‘The Way Back’ by Zach Bryan - Lyrics & Meaning

Before ‘The Way Back’ arrived on YouTube in March, ahead of officially dropping on July 4th as part of Zach Bryan's 2024 studio album, The Great American Bar Scene, the nostalgic demo was given the speculative title ‘Kodachrome’ by fans.

It was teased in trademark Zach Bryan fashion across his socials, before the Oklahoma singer-songwriter decided to offer fans a longer preview of the track when he unexpectedly shared a video of him performing ‘The Way Back’ to his YouTube page.

Listeners championed how, in doing so, Zach was throwing it back to how he got his start in music, with the former Navy member sharing grainy, homemade videos of him performing tracks such as ’Condemned’ and ’Heading South’ from beside a bonfire.

As a result, the rollout for ’The Way Back’ served as a welcome reminder of how far Zach Bryan has come since his debut record, DeAnn, in 2019, before we were treated to The Great American Bar Scene just a few months after the track was first teased.

‘The Way Back‘ is as intricate as it is rousing, with Zach Bryan lacing the track with the quiet hope and subtle optimism that colours much of The Great American Bar Scene. Zach's wistful, drawn-in vocals unfurl across an ethereal, pining combination of guitar and keys, which mirror each other note-for-note throughout the opening.

Zach Bryan's weighty vocals are given plenty of room to breathe, with the ‘Something in the Orange’ hitmaker never feeling the need to fill the space in-between verses.

This accentuates the contemplative ambience of the song, with Zach Bryan then upping the ante as he launches into the hook, which is met with the introduction of energising drums. The various elements of ‘The Way Back’ are stripped back again as Zach delivers the final lines, and in doing so, he lets the spotlight fall on the dual moods of peaceful melancholy and reassuring warmth that pervade the track.

Interestingly, ‘The Way Back’ interpolates Bryan Adams’ 1985 song, ’Heaven’, which he wrote alongside Jim Vallance, with the melody of the lines “Loves gonna’ bring you home / Even God didn’t see it comin’” carrying similarities to the ’Heaven’ hook. As a result, Adams and Vallance are credited as writers on ‘The Way Back’. When Zach Bryan released the preface to The Great American Bar Scene, it appeared Adams and Vallance were also cited as co-writers on ‘Bass Boat’, but when the album was released on July 4th, these credits seem to have been removed.

“I saw you in my dreams last night

You had a vandal grin framed by a suit and tie

You were saying you were out of here

With you breath framed by cocaine and beer”

‘The Way Back’ carries a similar theme to older fan-favourites, where Zach is addressing someone who's moved away, such as on ‘Sarah's Place’ with Noah Kahan and ‘American Nights’.

He opens the track by revealing he dreamt of the person he's singing about, describing them as having a devious smile and a suit and tie, suggesting they've moved to the city for a corporate job. Zach recalls the person saying that they were ‘out of here’ back when they were living in the same place, implying they always thought they were better than the small town they grew up in. Zach hints their new lifestyle has led to bad habits creeping in, such as a reliance on substances.

“Who’d of thought, she would ruin you

Leave your whole damn family in shambles too

I got a call from your mom months back

Saying I wish he didn’t leave town like that”

We get a few more of the blank spaces in the story filled in here, with Zach Bryan suggesting that the man he's singing to decided to move away after he had his heartbroken by a past lover. She subsequently left the man's ‘whole damn family in shambles too’, with Zach receiving a phone call from his mother recently in which she opened up to him about how she wishes he hadn't left them so abruptly.

“Loves gonna’ bring you home

Even God didn’t see it comin’

But no matter where you’re at

We’ll always find the way back

We’ll always find the way back

We’ll always find the way back”

Rather than rebuking the man for deserting his family, Zach Bryan offers some words of comfort, assuring him that the love he has for them will be too strong to ignore and will ultimately bring him back home before too long. Zach jokes that this will be such a 360 turn-around, given his current way of life, that even God won't see it coming. It feels pertinent that Zach Bryan croons “We'll always find the way back” rather than “You'll always find the way back”, with the narrator choosing to provide the more general proverb rather than making it specific to this man's situation, perhaps in order to avoid coming across as being judgemental.

“Toking poison to some Killers song

Your old man’s trans am in Kodachrome

Bumper sticker to the back right

State champs ‘83 through ‘85”

Zach Bryan contrasts where the man is at present with the fond memories he has of them being friends many years ago, recalling smoking marijuana while listening to an old Killers song, before painting a vivid picture of a photo of a classic car owned by the man's father. It feels as though Zach is thumbing through a photo album belonging to the man's family, which aligns with the cover art for The Great American Bar Scene. Kodachrome was one of the first image-capturing companies to facilitate colour reversal photographs, and is now known as Kodak.

“She’s smoking cigarettes in the kitchen

Tom and Jerry’s on the front room television

She always sat under the oak tree

Saying God I miss the old me”

We get another vignette here, with Zach Bryan looking at a photograph of a woman smoking in the kitchen and the children's show, Tom and Jerry, showing in the living room. The implication is that the man and this woman had built a family together and had children, before she left - the circumstances of which remain unclear.

The venom behind Zach's choice of words when singing that she left his family “in shambles” suggests she perhaps broke his heart or maybe disappeared without giving a reason. He implies she always struggled to come to terms with her life as it was at the time, remembering how she's sit out in nature and confide that she missed “the old me”, foreshadowing her assumed departure from the man's life.

“Saw you in my dreams last night

You had a vandal grin framed by a suit and tie

Toking poison to some Killers song

Your old man’s trans am in Kodachrome

Your old man’s trans am in Kodachrome

Your old man’s trans am in Kodachrome”

Zach Bryan adds context the image of the old car in the photograph by collating the opening two lines of the first verse with the opening two lines of the third verse. When put together in this way, Zach clarifies that the Kodachrome photo appeared in his dream, and implies the image of the woman in the kitchen did too.

Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Zach Bryan revealed ‘The Way Back’ is his favourite song on The Great American Bar Scene, as well as underlining how nostalgic it makes him feel, “It’s called Kodachrome and it brings me back to being 13 at my grandmas”.

“I saw you in my dreams last night

You had a vandal grin framed by a suit and tie

You were saying you were out of here

With you breath framed by cocaine and beer

-

Who’d of thought, she would ruin you

Leave your whole damn family in shambles too

I got a call from your mom months back

Saying I wish he didn’t leave town like that

-

Loves gonna’ bring you home

Even God didn’t see it comin’

But no matter where you’re at

We’ll always find the way back

We’ll always find the way back

We’ll always find the way back

-

Toking poison to some Killers song

Your old man’s trans am in Kodachrome

Bumper sticker to the back right

State champs ‘83 through ‘85

-

She’s smoking cigarettes in the kitchen

Tom and Jerry’s on the front room television

She always sat under the oak tree

Saying God I miss the old me

-

Loves gonna’ bring you home

Even God didn’t see it comin’

But no matter where you’re at

We’ll always find the way back

We’ll always find the way back

We’ll always find the way back

-

Saw you in my dreams last night

You had a vandal grin framed by a suit and tie

Toking poison to some Killers song

Your old man’s trans am in Kodachrome

Your old man’s trans am in Kodachrome

Your old man’s trans am in Kodachrome”

For more on Zach Bryan, see below: