God, I Miss The Old Me

Zach Bryan “The Way Back”

The character Zach Bryan is singing about in “The Way Back” is a classic fuck up – serious substance abuse issues, broken marriage, abandoned family, apparently a big fan of The Killers. He’s tremendously empathetic towards this guy, to the point that the actual subject of the song seems to be how exhausted he’s become caring about him. Bryan sounds like he’s aiming for stoic but incapable of masking his weariness as he sings about the guy and the people he’s hurt in lyrics rich with well-observed details, and even as he sings “but no matter where you’re at, we’ll always find a way back” in the chorus, his faith seems a bit shaky. The choice not to repeat that chorus after the final verse seems very pointed to me – the story ends ambiguously, and with Bryan recounting a dream he had about him. You get the sense that he’s lost the strength to hope things work out, or that it’s already too late.

Buy it from Amazon.