"Red Hands" is a song by Canadian
indie rock
Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...
group
Walk off the Earth. It was released on November 2, 2012 as the second single from their third studio album, ''
R.E.V.O.
''R.E.V.O.'' is the third studio album and debut major-label album by Canadian indie band Walk off the Earth. It was released on March 19, 2013 through Columbia Records. It contains 9 original songs, along with a cover of Gotye's "Somebody That ...
'' (2013). The song was written by group members Ryan Marshall, Gianni "Luminati" Nicassio, and
Sarah Blackwood, with additional writing from its co-producer
Tawgs Salter.
Following its release, the song became a commercial success in North America. It reached number 9 on the
Canadian Hot 100
The Canadian Hot 100 is a music industry record chart in Canada for songs, published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine. The Canadian Hot 100 was launched on the issue dated March 31, 2007, and is currently the standard record chart in Canada; a n ...
, surpassing the chart peak of its predecessor, and also topped the ''Billboard''
Adult Alternative Songs chart in the US.
Background and writing
According to band member Gianni Luminati: "'Red Hands' is pretty open to interpretation and will mean different things to different people. When we originally wrote the song, we were thinking about taking responsibility for your actions and standing up on your own when things go wrong ... rather than blaming other people around you. Sometimes you just have to accept the circumstances that are thrown your way without pointing the finger."
Music video
The music video for "Red Hands", directed by Ellis Bahl, is shot as a one take sequence of the song in a different order with parts filmed at a higher speed and others at a lower speed so the final result would present the song in its normal order with reshuffled images of the single take. To make the sequence possible, the band members had to learn the song in the rearranged order (with parts sung backwards). Bahl states in the 'Behind the scenes' video that it took nine full takes to complete the video and only the very last take is used for the actual video. The video premiered on NPR's
All Songs Considered on November 1, 2012
and was uploaded on
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
the next day. On November 8, the unedited version of the video was also uploaded on YouTube.
On March 5, 2013, the band uploaded an alternative version of the song on YouTube, appropriately named 'Big Guitar Version', with all five band members playing an oversized guitar - found in a pawn shop like stated in the video comments - thus echoing their rendition of
Gotye's "
Somebody That I Used to Know" uploaded one year and two months before.
The song was performed live to close out "Blast from the Past", an episode of
The Listener.
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
References
2012 songs
2012 singles
Songs written by Tawgs Salter
Walk Off the Earth songs
{{2012-single-stub