The pistol is the devil’s right hand.
The air thrummed with a different kind of electricity in 1988. The radio waves were filled with the synthesized sounds of pop and the slick productions of arena rock, but out of the heartland came something raw, something true, and something that felt like it was plucked right out of a dusty old saloon. Steve Earle‘s album, Copperhead Road, was a defiant statement, a bold blend of country, rock, and bluegrass that he famously dubbed “heavy metal and bluegrass.” It was a record that didn’t just bend genres; it broke them. Amidst this musical rebellion was a song that wasn’t new, but felt like it had finally found its home: “The Devil’s Right Hand.”
While it’s most famous for its inclusion on Copperhead Road, which peaked at number 56 on the Billboard Album Chart and saw its title track hit the Top 10 on the Mainstream Rock chart, “The Devil’s Right Hand” actually has an earlier, almost mythical, history. Written by Earle in 1977, the song was first officially released as a B-side on a single in 1983. But the real twist in its tale came in 1986, when none other than the legendary outlaw country icon Waylon Jennings recorded it for his album, Will the Wolf Survive? It was a powerful endorsement, a gesture of solidarity from one kindred spirit to another, as Earle was struggling with his own personal demons at the time. This makes the song an extraordinary case where a masterpiece was first introduced to a wider audience not by its creator, but by a hero of the genre it so deftly subverts.
The song itself is a classic murder ballad, a haunting narrative that traces the arc of a young man’s downfall. It’s a morality play set to a driving beat, a story that resonates with the timeless weight of consequence. The tale begins with an innocent fascination—a young boy of thirteen seeing his first pistol in the general store. His mother, with a prescient wisdom that only a mother can possess, warns him, “the pistol is the devil’s right hand.” It’s a line that lands with the force of a gut punch, a powerful and concise summation of the song’s entire thesis. The boy, of course, doesn’t listen. His youthful pride and the allure of the gun lead him down a winding path of escalating conflict, culminating in a card game in a “company town” where he shoots and kills a man for cheating. His desperate, pitiful defense at trial—”nothing touched the trigger but the devil’s right hand”—is the final, tragic echo of his mother’s original warning. It’s a chilling moment of lyrical genius, a stark portrait of a man trying to externalize his own culpability, shifting the blame to the very tool he so desired.
For many of us who remember those days, the song feels like an old ghost story passed down through generations. Steve Earle, with his gruff voice and unsparing delivery, doesn’t sing the story so much as he embodies it. His performance on Copperhead Road gives the song a gritty, raw urgency that feels authentic and lived-in. While Waylon Jennings’ earlier take was a powerful statement of friendship and respect, it’s Earle’s version that truly captures the song’s dark heart. It’s a reflection on the romanticization of the outlaw life, a concept he knew well, and a sobering commentary on the seductive but ultimately destructive nature of a gun. The song’s meaning has evolved over time, with Earle himself embracing a more overt anti-gun stance in later years, but at its core, it remains a timeless lament—a mournful ballad about the moment a youthful infatuation turns into a lifetime of regret, all because of a metal object that whispers promises it can’t keep.