If the devil had a theme song, it would be Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' "Red Right Hand."
For more than 20 years, the slinky, sinister noir anthem has been a highlight of virtually every Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds concert. It's an intense number; typically, the singer stalks across the stage like he's hunting prey as organs shake and bells crash behind him. The song's cinematic dread (reportedly inspired by John Milton's Paradise Lost) is a favorite of film and TV music supervisors: "Red Right Hand" has cropped up everywhere from Dumb and Dumber to Scream. It's even used as the main theme of BBC's Peaky Blinders.
Now the song is a highlight of Cave's own movie: the forthcoming concert film Distant Sky - Live in Copenhagen, directed by David Barnard. You can watch an exclusive clip from the film, featuring "Red Right Hand," above, which captures the song's stormy climax.
Distant Sky was filmed during a performance at Copenhagen's Royal Arena in October 2017 and features moving performances of material from Cave's 2016 album, Skeleton Tree, which was completed amid personal grief following the death of the singer's son Arthur. (The aftermath of that tragedy, both creative and personal, was captured in the 2016 documentary One More Time With Feeling.)
Documenting a single excellent performance from start to finish, Distant Sky manages to capture both Cave's piercing intensity as a performer—he goes homicidal on 1996's "Stagger Lee" and explodes with lust on 1984's "From Her to Eternity"—as well as the emotional intimacy of this particular tour. During the film, Cave grabs hands with fans in the crowd and appears to tear up during the song "Distant Sky" (which features Danish singer Else Torp). Stirring recent songs like "I Need You" and "Girl in Amber" are slotted alongside Bad Seeds greatest hits such as "The Mercy Seat," which was memorably covered by Johnny Cash.
Distant Sky is being distributed by Trafalgar Releasing and will be shown in cinemas around the world for just one night on April 12.
Tickets for that screening are currently available at Cave's official site. Watch the "Red Right Hand" clip above, premiering exclusively at Newsweek.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Zach Schonfeld is a senior writer for Newsweek, where he covers culture for the print magazine. Previously, he was an ... Read more
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