Red Right Hand

Red Right Hand was released on 24 October 1994 as the third single from Let Love In, with That's What Jazz Is to Me and Where the Action Is as B-sides. The single carries an edited version and the album the longer one. The title comes from John Milton's Paradise Lost, where the phrase refers to the vengeful hand of God, and the liner notes to Murder Ballads say so. Mick Harvey recalled that the song began during the writing of Let Love In.

The lyric describes a shadowy, manipulative figure who stalks a town. Cave filled a notebook with descriptions of the town, and he said the place in the song is a reconstructed version of Wangaratta, his hometown. The band on the recording is Cave on vocals, organ and oscillator, Blixa Bargeld on guitar, Martyn P. Casey on bass, Harvey on guitar, bells and shaker, and Thomas Wydler on drums, timpani and temple block. Jesse Dylan directed the video, released on 17 October 1994.

Screen and covers

The song was used in the first three Scream films and in later installments, and Cave recorded a second version for Scream 3 in 2000, later released on B-Sides & Rarities. It also appeared in an episode of The X-Files in 1994, and it became the theme of the BBC series Peaky Blinders, which led to a re-release single in 2014. Only The Mercy Seat has appeared in more of Cave's live sets. Far Out ranked it fifth among his greatest songs in 2020 and Mojo sixth in 2023. Arctic Monkeys, Giant Sand, PJ Harvey, Anna Calvi, Laura Marling, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop with Jarvis Cocker, Snoop Dogg, Nell Smith and The Flaming Lips have all covered it.