Alt-J - Left Hand Fre
Alt-J - Left Hand Free


Alt-J - Left Hand Free Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: This Is All Yours
Released: 2014

Left Hand Free Lyrics


Hey shady baby I'm hot
Like the prodigal son
Pick a battle eenie meenie miney moe
Hey flower you're the chosen one

Well your left hand's free
And your right's in grip
With another left hand
Watch his right hand slip
Towards his gun, oh no

I tackle weeds just so the moon buggers nibble
A right hand grip on his Colt single-action army

Well your left hand's free
And your right's in grip
With another left hand
Watch his right hand slip
Towards his gun, oh no

N-E-O, O-M-G, gee whiz
Girl you're the one for me
Though your man's bigger than I am
All my days he disagrees, oh no

Well my left hand's free
Well my left hand's free
Well my left hand's free

Hey shady baby I'm hot
Like the prodigal son
Pick a battle eenie meenie miney moe
Hey flower you're the chosen one

Well your left hand's free
Well my left hand's free
Well my left hand's free
Well my left hand's free
Well my left hand's free
Oh no

Writer/s: JOE NEWMAN, AUGUSTUS UNGER HAMILTON, THOMAS GREEN
Publisher: Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Left Hand Free
  • Speaking about this tune to The Guardian the band called it "the least Alt-J song ever." They wrote the cut to appease their American label who didn't think the lead track "Hunger Of The Pine" was a "big single."

    The song was written in twenty minutes and is based around a "joke riff" that vocalist and guitarist Joe Newman had been playing in rehearsals.

    Drummer Thom Green said: "I tried to make the drums as cliched as possible, there's none of my personality in it."

    Newman added: "And I say, 'Gee whizz', which I'm not sure is a phrase I've ever uttered before. I can imagine it appealing to American truckers with Good Riddance To Bin Laden stickers!"

    The song was released to United States modern rock radio on July 15, 2014 as the second single from This Is All Yours.
  • The song's music video was filmed along the Guadalupe River near Austin, Texas, by director Ryan Staake, who's also helmed clips for Diplo, Robyn and Major Lazer. The clip shows some college-aged kids having fun shooting off fireworks, river rafting and riding ATVs during their summer break.
  • Despite the song's almost-clichéd rock sound and tongue-in-cheek video, Joe Newman insisted to DIY magazine it wasn't their intention to subvert anything. Instead, it was something they came up with spontaneously. "We really just go with what feels right when we're playing together," he asserted.

    "'Left Hand Free' was a leap into a completely different world for us, but we were enjoying it, so we kept doing it, we thought it was funny, we thought we could play characters," Newman added. "That's what we do with all of our music, we do it because it sounds good."