Youtu­ber Poly­phon­ic has done a good job of look­ing at some hoary old clas­sics of ‘60s rock, but he doesn’t always dip his toe in tak­ing on con­tem­po­rary music, or even con­sid­er­ing a mod­ern canon. Pro­nounc­ing what is essen­tial lis­ten­ing of the last few decades is a mine­field, espe­cial­ly among the ranks of Com­men­tus YouTubus.

So their choice to explore Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ “Red Right Hand” is a deft one. It’s not Cave’s most well-known song—-that would be “The Mer­cy Seat”—-but it’s one that many non-Cave fans know regard­less. Though released in 1994, it’s now best known as the theme song from Peaky Blind­ers, though it also showed up in all three of the first Scream films. It’s been used to sell tequi­la and tourism as well.

Poly­phon­ic first delves into the source of the title—the “Red Right Hand”—as com­ing from Milton’s Par­adise Lost, spo­ken by fall­en angel Belial:

“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?”

This is the hand of God, and a venge­ful, Old Tes­ta­ment one at that. But that will only get you so far into the lyrics of this creepy song. As Poly­phon­ic peels back the lay­ers of Cave’s vers­es, the man with the red right hand could be God, could be the Dev­il, could be a man, could be a ghost. He could offer you a Faus­t­ian pact, or they could take every­thing away imme­di­ate­ly. It could be gov­ern­ment, or cap­i­tal­ism, or the media, or mate­ri­al­ism.

Cave, to the song’s cred­it, leaves every­thing in a lim­i­nal space (as Poly­phon­ic illus­trates with the kind of cross­roads blues play­ers love to sing about). What’s left is a warn­ing, a sense of unease, a feel­ing that maybe it’s already too late. Maybe we real­ly are just all fall­en angels with no idea how to get back home to par­adise.

That’s why Cave includes it in most of his live sets. He can impro­vise on the lines, adding, as he has been doing, ref­er­ences to Twit­ter and social media. Cave might have left his reli­gious upbring­ing in his youth, but he knows that the best way to express the unease of the mod­ern con­di­tion is to get bib­li­cal. And part of that is mys­tery. Even fel­low Bad Seed Mick Har­vey knows not to go look­ing for answers from his friend about this par­tic­u­lar song.

“I still find it mys­te­ri­ous,” he told the New York Post. “I don’t want to know the details, and I’d nev­er ask Nick. Some­times it’s bet­ter to think ‘What the hell’s that all about?’ It’s bet­ter that it’s unknow­able and spooky.”

As a bonus, here’s Snoop Dogg’s quizzi­cal cov­er ver­sion where he push­es and is pulled between his own style and Cave’s.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Nick Cave’s Online Store: Pen­cils Adorned with Lyrics, Mugs, Polaroids & More

Nick Cave Answers the Hot­ly Debat­ed Ques­tion: Will Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence Ever Be Able to Write a Great Song?

Ani­mat­ed Sto­ries Writ­ten by Tom Waits, Nick Cave & Oth­er Artists, Read by Dan­ny Devi­to, Zach Gal­i­fi­anakis & More

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the Notes from the Shed pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, and/or watch his films here.

The prison gig has been a sta­ple of live per­for­mance since John­ny Cash played Fol­som in 1968, with vari­a­tions on the theme like the Cramps’ leg­endary per­for­mance at a Cal­i­for­nia Psy­chi­atric Hos­pi­tal (revis­it­ed in the doc­u­men­tary We Were There to Be There). Some bands who play insti­tu­tions may not be far away from inhab­it­ing them. When the Sex Pis­tols played Chelms­ford Prison, it was not the first time gui­tarist Steve Jones had been inside, what with his 14 crim­i­nal con­vic­tions. In fact, Jones has cred­it­ed the band for sav­ing him from a life of crime.

BB King gave one of the best per­for­mances of his career from behind the walls of Sing Sing, three years after Cash’s con­cert at San Quentin. King him­self hadn’t done time, but hav­ing grown up in pover­ty on a cot­ton plan­ta­tion in Mis­sis­sip­pi, he well under­stood the con­di­tions that led peo­ple to incar­cer­a­tion.

As his key­boardist Ron Levy said after an ear­li­er prison con­cert in Cook Coun­ty Jail, “If any­body had the blues, it was those peo­ple incar­cer­at­ed. And BB real­ly felt com­pas­sion for those guys.” Like­wise, John­ny Cash nev­er did hard time, but his child­hood pover­ty, strug­gles with addic­tion, and love for under­dogs and out­casts lent him an authen­tic­i­ty inmates rec­og­nized imme­di­ate­ly.

