Here Are the Lyrics to Jelly Roll’s ‘Hands Up’

Jelly Roll fans know the singer’s story, but they’ve never heard him be this specific in a song before.

Before Jelly dropped “Hands Up” on Wednesday (June 24), his tease for the song gave fans an idea that it would be a motivational anthem about the singer’s decision to change his life. Specifically, a post teasing the track shared clips of Jelly’s weight loss journey.

Read More: See Jelly Roll’s Weight Loss Journey in 29 Stunning Photos

Turns out, the song’s not about weight loss per se — but it is about big life changes, told in the form of three pivotal moments in his life. Jelly paints those moments in finer detail than any we’ve seen in his lyrics to date.

What Memories Does Jelly Roll Share in the Lyrics of “Hands Up”?

These three life-changing moments appear in chronological order.

The first is a show — Rage Against the Machine, maybe, according to title references — that Jelly attended in Nashville in 1999. That would put him at about 14 or 15 years old at the time. He remembers every detail and every street corner, and what it felt like to be one of the “troubled kids” learning for the first time about the magic of music.

Read More: Jelly Roll Releases New Song Amid Bunnie Xo Divorce

Next up is the moment of an arrest that would change the course of his life. Fans already know that Jelly was arrested several times, on both drug-related charges and felony aggravated assault, as a young person. Those arrests and jail stays would go on to be a major plot point in his career, and allow him to share the redemption narrative he has today and inspire others through his music.

Then, finally, Jelly speaks about the moment when he found his faith. “That devil on my shoulder / Finally found him somewhere else to go,” he sings in one line. It’s the third and final stop in a journey that’s brought Jelly to where he is in country music today.

Jelly Roll, “Hands Up” Lyrics

Let me take you back in time / Just climb in my DeLorean / Nashville, ’99, we stood in line / And started pourin’ in / That concert in the dark / Off Rosa Parks, that auditorium / Was church for me / Yeah, I believe  that first time I was born again 

Was Killing in the Name, Bulls on Parade / GA packed in the pit / Me and all those people / People called nothing but troubled kids / If there was ever a fire in me / Yeah, that’s the night I got it lit / I knew who I was born to be when he said…

Chorus

Everybody get your hands up / Everybody put your hands up / If you ain’t perfect but you try / Put ’em way up to the sky / Touchin’ heaven kinda high / Ain’t that where we wanna go when we die / Whoa, whoa, whoa / Just put your hands up / Everybody put your hands up

Let’s take it down there south of town / I’m 22, up to no good / Dressed in black, I broke the glass / To take back that bag of grass they took / That story ends against the fence / Right in that dead end neighborhood / Cops told me what I told them when he said, boy

Repeat Chorus

Our last stop’s that little cross / I came across some years ago / Comin’ down and hidin’ out / Back there in that ol’ sinner’s row / The devil on my shoulder / Finally found him somewhere else to go / I never did believe in ghosts / ‘Til the holy one told me to throw my hands up / Oh Lord, I threw my hands up 

Repeat Chorus