'Drowning' by Zach Bryan – Lyrics & Meaning

Over the last year or so, Zach Bryan has loved and lost and lived to love again. From his highly publicized breakup with Brianna LaPaglia, and all the drama that followed, to his recent marriage to Samantha Leonard, the artist's sixth studio album, With Heaven On Top, which dropped on Friday (Jan. 9), seems to chart it all.

Like many others in the collection, the song, 'Drowning', seems to deal with subject of love, from its all-consuming pull to its brutal end.

'Drowning' relies heavily on harmonies. There are delicate strums, subtle horns, pillowy rhythms, and a gentle peppering of peddle steel and fiddle throughout. They all seem inconsequential, however, when placed against the song's haunting sopranos and burning baritones. For three minutes, the song lowly waltzes, a dreamy deep dive into a syrupy expanse of acoustics, brass and vocals.

"Keep me under the water completely
Never wanna learn to swim when you're the one holdin' me down
Drown me deep in the rivers of the valley
Lettin' my lungs succumb to sweet seductive sounds"

It's difficult to tell if 'Drowning' is an impassioned ballad or a cautionary tale. The artist sings of love as this clearly all-consuming, rapturous thing, a force he's willing to succumb to.

It sounds as if it should be romantic. If it weren't for all the desperate allusions to powerful currents, deluges and underwater burials, it would be.

"I ain't never been this deep before
And the more I sank, Lord, the more I swore
From the waterline to the ocean floor
Drowning's just a lover's chore"

Love has a tendency to feel overwhelming, enveloping – yes, a little like you're drowning in someone else. But if that causes one to lose themself in another person, or ignore glaring faults in the name of "love", those feelings can prove dangerous.

Throughout the song, Bryan claims to have never fallen in love so deeply before. The further he sinks into these feelings, that drowning sensation becomes more and more difficult to ignore. He chalks it up to the way love is supposed to feel, but is that necessarily a good, or healthy, thing?

As the tune progresses, he sings of the desire to infiltrate every part of this person, wanting to reside even within their secrets. He sings of wanting to drown further in them, because, here, drowning seems to be the only currency of love.

"And I ain't never been this deep before
And the more I sank, Lord, the more I swore
From the waterline to the ocean floor
I say drowning's just a lover's chore
Yeah, I say drowning's just a lover's chore"

Keep me under the water completely
Never wanna learn to swim when you're the one holdin' me down
Drown me deep in the rivers of the valley
Lettin' my lungs succumb to sweet seductive sounds

I ain't never been this deep before
And the more I sank, Lord, the more I swore
From the waterline to the ocean floor
Drowning's just a lover's chore

Sink me into every single sеcret you're keeping
When your hеart can't go no longer, I'll be there to carry us on
There God goes turnin' creeks in the rivers out of white snow
As you grin out the window into our front yard

And I ain't never been this deep before
And the more I sank, Lord, the more I swore
From the waterline to the ocean floor
I say drowning's just a lover's chore
Yeah, I say drowning's just a lover's chore

Keep me under the water completely
Never wanna learn to swim when you're the one holdin' me down

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For more on Zach Bryan, see below:

Zach Bryan

Artist