Growing up, there were few promising opportunities for young man of Legg’s stripe in Cajun country and things eventually got difficult and strange: chronic bouts of depression, habitual drug use, small town drama, and arrests soon became routine. During one gloomy episode - deflated, broke, and strung out - Legg climbed the Mississippi River Bridge in Baton Rouge, determined to dive into the next life, but after a last minute change of heart, humbly climbed back down and vowed to find a better way to exist. He immediately drove himself to rehab in a stolen Camaro and rededicated himself to his creative pursuits, namely songwriting. He formed the southern tribal rock band, Santeria who had a 10-year run of chaos and bedeviled kookiness (1994-2004). After four albums, they disbanded in an anarchic heap of bad luck, poverty, exhaustion, and voodoo curses they suspected were cast on the band to hasten their demise.
Legg spent the next year living in low-rent motels and trailer parks, writing new songs that tapped into the haunting style of the Delta Blues greats. With an odd ease, the songs poured out, spitting new life into the genre, not by hackneyed imitation, but by infusing original Delta-slide songs with his own experience of growing up in the Deep South—young, white, alienated, and lost. Legg’s Robert Johnson-on-Thorazine-style slide work paired with his droning-rural psychedelia brought the backwoods sounds of Louisiana (hurricanes, cows, cicadas) to life while remaining firmly rooted in the troubled and death-obsessed masters. This batch of songs became the first Brother Dege release, the now critically-acclaimed Folk Songs of the American Longhair (2010) - a record that Quentin Tarantino later referred to as “almost like a greatest hits album” of new Delta blues.
Home-recorded in Alan Lomax-like austerity, the album delivered postmodern tales of desperate southerners, apocalyptic prophecies, midnight angels, hippie drifters, burning barns, and the endless ghosts that haunt the history the Deep South. Quietly self-released with no distribution, no representation, and absolutely no hype, Folk Song of the American Longhair quickly earned 4-star reviews (UNCUT) and gained the attention of numerous tastemakers in film and TV, scoring sync placements on Discovery Channel’s After the Catch, Nat Geo’s Hard Riders, women’s cycling documentary Half the Road, Netflix’s The Afflicted, and most notably hand-picked by Quentin Tarantino for inclusion in the movie and soundtrack to Django Unchained.
Brother Dege quickly expanded his cinematic vision of the South with two follow-up albums: How to Kill a Horse (2013) and Scorched Earth Policy (2015). Teaming with otherworldly slide guitars, country psych, barn burning anthems, the tradition continues with his latest release Farmer’s Almanac (2018), a sprawling, southern concept album that further explores the unique mysteries of small towns.
Brother Dege’s latest album is the critically acclaimed Farmer’s Almanac, an 11-track, southern gothic journey that explores escapism, class structure, and the opiated dark side of America’s small town rural communities. Brother Dege’s fourth album swarms with otherworldly slide guitars, rustic psychedelia, possessed barn burners, and swamp-drenched cinematic songcraft.
Black is the Night
Brother Dege Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Full is the moon
So strange the starlight
Down here below.
Black is the night.
Across the land.
No good or evil.
No soul of man.
Upon our prayers.
Just like the darkness
We’ve come to fear
Black is the night.
Black is the night
We crawl in shade.
Twisted and whored
Yonder the godless miles above
In ash of dreams
With souls of smoke
Upon our bodies
Just flesh and bone
At death we weep
In black we mourn
We’re born in darkness
Same way we’ll go
Black is the night
Black is the night
But so full the moon
So full the moon
In ash of dreams
With souls of smoke
Black is the night
Black is the night
Let it come through
The song "Black is the Night" by Brother Dege is a hauntingly beautiful tribute to the beauty and power of darkness. The lyrics evoke a sense of awe and fear, as the singer describes the strange starlight and the impenetrable darkness that surrounds us. The repetition of the phrase "black is the night" throughout the song emphasizes the deep sense of mystery and wonder that darkness can inspire in us.
