Top 5 Lyrical Moments on ‘Zach Bryan‘
It’s been 15 months since Zach Bryan released his massive album American Heartbreak. That record was a mammoth in terms of length (34 tracks), sales (of course, based on streaming numbers), and hype. That set the stage for a TON of success all at once for Bryan.
So what has he done since?
2 month later released his Summertimes Blues EP
Released multiple other singles (“Burn, Burn, Burn”, “The Greatest Day of My Life”, “Fifth of May”, and “Dawns”)
Toured all through 2022, essentially ending at the iconic Red Rocks venue on a snowy November night with a show that one for the ages
Released a live album called All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster (Live From Red Rocks) on Christmas Day, recorded during that legendary show and taking a swipe at the live music Giant
Announced the Burn, Burn, Burn tour where he exclusively is playing non-Ticketmaster venues to promote fair ticket pricing for his fans
Sold out arena after arena on that tour (Oh, and Red Rocks twice AGAIN)
Grammy nomination for one of the biggest country hits of 2022/23 “Something in the Orange” (which also was a top 20 radio hit, surprisingly enough)
Got a massive platform to be involved with the biggest TV show (Yellowstone) and the largest podcast (The Joe Rogan Experience)
And to a lesser degree - won 2023 ACM New Male Artist of the Year
Is that all in pretty much a year and a half? Yeesh.
In all honesty, there’s a good chance I missed something too. Zach Bryan has become the buzziest artist in country music and I never thought I would say that while Luke Combs is still an active artist. If you look up the word “hype” in 2023, you’ll see a picture of Zach Bryan grinning ear to ear on stage, while watching the crowd sing his songs back to him.
With all that hype comes a lot of criticism. Some, especially musically, is warranted. Some of it isn’t, but that comes with the territory of becoming a famous sensation in such a short amount of time.
So after breaking records and selling out venues off of American Heartbreak’s success, what does he do? Oh, just scraps an entire record that he was going to release in February (Writers and Fighters) and releases his self-titled record, Zach Bryan. Not only did he do that, he released the record on the day his musical heroes (Turnpike Troubadours) made their long awaited return and dropped their first album in 6 years. Oh, he also wrote every song on this record, recorded it, and produced it. All himself. Minus the collaborations. When you talk about an eponymous project, this is it.
Doing all this just adds fuel to the fire that is the hype surrounding Zach Bryan. He painted a bigger target on his back and he has nowhere to go, nobody to blame for this album’s success or failure. In a statement he posted the night before release, he said “If people listen to it, I’ll be grateful. If people don’t, I’ll still be grateful because I got the chance in this life to be original when it mattered”.
There is Zach Bryan in a nutshell, authentic and original, whether you like him or not. I think in a world of AI and ChatGPT, that statement says it all. What says more is that all 16 tracks (15 songs and a poem) charted in the top 20 on Apple Music and the record had over 30 million streams it’s first day of release on Spotify. There may only be half the songs that American Heartbreak had, but this might surpass that monster of an album. Especially considering the 4 collaborations that Zach added to this project.
I wrote about the writing of Zach’s with American Heartbreak when it came out last year and I picked 5 of my favorite tracks and lyrics that stood out to me and why. I felt like doing that again would make for an interesting comparison. For subject matter, this album is just as honest and as raw as any Zach Bryan album would be. None of that has changed except he might delve deeper on certain occasions. But the writing this time around is tighter while being less specific. We don’t get too many names like on Heartbreak and on this record, it makes you think about the lyrics just a tad more to know where he is coming from. So let’s get into it.
“Tourniquet”
“If you need a tourniquet or if you want to turn and quit
Know that I'll be by your side
You bled your whole soul into things you can't control
In a world you'll never satisfy”
‘Tourniquet’ and ‘turn and quit’ is such a damn good turn of phrase and alliteration. Bryan does this thing, where you don’t know who he’s talking about. He might be talking about a girl, or his mother, or even himself. Maybe even a combination. He gives you enough detail to let you make your own version up but not enough to completely specify who it’s directed at. It’s more of the idea and the concept then who it’s affected. In “Tourniquet”, he’s using the metaphor of a tourniquet as triaging your feelings and emotions, just like you would triage a physical injury. He’s also not discussing just his feelings, but how big those feelings are, too. I love when he admits things that not many people do. Like he’s not just saying that he’s emotionally taxed, he’s saying that he (or whoever he’s discussing) pours so much into everybody else than what they pour into him. Or that because of that, now that person is trying to control things that are out of their hands (“heard you fucked it up with her” is a good example). The chorus is also a little hopeful, in the sense that it’s a good reminder that while you might be triaging and taking care of those around you, you also need to take care of yourself as well. A life lesson we could all use.
“Fear and Fridays” (Song)
“I got a fear, dear, that it's gonna end
Won't you get angry at me?
Say you love me again
I got a fear, dear, that it's a Friday spark
You only love me like you mean it
When it's after dark”
My goodness, I love both the poem and the song. We’re going to focus on the song here, though. Have you ever had a situationship and fell for somebody who just wasn’t ready to be loved? That’s this song. The narrator is falling in love with a woman that returns that love on Friday nights but leaves him alone on Saturday mornings. The girl has a little cocky edge to her, but has been through her own emotional rollercoaster (“name on your heart’s gravestone”). Should she be pursuing him? No, but she does (that “please you eyes” line is killer). For me, I love the contrast between Friday night and Saturday morning (especially when most country songs reference Saturday nights and Sunday mornings). What makes this song so interesting is that it seems like the guy is almost begging her to stay and show some emotion by getting angry at him versus acting indifferent. Also, that callout that he only gets her loves when she’s lonely and drunk and in the dark is definitely the lyrical equivalent of a shady eyes emoji.
