Chuck Prophet, ‘The Left Hand and the Right Hand’
In his video for “The Left and the Right Hand,” singer-songwriter Chuck Prophet tells the story of a fraternal love gone wrong with hand movements. “The song is about two brothers who are close, then have a falling out, and then get back together but then one brother kills the other, so we basically just told that story with hands,” says co-director Albert Birney. “It was fun to experiment with conveying emotions and feelings through only gestures of the hand. It was like we were puppeteers without the puppets.”
For Prophet, the inspiration came from San Francisco’s Jim and Artie Mitchell, brothers and strip-club owners who embodied “a modern Cain and Abel.” “One even killed the other,” says Prophet. “The song got written, and it felt epic, cinematic. I found the right guys to make it and we were off to the races.”
“Hand” is on Prophet’s latest album, Temple Beautiful, out now on Yep Roc Records.