The singer describes the darkness as being both without good or evil, and also full of fear and uncertainty. He acknowledges that, like the darkness, we are all born and will eventually die, and that the darkness has the power to both comfort and terrify us. The line "we're born in darkness, same way we'll go" reminds us of the inevitability of death, and perhaps suggests that the darkness is a kind of symbol for the great unknown that lies ahead of us all.
Overall, "Black is the Night" is a powerful and evocative song that reminds us of the beauty and fear that can be found in darkness. The lyrics and the music combine to create a hauntingly beautiful song that will stay with you long after you've finished listening.
Line by Line Meaning
Black is the night
The night is dark and foreboding
Full is the moon
The moon is bright and full, providing a little light in the darkness
So strange the starlight
The stars are mysterious and otherworldly
Down here below.
From our human perspective, we are below the stars and moon
Black is the night.
The darkness is all-encompassing
Across the land.
This darkness covers the world
No good or evil.
The night does not distinguish between good and evil
No soul of man.
The night does not care about humans or their lives
Black is the night
The darkness is a recurring theme that cannot be ignored
Upon our prayers.
We pray in a dark world, asking for something to believe in
Just like the darkness
Our fears and worries can feel all-encompassing like the darkness
We’ve come to fear
The darkness represents something to be feared
Black is the night.
The darkness is all-encompassing
We crawl in shade.
We move through life with a sense of trepidation, like crawling in shadows
Twisted and whored
Our world is a twisted and dark place
Yonder the godless miles above
The universe is vast and uncaring, with no god to care for us
In ash of dreams
Our dreams may be shattered and destroyed
With souls of smoke
Our souls may feel insubstantial or unreal
Upon our bodies
Despite our fears and worries, we are still physical beings
Just flesh and bone
We are mortal beings made of flesh and bone
At death we weep
Death is a sad and inevitable part of life
In black we mourn
Our mourning is a reflection of the darkness we feel inside
We’re born in darkness
Our lives start in an unknown and uncertain world
Same way we’ll go
Our lives will end in the same darkness in which we were born
Black is the night
The darkness is a recurring theme that cannot be ignored
Black is the night
The darkness is all-encompassing
But so full the moon
Despite the darkness, there is still a little light in the world
So full the moon
The moon is bright and full, providing a little light in the darkness
In ash of dreams
Our dreams may be shattered and destroyed
With souls of smoke
Our souls may feel insubstantial or unreal
Black is the night
The darkness is all-encompassing
Black is the night
The darkness is a recurring theme that cannot be ignored
Let it come through
We must face the darkness and accept it as a part of life
Contributed by Kaitlyn A. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
@HighCottonPictures
This video deserves to go viral. Dege, as of today, you've become my favorite musician. I've been looking for music like this for years. Thank you for sharing your talent. You kick ass.
@pabloaydin6459
a trick : watch series at Flixzone. I've been using it for watching lots of of movies lately.
@titusariel84
@Pablo Aydin yup, been using Flixzone for since november myself :D
@karencruz1910
Eu estou surpresa com o fato deste vídeo não ter viralizado da maneira que deveria. É simplesmente perfeita essa música, e vocês são incríveis ❤️❤️❤️
@edwardruxton6205
I hear his music and my soul responds.
@monicavalkyrie1967
For this past year your music has seen me through so much! I don’t know how I discovered you, I think your music found me. I feel your music and your words in my soul, I am not kidding, you appeared at the right time to me. Keep being this amazing! We need you!
@chrisjurczak9812
This hits deep into the Soul. Especially, with anybody dealing with night demons. Night demons are like a credit card. Eventually they will demand payment....
@entropyvisionary
Go Dege!!! Great video man. Fantastic!
@SternGrovesRocks
Awesome song.
@Duggernautthe
My personal favorite ❤️🎶🎵