Benjamin Booker Gets Closer to ‘Lower’ With ‘Slow Dance in a Gay Bar’

Benjamin Booker’s moody new single, “Slow Dance in a Gay Bar,” is out now, and it comes with a dream-like video of the musician driving a white van through the narrow streets of New Orleans’ French Quarter. It’s the latest of a string of loosies ahead of Booker’s third studio album, Lower, due Jan. 24. 

“I am beginning to see the beauty all around me/What this life can be,” Booker sings over simmering guitar and delicate keys on “Slow Dance in a Gay Bar.” In a statement, he said, “You know, sometimes you find yourself in a death hole, surrounded by bones and rotting flesh. It feels like every second is a shovel-full of dirt flung on your head — the worms are laughing at you, hungry, ready to eat. But then, out of nowhere, the impossible happens. A ladder appears. You climb up and the world you knew before is completely different. The colors are more saturated. The sun shines brighter and the air smells sweet like honey. This song is about that.” 

Booker also said the video was shot in New Orleans’ French Quarter before at least 15 people were killed in a suspected terror attack on Bourbon Street, and in the wake of it, he’d like to dedicate it to the victims. Booker and his family moved to New Orleans from his partner’s native Australia at the end of 2023, he told Rolling Stone in an interview last year.  

He previously announced Lower with the song “Lwa in the Trailer Park” and followed it with “Same Kind of Lonely,”  and “Show and Tell.” Lower marks Booker’s first time co-produicing an entire album, alongside underground hip-hop beatsmith Kenny Segal, best known for his work with Armand Hammer and billy woods. The album will be a pivot from Booker’s previous blues-punk gospel, soul, and hip-hop-indebted music to something grittier, which he credits to Segal’s collaboration. “I wanted to get to this sound, but I didn’t know how,” Booker said in a statement. “At some point I decided I’m going to find it or die trying.” Booker told Rolling Stone they worked on the album together virtually, hardly speaking but sending songs and stems back and forth. They first met in person in 2023 in a four-day session to finish the album.

On Feb. 2, Booker will begin his U.S. tour, culminating in New Orleans on March 7.