Brazos began as the solo recording project of Austinite Martin Crane. After two solo EPs, Crane recruited and honed a 3 piece live band and in November of 2009, Brazos released it's first LP, Phosphorescent Blues. A national tour opening for White Denim followed.
"Adrienne Rich may be one of the more influential figures in contemporary American poetry, but until Martin Crane of the Austin band Brazos fell under the spell of her poem "The Observer," she's never been known as an indie-rock muse. An unusual lynchpin to Brazos' 2009 album, Phosphorescent Blues, Rich's poem, with its exotic images and violent intimations, vibrates against Crane's principal obsessions: urban alienation, curative friendships and the absolute freedom of youthful imagination. With a sound somewhere between the jazz-rock fusions of Tim Buckley and the freaked-out folk of Neutral Milk Hotel — all stacked acoustic guitars, impetuous percussion and meandering pianos — Brazos dares listeners to dip into a bracing, deep and sometimes turbulent stream of consciousness." - Riverfront Times
order this record, phosphorescent blues:
Phosphorescent Blues Lyrics
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My Buddy
my buddy,
out on the train tracks
he is a
friend somehow
I don't know
how
we used to
spend
(we used to spend) our time together
that is a
reason to be friends
we used to
spend our time together
the women
of the street bring their carts to the center of town
the
clatter, the mouth
the bark
of an old market
bare fruit
my friend he
strolls about for the ripest one
the taste
on his tongue
all the
pleasures of the earth
stop and
ask him what he wants
he can't
tell you, but
he can
hold you like a scale
the
station is an empty hall is an empty ride
I call it
mine
the nose remembers
the smell
of old graffiti
the end of
conversations
the
waiting in silence
and my
buddy, out on the train tracks
he is
smiling back
through
the window of an old passing subway car
I beckon him
and he tips his brow
as if to
say somehow he remembers too
stop and
ask him what he wants
he can't
tell you, but
he can
hold you like a scale
we are
laughing upset
moving the
halls with colorful figures
and stray
dogs
and movie
light flickers
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Kid
look at us
in the morning too tired to get a shirt on too tired to get a raise
listen up
car, start, get ready to go
put me on
your shoulder take me where you want
like
"oh my god i'm here, i'm
not"
we used to
build cities out of old plastic blocks
and at the
end of the day
we'd tear
them down for fun
now we've
got to build a solid structure to stand on
now we've
got a second set of teeth to take care of
and i am your second skin
i'm here to take from you your thoughts
i am the strapping young son in the second grade
my
teachers think i'm quiet cause i
do everything they say
they talk;
i play with puppets by myself in my back yard
while the
other kids tramp through the woods,
toy guns
around their arms
ask
yourself, ask yourself and i know you'll come up dry
when i still wake you up at three AM for no reason
i am your second skin
i'm here to take from you your thoughts
look,
stop, take a breath
my mother
says
don't
forget to turn the light off when you leave a room, son
no, I'm
not done yet, there's wet paint upon my hands
and I
shall never finish up
i'll make myself no man
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The Observer (by Adrienne Rich)
Completely
protected on all sides by volcanoes
a woman, darkhaired, in stained jeans
sleeps in
central
In her
dreams, her notebooks, still
private as
maiden diaries,
the
mountain gorillas move through their life term;
their
gentleness survives
observation.
Six bands of them
inhabit,
with her, the wooded highland.
