“Grown So Weary of All of This”: Zach Bryan Longs to Disappear on Angsty New Song Snippet, ’Sante Fe’

Zach Bryan continues to hone his eagerly awaited new album, with the Oklahoma singer-songwriter taking to Instagram to share another unreleased snippet, titled ‘Santa Fe’.

While we've grown accustomed to seeing the ‘Something in the Orange’ hitmaker performing alongside his beloved acoustic guitar, for this track, Bryan tries his hand at the drums.

Zach Bryan is visibly keyed up as he launches into the song, with his friend holding a phone recorder to his mouth while Bryan leads with the drums. A set of harmonising vocals can be heard alongside Bryan's signature guttural delivery. Given the fact that New York prodigy, Grumpy, features on his two November 2024 singles, ‘This World's A Giant’ and ‘High Road’, as well as the unreleased fan-favourite, ‘With Heaven On Top’, we suspect it's their voice we can hear on ‘Sante Fe’.

‘Sante Fe’ is an angsty, fiery offering, with Zach Bryan seemingly rebuking an old flame that has been denigrating his loved ones (“Grown weary of all of this / And every day is a pressure pit / What pissed me off is you pissed on all the friends I ever made”).

Although Zach Bryan has often stepped into the shoes of an angrier, more amped up protagonist on past records, such as on ‘Open the Gate’ and ‘Burn, Burn, Burn’, he's been leaning towards a more wistful, almost jaded tone on his recent releases.

‘Sante Fe’, on the other hand, is a departure from this, with Bryan infusing a fierce, irritated ambience into the track as he longs to disappear from the glare of the spotlight (“I think I'm going to Santa Fe / The kind of place that won't know my name”).

The meaning behind ‘Sante Fe’ won't be lost on Zach Bryan's followers, who witnessed him deliver a lengthy rebuttal against social media detractors via his Instagram Stories last month. The main catalyst for Bryan's response was people verbally attacking his friends, with the folk-leaning country megastar defiantly outlining, “Everyone wonders why I quit touring and don't want to be attached to music anymore meanwhile you're calling my friends ugly and harassing them?”

Elsewhere during that flurry of messages, Zach Bryan stressed, “I am allowed to have love, laughter and good people in my life. No matter how bad of a person you think I am, go ahead and come for me. I can take all the hatred because I'm not a child. But do not come for my friends who do nothing but love and care for me”.

The online criticism Zach Bryan has been receiving comes off the back of his contentious split from BFF's Podcast co-host, Brianna LaPaglia, who accused him of emotional abuse and attempting to make her sign a $12 million NDA about their relationship.

Of course, it's never 100% clear who or what Zach Bryan is writing about in his music, but the line “What pissed me off is you pissed on all the friends I ever made” certainly feels like a reference to his online trolls, given his Instagram rebuke a few weeks ago.

Either way, the arrival of this latest snippet underlines that Zach Bryan is hard at work on his The Great American Bar Scene follow-up album. The project is believed to be called Motorbreath, with Bryan sharing an introduction - voiced by Matthew McConaughey - to an apparent documentary of the same name, following the ‘I Remember Everything’ crooner and his buddies as they record “one final major label album”.

There's no release date just yet, but with Bryan continuing to tease new unreleased music, after dropping the long-awaited ‘Blue Jean Baby’ and the surprise Jack Van Cleaf collaboration, ‘Rattlesnake’, in January, it seems the rollout is picking up pace.

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Featured photo by Laura Ord