Album: X-Files: Songs In The Key Of X

Red Right Hand [Nick Cave]

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

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 ain't got no money?

He'll get you some

You ain't got no car?

He'll get you one

You ain'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

(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)