When I lay
me down to sleep
unsheltered
by any natural guardians
from the
panicky life-cycle of my tribe
I wake in
the old cellblock
observing
the daily executions,
rehearsing
the laws
I cannot
subscribe to,
envying
the pale gorilla-scented dawn
she wakes
into, the stream where she washes her hair,
the
camera-flash of her quiet
eye
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oh, it was
a distance
from my
house to your front door
but i walked every evening
and i met you where you were
and now we
take a tally
of everything
we see
i add it up for you
and you
add it up for me
there is a
room, a new seat at the table
it's ours
to fill it up to fill it up
i wish that they were here to see us now
this
weight is round
and loaded
with hard thought
this weight
is on my chest
and i know just what i've got
there is a
room, a new seat at the table
it's ours
to fill it up to fill it up
i wish that they were here to see us now
they would
barely recognize us
on the
front porch of
and if this
bed should be unmade
and the
dishes off the shelf
there have
been many others much older than ourselves
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Day Glo
day glo, chrome windows
shapes in
the clouds
the hungry
fish for miles around
upstream
jumping out of the water
gills in
the air
i've got many people to thank
but i can't write letters
i can't write letters
my friends
on the edge of the old grave yard
they sit
on the old grey porch
and watch
foxes play
a jug of
wine
the kind
of wine that you don't mind spilling
that you
don't mind spilling
well, i fill out the forms and i make
my death come slowly
one at a
time, some kind of record unrolling
best begin
sometime, she said
but can't
start until you're ready
yet
i seem to be controlled,
somehow
pulled
by
fingernails and eyelashes
and other
insentient parts
we talk
about dreams a lot
she reads
her fortunes out loud
i think it's funny and i go stay
with her
i go stay with her
and i don't mind dying
when i make love to her
under a
wall of sound
a riverbed
of clay
the
distance between us stays
close but
not close
far but
not too far away
close but
not close
far but
not too far away
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Tell
there is no
word yet
just dogs
barking at the sirens
cold nose
and the spring vine
growing
green, distant in the sunlight
passing
mistakes and neighbors' yards
i drop a lit cigarette on the ground
backtracking,
curious
down the
old road
tell me
that you wanna go
there is
no word yet
just a
pause in the center target
eating
pizza on the city street
keeping up
with the high risers
the wind
blows up a spray
dead grass
and trash moves underneath our knees
we get
lost, we have to stay
on the old
road
tell me
that you wanna go
there is
this pot on the top shelf
the little
flowers in the basket, they all fall down
they seep
onto the bedroom floor
green
vines start creeping up your bedroom door
i bring chocolates and iced tea
a radio,
blankets for sleeping
we trim
them and
we watch
them grow
down the
old road
tell me
that you wanna go
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The Downtown Boys
this is
some kind of a vacation
we behave
nicely
and sit
together like alligators on the beach
like alligators
lay on each other
but it
means nothing. like that
and
there's a commotion in our lungs
arriving
sometime
but we
don't have the schedule
i guess it arrives when it does
the
downtown boys have gone
the
streets are quiet, at night
no more
yelling in the parking garages
or revving
up old classics
no no no more of that
i ate my first meal this morning
it woke me
up
i had been sleeping for days
carried
away under the canopy shade
i grabbed my sunglasses and my felt hat
and rose
seven stories
and rolled
my cufflinks back
the
downtown boys have gone
the
streets are quiet, at night
no more
yelling in the parking garages
or revving
up old classics
no no no more of that
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We Understand Each Other
all the plants
are growing in much faster than last year
with our
windblown faces
tan cow
hides
discarded
laws by our side
we wander
on the river
the seeds
stick to our jeans
we point
to objects
we give
them names
we
understand each other
we
understand each other
we
understand
our brains
are small and brittle
like wild
animals
we save
each other food
today we
will see god
standing
at a booth
leaving
money for a tip
our eyes
have adjusted
we're just
as careless now
we notice
what we can
we
understand each other
we
understand each other
we
understand
this is
our test;
the palm
trees,
the white
cement,
the
traffic at the school.
airliners
fly over
we are at
a meeting
dressed in
pink t-shirts
i ask you why we came here
you look
at me, quiet
and run a
finger on my forehead
we
understand each other
we
understand each other
we
understand
and so i sing that sound again
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For So Long Now
for so
long now i've been eating from your mouth that my
insides are sore and stuffed
for so
long now god i know i don't
know
i listen, i leave, i break like the twigs on a tree
i know but i don't know
you make
me so sure like nothing matters
you make
me so sure
we're
dwarfs, tables crush us under this blanket in the storm
it's warm and
the tin roof above us fills with summer hail
the
jungle, all covered in melting ice, our words are there too
they
dangle above us like dusty chandeliers in a colonial house
there must
not be too many hours left here for us now
midnight
arrives and we remember the day we met
riding the
steamer away from port
passing
mines and bear back workers on the shore
every
night we return to walk the black tunnel
and pick
diamonds from the wall
sabotage! and since then every moment with you i
claw
this world
has been a dream
like
gently running fingernails along our front porch screen
oh, what
have we done but live here naturally
our
fortunes are made
tomorrow
we carry them home
across
that great blue body with fingers tied
in knots
and bows and little monsters in our throats
we take
them home
for so
long now, for so long now,
god i know i don't know
for so
long now i've been eating from your mouth
that my
insides are sore and stuffed