfold rage, / And plunge us in the flames; or from above / Should intermitted vengeance arm again / His red right hand to plague us?" The term itself appears to be Milton's translation of the term "rubente dextera" in Horace's Ode I.2,2-3.
Co-writer Mick Harvey recalled that the song originated during the songwriting process for the band's 1994 album Let Love In. The lyrics describe "a shadowy, alluring, and manipulative figure, stalking the land and striking a combination of fear and awe everywhere he goes" who is "seemingly part deity, part demon". [6] While writing the lyrics, Cave "filled an entire notebook" with descriptions of the town the song is set in, "including maps and sketches of prominent buildings, virtually none of which made it into the lyrics." [7] Cave later said that the town and landscape depicted in the song is a "reconstructed" version of Wangaratta, his hometown. Biographer Mark Mordue notes that it is "still somewhere real enough for those lyrics to serve as a map that could guide you from one point to another with an eerie familiarity." [8]
In 2004, researcher Kim Beissel claimed that "Red Right Hand" was loosely based on the 1987 Tom Waits song "Way Down in the Hole". [9]
"Red Right Hand" is widely regarded as one of Cave's best songs. In 2020, Far Out ranked the song number five on their list of the 20 greatest Nick Cave songs, [10] and in 2023, Mojo ranked the song number six on their list of the 30 greatest Nick Cave songs. [11]
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Chart (1994) | Peak position |
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UK Indie (OCC) [17] | 16 |
Chart (2022) | Peak position |
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Hungary (Single Top 40) [18] | 26 |
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
United Kingdom (BPI) [19] | Silver | 200,000‡ |
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. |
Nicholas Edward Cave is an Australian musician, writer and actor. Known for his deep baritone voice and for fronting the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Cave's music is characterised by emotional intensity, a wide variety of influences and lyrical obsessions with death, religion, love, and violence.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are a rock band formed in Melbourne in 1983 by lead vocalist Nick Cave, multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey and German guitarist-vocalist Blixa Bargeld. The band has featured international personnel throughout its career and presently consists of Cave, violinist and multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis, bassist Martyn P. Casey, guitarist George Vjestica, touring keyboardist/percussionist Larry Mullins, also known as Toby Dammit, and drummers Thomas Wydler (Switzerland) and Jim Sclavunos. Described as "one of the most original and celebrated bands of the post-punk and alternative rock eras in the '80s and onward", they have released eighteen studio albums and completed numerous international tours.
James Sclavunos is an American drummer, multi-instrumentalist musician, record producer, and writer. He is best known as a drummer, having been a member of two seminal no wave groups in the late 1970s. He is also noted for stints in Sonic Youth and the Cramps, and has been a member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds since 1994. Sclavunos has led his own group the Vanity Set since 2000.
Tender Prey is the fifth studio album by the Australian rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, released on 19 September 1988 on Mute Records. Produced by Flood, the album was recorded during several sessions over the course of four months in London and West Berlin and dedicated to the Brazilian actor Fernando Ramos da Silva.
Let Love In is the eighth studio album by the Australian rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, released on 18 April 1994 by Mute Records.
The Firstborn Is Dead is the second studio album by the Australian rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, released on 3 June 1985 by Mute Records. Produced by the band and Flood, the album saw lead vocalist Nick Cave continue his fascination with the Southern United States, featuring references to Elvis Presley and bluesmen like Blind Lemon Jefferson. The album was recorded in the Hansa Studios in Berlin, Germany. Cave later said of the album, "Berlin gave us the freedom and encouragement to do whatever we wanted. We'd lived in London for three years and it seemed that if you stuck your head out of the box, people were pretty quick to knock it back in. Particularly if you were Australian. When we came to Berlin it was the opposite. People saw us as some kind of force rather than a kind of whacky novelty act."
Anita Louise Lane was an Australian singer-songwriter who was briefly a member of the Bad Seeds with Nick Cave and Mick Harvey and collaborated with both bandmates. Lane released two solo albums, Dirty Pearl (1993) and Sex O'Clock (2001).
B-Sides & Rarities is a compilation album by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, released in March 2005. It features over 20 years of the band's B-sides and previously unreleased tracks. It is also the first recording to include all members of the Bad Seeds, past and present up to the time of its release: current members Mick Harvey, Blixa Bargeld, Thomas Wydler, Martyn P. Casey, Conway Savage, Jim Sclavunos, and Warren Ellis, and former members Barry Adamson, Hugo Race, Kid Congo Powers, Roland Wolf, and James Johnston. A second volume, B-Sides & Rarities Part II, was released in October 2021.
"Gin and Juice" is a song by American rapper Snoop Dogg. It was released on January 18, 1994, as the second single from his debut album, Doggystyle (1993). The song was produced by Dr. Dre and contains an interpolation from Slave's "Watching You" in its chorus and a sample from "I Get Lifted" by George McCrae. Tony Green created its bassline; additional vocalists on the song include Dat Nigga Daz, Jewell, Heney Loc, and Sean "Barney" Thomas. "Gin and Juice" peaked at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States. It earned a gold certification from the RIAA and sold 700,000 copies.
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"Let Me Ride" is a song by American rapper and producer Dr. Dre, released in September 1993 by Death Row, Interscope and Priority as the third and final single from his debut studio album, The Chronic (1992). It experienced moderate success on the charts, until it became a massive hit when Dre won Best Rap Solo Performance for at the 36th Annual Grammy Awards. The song features singers Ruben and Jewell, as well as uncredited vocals by fellow rapper Snoop Dogg, who wrote the song.
Jeffrey Lee Pierce was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and author. He was one of the founding members of the band The Gun Club, and released material as a solo artist.
"The Mercy Seat" is a song written by Nick Cave and Mick Harvey (music), originally performed by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on the 1988 album Tender Prey. The song has been covered by others, including Johnny Cash, Camille O'Sullivan and Unter Null. Rolling Stone editor Toby Creswell lists it as one of the 1001 greatest songs.
"Way Down in the Hole" is a song written by the singer-songwriter Tom Waits. It was included on his 1987 album Franks Wild Years, which was first presented as a stage production put on by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, Illinois.
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"(Are You) The One That I've Been Waiting For?" is the second single from the album The Boatman's Call by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The single, released on 19 May 1997, was pressed on 7" and 12" vinyl, as well as a standard CD single, though the song failed to chart anywhere except the U.K., where it only made it to #67. A promotional music video for the song was also recorded.
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Doggumentary is the eleventh studio album by American West Coast hip hop recording artist Snoop Dogg. It was released on March 29, 2011 on the Priority Records record label. The album was produced by Battlecat, The Cataracs, Gorillaz, David Banner, THX, DJ Khalil, Fredwreck, Jake One, David Guetta, Mike Dean, Jeff Bhasker, Lex Luger, Meech Wells, Mr. Porter, Rick Rock, Rick Rude, Scoop DeVille, Scott Storch, Warryn Campbell, Kanye West, DJ Reflex, among others.
Ghosteen is the seventeenth studio album by the Australian rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. It was released on 4 October 2019 on Ghosteen Ltd and on 8 November 2019 on Bad Seed Ltd, both the band's own imprints. Ghosteen is a double album—the band's first since Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus (2004)—and the final part of a trilogy of albums that includes Push the Sky Away (2013) and Skeleton Tree (2016).
Lawrence Edward Mullins, also known as Toby Dammit, is an American musician, record producer, and composer. A multi-instrumentalist, Mullins is best known as a member of the bands Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Swans, as well as a former member of The Stooges and other incarnations of Iggy Pop’s bands. He has also worked extensively in music for films and television, and had a performance role in the German cable series Babylon Berlin.