Oth­er matchups between stars and prison audi­ences have not only been less authen­tic, but some­times down­right baf­fling, as when Bon­nie Tyler gave a con­cert at Long Lartin prison in Eng­land …. or so the inmates thought. It turned out Tyler had only used her audi­ence as props for a botched music video that nev­er aired. This, clear­ly, is how not to run a prison con­cert, also the title of the Band­splain­ing video at the top, which begins with Tyler’s ker­fuf­fle and goes on to exam­ine the genre of prison con­certs through prison con­cert films, TV, and albums.

John­ny Cash, the Grate­ful Dead, BB King, Fred­die King, John Lee Hook­er, The Cramps, Fugazi, and Fugazi’s pre­vi­ous incar­na­tion, Minor Threat, are all cov­ered here. Miss­ing are artists like Fred­dy Fend­er (who did it before Cash), Son­ny James, and Big Mama Thorn­ton, who released an album called Jail in 1975, com­piled from two dif­fer­ent prison per­for­mances, and who sure­ly deserves top hon­ors for know­ing how to do it right. In prison, writes Music Times, “she final­ly gets to per­form her hit, ‘Ball ‘n’ Chain’ — which was made famous by Janis Joplin and The Hold­ing Com­pa­ny — where it was made to be played: Jail.”

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

The Cramps Leg­endary Con­cert at a Cal­i­for­nia Psy­chi­atric Hos­pi­tal Gets Revis­it­ed in the New Doc­u­men­tary, We Were There to Be There: Watch It Online

When the Sex Pis­tols Played at the Chelms­ford Top Secu­ri­ty Prison: Hear Vin­tage Tracks from the 1976 Gig

B.B. King Plays Live at Sing Sing Prison in One of His Great­est Per­for­mances (1972)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

“If you had tried to give rock and roll anoth­er name, you would call it Chuck Berry,” says John Lennon by way of intro­duc­tion to his hero in the clip above from The Mike Dou­glas Show. The two per­form Berry’s “Mem­phis, Ten­nessee” and “John­ny B. Goode” (with Lennon’s back­ing band, Elephant’s Mem­o­ry, and unwel­come dis­cor­dant back­ing vocals from Yoko). The moment was a major high­light of Lennon’s post-Bea­t­les’ career. The year was 1972, and Lennon and Yoko Ono had tak­en over Dou­glas’ show for the week, book­ing such guests as Ralph Nad­er, Jer­ry Rubin, and then Sur­geon Gen­er­al Dr. Jesse Ste­in­feld. Dou­glas called it “prob­a­bly the most mem­o­rable week I did in all my 20-some­thing years on air,” Gui­tar World notes. Lennon used it as the oppor­tu­ni­ty to final­ly meet, and jam out, with his idol.

Berry wasn’t just a major inspi­ra­tion for the young Lennon; “From his song­writ­ing and lyrics, to his gui­tar play­ing and stage antics, per­haps nobody else short of Elvis Pres­ley was as influ­en­tial on [all] the young Bea­t­les as Chuck Berry,” writes Bea­t­les schol­ar Aaron Krerow­icz, list­ing “at least 15” of Berry’s songs the band cov­ered (as either the Quar­ry­men or the Bea­t­les). Paul McCart­ney cred­its Berry for the Bea­t­les’ very exis­tence. They were fans, he wrote in trib­ute after Berry’s death, “from the first minute we heard the great gui­tar intro to ‘Sweet Lit­tle Six­teen.’” But it wasn’t only Berry’s play­ing that hooked them: “His sto­ries were more like poems than lyrics…. To us he was a magi­cian.”

McCart­ney first point­ed out the sim­i­lar­i­ties between Lennon’s “Come Togeth­er” (orig­i­nal­ly penned as a cam­paign song for Tim­o­thy Leary’s run against Ronald Rea­gan for the gov­er­nor­ship of Cal­i­for­nia) and Berry’s 1956 “You Can’t Catch Me,” he tells Bar­ry Miles in Many Years From Now. “John acknowl­edged it was rather close to it,” says Paul, “so I said, ‘Well, any­thing you can do to get away from that.’” Despite the result­ing “swampy” tem­po, Berry’s legal team still sued over the lyric “here comes old flat-top,” a direct lift from Berry’s song. In an out-of-court set­tle­ment, Lennon agreed to record even more of Berry’s tunes. “You Can’t Catch Me” appears on Lennon’s 1975 album of clas­sic cov­ers, Rock ‘n’ Roll.

This legal tus­sle aside, there was no beef between the two. The appear­ance on Dou­glas’ show proved to be a huge boost for Berry, who revi­tal­ized his career that year with the sug­ges­tive, con­tro­ver­sial “My Ding-a-Ling,” his biggest-sell­ing hit, and — in an iron­ic twist — orig­i­nal­ly a goofy nov­el­ty song com­posed and record­ed by Dave Bartholomew 20 years ear­li­er. When asked by Dou­glas, how­ev­er, what drew him to Berry’s music, Lennon echoes McCart­ney: “[Berry] was writ­ing good lyrics and intel­li­gent lyrics in the 1950s when peo­ple were singing ‘Oh baby, I love you so.’ It was peo­ple like him that influ­enced our gen­er­a­tion to try and make sense out of the songs rather than just sing ‘do wah did­dy.’”

