'Runny Eggs' by Zach Bryan – Lyrics & Meaning

The first song to appear on Zach Bryan's momentous 2026 album, With Heaven On Top, following the spoken-word intro, ‘Down, Down, Stream’, ‘Runny Eggs’ is a gentle, intimate introduction to the eclectic project. It opens with a playful voice-note from when Bryan ran with the bulls during Spain's San Fermín in Pamplona.

Despite this rowdy, life-on-the-edge opening, the rest of ‘Runny Eggs’ is relatively subdued and introspective, with Bryan declaring some of his aspirations for the year ahead. It plays like a hopeful list of resolutions, but one that Bryan made at the start of his career, with the ‘Something in the Orange’ hitmaker having experienced many of the things he references on ‘Runny Eggs’ over the past few years.

We've been clamouring for ‘Runny Eggs’ for a minute, with Bryan first sharing an acoustic rendition of the track in December 2024 - but rest assured it was worth the wait.

While Bryan experiments with an array of novel sounds on With Heaven On Top, incorporating horn sections and heavier production styles on a number of tracks, he sticks to the stripped-back, intimate composition of his earlier material on ‘Runny Eggs’.

Much of the track finds Bryan crooning wistfully across a sparse, noodling guitar riff, with the occasional introduction of a pining harmonica. He keeps his vocals contemplative and guttural throughout, mirroring the pensive nature of the narrative.

Throughout ‘Runny Eggs’, Bryan reels off a range of hopes and ambitions he is striving to achieve over an undefined period of time. Judging by the specific experiences he lists, it seems he is putting himself in the shoes of a younger version of himself at the beginning of his career, looking ahead at the prospect of all the unthinkable and incredible things he will go on to accomplish over the next few years.

What makes ‘Runny Eggs’ particularly endearing is the fact that Bryan contrasts rip-roaring experiences, such as running with the bulls in Pamplona and watching his friend break his ankle after too many beers, with vignettes of simpler moments of contentment, including enjoying a plate of runny eggs and talking to God in church.

The lyric, “Wish I had known the good times back when I had them”, seems to confirm that, despite the future tense of ‘Runny Eggs’, in reality, the song finds Bryan looking back.

It concludes on a note of spiritual optimism, with the ‘Revival’ singer-songwriter transitioning from the admission that he feels the need to apologise to God for his behaviour, to the hope that “Maybe I'll find Jesus when the morning comes”.

“(I'm not even gonna run with the bulls
I'm gonna jump on the motherfucker's back and ride it
I might die, hehe)

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I'm gonna buy me some a real fast car
And drive to California where the heartless are

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Find a diner in the desert, eat some real runny eggs
Tear down all the photos that are hung in my head
And I'm gonna book me flight to Pamplona
Take a horn to the chest like I'm back in Oklahoma
Find a lady with some big old Spanish eyes
Find out where all my old lovе lies

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And I'm gonna play me a show to ten thousand
In thе middle of the snow in the Colorado mountains
Watch my father and my sister and my friends find peace
I'll sing the wrong damn song in the wrong damn key
But no matter where I go, I pray to always find home
Travel round and eat those runny eggs alone
In a diner on the edge of California and Nevada
Wish I had known the good times back when I had them

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And I'm gonna walk me the streets of West Village
In the middle of the summer with the evening time stillness
Watch Nate break his ankle after too many rounds
After tearin' Brooklyn to the goddamn ground
And I'm gonna talk to God in some church
After years, beers, and fears, and too much work
Tell him I'm sorry for the way that I am
And using his name before saying "damn"

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And I'm gonna buy me some a real fast car
And drive to California where the heartless are

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How you thought you was a gentleman back when you was young
Maybe I'll find Jesus when the morning comes
Maybe I'll find Jesus when the morning comes
Maybe I'll find Jesus when the morning comes”

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