Red Right Hand

Nick Cave and the bad seeds

Take a little walk to the edge of town
 and 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,
 but there won't be a single thing
 that you can do
 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 don't have no money?
 He'll get you some
 You don't have no car?
 He'll get you one
 You don't have 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

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