Lennon was­n’t above cov­er­ing Gene Vincent’s “Be-Bop-a-Lula” a few years lat­er, and the Bea­t­les them­selves mixed intel­li­gent nar­ra­tive song­writ­ing with healthy dos­es of pop non­sense — pat­tern­ing them­selves after the man Lennon called “my hero, the cre­ator of Rock and Roll.” A few years after Lennon’s 1980 death, Berry returned the com­pli­ment, call­ing Lennon “the great­est influ­ence in rock music” before bring­ing Julian Lennon onstage and exclaim­ing, “ain’t he like his pa!”

The year was 1986 and the occa­sion was Berry’s 60th birth­day con­cert. After their per­for­mance of “John­ny B. Goode,” Berry leaned over to Julian and said, “Tell papa hel­lo. I’ll tell you what he says. I’ll see him.” It’s a bit­ter­sweet moment. Lit­tle, I guess, did Berry sus­pect that he would rock on for anoth­er 30 years, releas­ing his final, posthu­mous album in 2017 after his death at age 90.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Chuck Berry Jams Out “John­ny B. Goode” with Eric Clap­ton, Kei­th Richards, John Lennon & Bruce Spring­steen

Chuck Berry Takes Kei­th Richards to School, Shows Him How to Rock (1987)

Hear the Orig­i­nal, Nev­er-Heard Demo of John Lennon’s “Imag­ine”

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

In much the same way David Lynch gave us way more Twin Peaks than we’d ever hoped for in 2017, Peter Jack­son and the Bea­t­les are giv­ing us noth­ing like the lit­tle seen and quick­ly shelved Let It Be doc­u­men­tary from 1970, but a full six hours of the final musi­cal works of the Bea­t­les. Pre­mier­ing on Dis­ney Plus (yes, I know, you got­ta pay mon­ey to the Mouse) over three days after Thanks­giv­ing, this six-hour series is the big one fans of the var­i­ous remas­ters, repack­ages, and remix­es have been wait­ing for.

The Get Back ses­sions have long been a sour note in a career that was most­ly joy­ous. Appear­ing over and over again in boot­leg form, the var­i­ous jam ses­sions, cov­er ver­sions, and rehearsals through the songs that would turn up on Abbey Road and Let It Be can be grim lis­ten­ing. (I know, I’ve lis­tened to a lot of it. The Bea­t­les prac­tic­ing is just as tedious as any oth­er band work­ing through songs.) The gen­er­al nar­ra­tive is that the acri­mo­ny among the band mem­bers, the wraith-like pres­ence of Yoko Ono, and Paul’s relent­less­ly upbeat bad­ger­ing of every­body else caused the world’s most famous band to break up. Aban­don­ing the project, they per­formed some of the songs on a Sav­ille Row rooftop, and the rest was left up to the lawyers (and Phil Spec­tor) to sort out.

Jackson’s Get Back, made with the bless­ings of the sur­viv­ing Bea­t­les, intends to upend that nar­ra­tive.

“The thing is, when the film was released, The Bea­t­les were break­ing up, but they weren’t break­ing up when they were mak­ing Let It Be, which was record­ed a year ear­li­er,” Jack­son told GQ Mag­a­zine. “So I sup­pose it would have been odd to release a film where they are all enjoy­ing each other’s com­pa­ny.”

The acri­mo­ny only set in lat­er, when Allen Klein became their man­ag­er, he added.

This is Bea­t­les as a fam­i­ly, and fam­i­lies argue, joke about, and get down to fam­i­ly busi­ness.

Hon­ing the tech­niques Jack­son used to bring to life old World War I footage in They Shall Not Grow Old, the film takes the 57 hours of footage shot by Michael Lind­say-Hogg and makes it look like it was shot yes­ter­day. The col­ors you see in the trail­er, how­ev­er, have not been altered. “I mean, it does make you jeal­ous of the 1960s, because the cloth­ing is so fan­tas­tic,” Jack­son said.

The album Let It Be always had the shad­ow of a bad breakup over it, but for new­er gen­er­a­tions, that may no longer be the case after this doc­u­men­tary drops next month.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Bea­t­les’ 8 Pio­neer­ing Inno­va­tions: A Video Essay Explor­ing How the Fab Four Changed Pop Music

A Vir­tu­al Tour of Every Place Ref­er­enced in The Bea­t­les’ Lyrics: In 12 Min­utes, Trav­el 25,000 Miles Across Eng­land, France, Rus­sia, India & the US

How Peter Jack­son Made His State-of-the-Art World War I Doc­u­men­tary, They Shall Not Grow Old: An Inside Look

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the Notes from the Shed pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, and/or watch his films here.