Brujah Brew
Brujah Brew is a greasy, hard-driving Texas blues-rock boogie following a road-worn biker whose grip on reality seems to be disappearing faster than the highway behind him.
At first, his strange descriptions sound like the colorful thoughts of a tired traveler. Eighteen-wheel dinosaurs send vibration greetings through his boots, glasses on a bar shelf sing like a sandstorm of glass, and the Gasoline Gentry gather around him at Limbo Pass. But gradually it becomes less certain where metaphor ends and his reality begins.
At the center of his confusion is the mysterious “you” and the Brujah Brew itself. A drink, a woman, a memory, something more supernatural—or perhaps some combination of them. Even he seems increasingly unable to tell the difference.
As memories become intoxicating and reality keeps slipping from his grasp, he stubbornly insists that everything is under control. The relentless Texas boogie underneath him never shares his confusion: the rhythm stays heavy, steady and disciplined even as his world drifts farther off center.
Brujah Brew doesn't explain what really happened. It simply invites the listener into one man's increasingly unreliable perception and leaves them to decide which parts of his strange desert journey actually took place.
Music video
Lyrics
Pulled into Limbo Pass with the daylight cooked
Center stripe fever and a thousand-yard look
Parked my steely steed by a cactus recliner
Walked into a bar where the shadows looked finer
Eighteen-wheel dinos went rolling on through
Sending vibration greetings up through my boots
Made the glasses on the bar shelf sing
Like a sandstorm of glass when the whole room rings
Brujah Brew, what'd you put in me?
Got the road bending places a road shouldn't be
Drops of spirit hit my lips
But your spirit was stronger still
Brujah Brew seeped into my bones
Now the highway's talking in telephone tones
I'm holding reality tight as I can
But it keeps slipping out of my hands
Your unleaded breath still hangs in the air
I turned around twice, but you weren't sitting there
Gasoline Gentry lined up at the bar
Every face looked close and every voice too far
I guess the last two shots of memory
Were two shots too much for what's left of me
Told myself steady, you're doing just fine
Then watched my shadow cross the county line
Brujah Brew, what'd you put in me?
Got the road bending places a road shouldn't be
Drops of spirit hit my lips
But your spirit was stronger still
Brujah Brew seeped into my bones
Now the highway's talking in telephone tones
I'm holding reality tight as I can
But it keeps slipping out of my hands
The vultures of your memory circle no more
No more stripping my bones of me
That's what I told the man in the mirror
He nodded once, then disagreed
My boots found the floor, my hand found the door
Could've sworn I'd done all this once before
Outside my steely steed waited alone
Hot metal cologne saying time to go home
Brujah Brew went down like fire
Your memory climbed a little higher
I grabbed for the truth, but the truth stepped aside
So I saddled the thunder and called it a ride
Maybe I'm leaving, maybe I'm through
Maybe the road's running away from me too
Brujah Brew, what'd you put in me?
Stars got tangled in a dead mesquite tree
Drops of spirit left my lips
But your spirit is riding still
Brujah Brew Brew deep in my bones
Chain Rattle Choir gonna carry me home
Got both hands steady, got nothing to fear
Just wish that highway would hold still from here
Limbo Pass fading in my rearview glass
One moon overhead and another rolls past
I laughed to myself, said I'm doing just fine
Then followed my shadow across the county line
