Red Right Hand is one of the 874,323 songs Australian rocker Nick Cave has written about murder. It’s his most well-known due to its prominence in the Scream movies, serving as the unofficial theme song. It’s use in the first movie is perfection. Extra loud as we pan over the city, curfew kicking in, just about to kick into the finale of the film. So good.
The song itself is a wonderfully slinky song featuring organ, an oscillator, church bells, clavinet – all the good stuff to build a perfectly creepy vibe. The bassline rumbles very very low and loud as Cave tells the story about someone (or something) creeping around town offering you anything you want, but be careful of his red right hand. Huh?

The vermilion mitt in question is a reference to John Milton’s Paradise Lost:
“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?”
Milton, Paradise Lost (Book II, 170-174)
The song recounts all the things this being will promise you. Rekindle your dreams, get you a car, give you money, etc. But in the end, it means nothing and you’re just a cog in his “catastrophic plan”. Cave’s half-mumbled, half-drunken croon brings the perfect sense of unease to the precedings, as if he’s almost nervous to tell you the story. Perfect for a fall night with leaves and faint whispers blowing across the sidewalk.
The song has been covered by Arctice Monkeys, Jarvis Cocker & Iggy Pop, and… Snoop Dogg? Sure, why not. Snoop’s own “Murder was the Case” could make a case for a spooky song, we shall see…