“Overtime”
“And I wanna stay humble, I wanna stay hungry
I wanna hear my father say that he loves me
I never gave a shit about being arrogant anyway”
GREAT opening song - and that opening riff might be taken heavily from the Star Spangled Banner, but damn does it start off the record strong. It might be my favorite early song from the project. The instrumentals and production match the lyrics - overwhelming and direct. I think this is how Zach Bryan feels after all the success he’s had due to American Heartbreak. He’s always had the underdog mentality in his writing. To himself, he’s just a dude from the Navy that got lucky. With all that “luck” and growing popularity comes a lot of criticism and you can tell he feels slighted sometimes. He even calls a specific criticism of his music, that all his songs sound the same. Despite feeling slighted, he still shows up and puts the work in. Writes, records, tours, the whole thing. He bust his tail and doesn’t let you forget it and honestly, you can’t deny his work ethic. I just absolutely love these lines. In the midst of being one of the biggest musical acts he still wants to stay true to himself. He wants to be stay that kid from Oklahoma but he also wants to keep that drive that’s pushed him to be a better artist, and he admits that he wants love from those he knows and cares about. When have you heard an artist admit that they want or need that admiration? It’s not too often you hear that from a 27 year old guy, let alone a household music name. I think it shows and proves that Zach is a little more three-dimensional than the black and white portrayal of a kid and his guitar posting YouTube videos.
“Ticking”
“I'm cutting ties with things that bind my heart to this world
I love you and I'm willing, but I cannot keep you, girl
Philly by the morning and Ohio by the night
The thing about high hopes is you can't hold on too tight”
Bryan has a lot of songs about lost love and the road, but this one combines the two. It’s another one that what he writes makes you think and pick sides. For example, this end of a relationship can be seen as the narrator’s fault or his partner’s fault. It just depends on your viewpoint. For me, I’m actually taking the side of the narrator. The opening/ending lines cut so deep. It shows a side of him that we didn’t really get to see - somebody who was more than willing to compromise. There’s a lot of lines in previous songs that show the narrator's arrogance and stubbornness to move an inch. But on “Ticking”, he plain as day says it so clearly. No metaphors. No comparisons. Just “I love you and I’m willing”. Whether that’s to change his ways or be on the road less, whatever would help mend fences and meet her halfway, he’s willing and wanting to give in some. It’s personal development that makes this one shine. On the other end, it seems like she’s the one unwilling to commit or put the effort and work in. He seems a bit bothered because he wanted the relationship to work (“high hopes”), but there’s a coming to grips with it that he’s working through. There’s a shred of coming to terms with the end, even if that’s not what he wants at all. The verse about who he used to be is so interesting to me as well. Maybe he doesn’t like this version of himself, the one that chased and isn’t anymore, but again, is coming to terms with it. It shows signs of experience and growing up.
“East Side of Sorrow”
“Do you ever get tired of singing songs
Like all your pain is just another fucking sing along?
If you ever get the time come on home
I heard Turnpikes back together and they're writing songs”
Probably one of the most autobiographical songs on this entire album, and that says a lot considering it’s a self-titled record. It discusses him shipping off to the Navy, losing his mother, and discussing a fellow Navy guy (maybe the friend in El Dorado?). This song is all about finding the little joys in life despite all the pain. Whether that’s having something to fight for when you’re going off to fight for your country or seeing a ray of light after stumbling drunk after your mother’s death, or even finding joy in music after being ran through the wringer in the military. The lyrics I pulled stood out to me because it showed some humaness to Zach. While it’s clear his passion and love of music is abundant, it also has him questioning his love of it. Even in people’s passions, there’s negatives sides to it. Yeah, sure, he can sing “Something in the Orange” in front of a million people and have them sing it back at the top of their lungs, what about the girl(s?) he lost to experience that heartbreak and write those lyrics? We tend to think of our favorite artists as our heroes and put them on a pedestal when they’re human, just like the rest of us.
Zach Bryan is very much so a Zach Bryan record. This album is real and messy and raw and all of the things you’ve come to expect from him. The criticism around his music is there and it’s still valid. Yeah, there’s repetition. Yeah, the writing is still funky and doesn’t fit sometimes. But it just doesn’t matter because the words mean something. Zach Bryan continues to paint pictures with his words and connects to his audience better than most artists out there right now. His audience is of all ages and that net only expands with every music release.
I think with Zach Bryan, we forget that the guy is 27 years old and got thrusted into a career he never originally thought about. He’s less than 5 years into something that he never really wanted to begin with. Could Zach benefit from working with a big time producer and make his sound more professional? Could he benefit from working with other songwriters and refining his words? Yeah, maybe. But he could also ruin what makes his music special and connects with his fans.
It just doesn’t matter when you’re a phenom, who is similar enough to the Beatles or Springsteen or Seger or even Garth. He’s a guy that if you love his music, you love it. If you don’t, you either hate it or don’t get it. Or get him and why he’s popular. He’s polarizing. He makes you want to pull your hair out because you think he’s not good enough to be talked about this much. Or you’ve been a Zach Bryan junkie since DeAnn was released and are thirsting for new music every few months. Somehow, it seems like Bryan has just stumbled into this spotlight.
The reality is that Zach Bryan could release albums of material production wise that sound like DeAnn and he would have a killer career. Look at any TikTok of a new song with him and a guitar. Maybe in 5 or 10 years he gets a producer and reaches even greater heights. Maybe he sells out or walks away. I’m still going to take every line he wants to write in the meantime.
As usual, leave a comment or hit me up on social media. It's @marty_kurtz on Twitter.
