Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers - Live

ZZ Top group composition "Beer Drinkers And Hell Raisers" (with or without the ampersand) is a fun track with the band playing up to their Southern redneck image. Unusually, bass player Dusty Hill supplies the lead vocal, backed up by axeman Billy Gibbons.

In a Songfacts interview with Billy Gibbons, he talked about the down-and-dirty honky tonk that inspired this song. "On to a gig in Phoenix, we were driving through a West Texas windstorm. We, the band, were waiting to discover a place with some safe ground cover when the late-night lights of a roadside joint appeared. It was just across the line outside El Paso into New Mexico. We ducked in quick and came face to face with our kind of folks... those soulful souls seeking solace, not only out of the dust and sand, but out of mind. What chance does one get better than that! We joined the gathering and started scribbling."

It has been suggested that the line, "Baby, don't you wanna come with me?" means something a little more explicit than, "Would you like to accompany me to the honky-tonk, miss?" If that is indeed the case, then the censor missed it; although it was not released as a single it received considerable airplay, including in the UK, where in 1973 this sort of innuendo would not have been tolerated by the BBC.