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Zach Bryan has always been about the music - and given the fact that his output is virtually non-stop, it leaves little time in the way of creating accompanying visuals for his songs.
Nonetheless, the ‘Something in the Orange’ hitmaker has today treated fans to the official music video for ‘Oklahoma Smokeshow’, one of the most popular tracks from Zach's acclaimed 2022 EP, Summertime Blues.
The driving, anthemic song tells the story of a woman he knew back in his home-state, with Zach Bryan lamenting her decision to stay with a good-for-nothing local boy who's subsequently closed the door on her dreams (“She used to play in the yard and she would dream of one day / ‘Til the world came around and took her dreaming away / Told her how to dress and act and smile”).
The evocative music video fills in some of the gaps in the tale and adds another layer of depth, with the visuals pivoting around the woman's choice between two men. One is a rowdy, fast-living law-breaker, while the other comes across as a comparatively sweet, caring option.
Throughout the cinematic video, which features a series of artistic snapshots of small-town life in Oklahoma, we learn more about each character, and inevitably root for the woman to end up with the less riotous man. The rivalry is cleverly hinted at throughout, with the video intermittently returning to a bar scene where the woman looking uncertainly between each of the two men, as they return her gaze expectantly.
The video is tinged with a sense of melancholy, and captures the wistful, regretful mood of Zach's captivating song.
‘Oklahoma Smokeshow’ is technically Zach Bryan's first ever official music video, with the only previous visuals being the performance video for ‘Dawns’ with Maggie Rogers, which Zach dropped in January.
The Oklahoma songsmith is currently out on the road as part of the UK & European leg of his 2023 Burn, Burn, Burn, tour. Throughout the run of dates so far, Zach Bryan has been teasing a number of unreleased tracks that fans are hoping will feature on his upcoming album, Writers and Fighters, such as ‘Deep Satin’, ‘Fear and Fridays’ and ‘Fine Dry’.
The singer-songwriter recently confirmed that, unliked his previous 34-song album, American Heartbreak, the new record would only feature eleven songs. Given the wealth of demos and snippets he's been sharing in recent months, it'll be fascinating to see which eleven make the cut.
The release of the new music video for ‘Oklahoma Smokeshow’ could well serve as the book-end for his Summertime Blues era, and could therefore signify that more songs from Writers and Fighters may well be looming excitingly on the horizon.
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