Well this is a…bizarre twist.
A couple of weeks ago, we shared a post on Tyler Childers scoring his first-ever charting song on mainstream radio. And Zach Bryan responded to our tweet correctly pointing out how “f*ckin insane” it is that Tyler is just now getting his first song on the charts.
And in a follow up tweet, he took a dig at mainstream radio – and Walker Hayes caught a stray for his massive hit “Fancy Like.”
“Imagine being radio (whoever the hell that is), hearing ‘Shake the Frost’ and being like ‘no no let’s go with the Applebees song.”
He ain’t wrong.
Zach also clarified that he wasn’t taking a personal shot at Walker:
“Not insulting anyone! Meant it with humor not malice, different strokes different folks was just bent about the first ever on mainstream radio thing my bad.”
And Walker offered a classy response to Zach’s dig at his #1 song:
That’s the end of that, right?
Well, it should have been. But apparently Walker Hayes had more to say – so he wrote a song about it.
Walker posted a clip of the new song on his Instagram, explaining that he “had a hundred smart ass responses in the chamber” that he ultimately didn’t post, while also admitting that he’s been guilty of taking shots at other songwriters before too:
“Me and my buddies were talking about the whole Zach Bryan thing. They were saying they appreciated how I responded. I confessed that they only saw my best foot forward. I had a hundred smart ass responses in the chamber that I didn’t fire off.
Then we got to talking about people in general. Why we get insecure, etc. Mostly about how artists size each other up, compare, and talk trash. It’s obviously our natural human tendency to be a little butt hurt by anyone else’s success.
Then we wondered about that. Why on earth we would do that as song writers. Knowing that .0001 percent of us are actually making it in this biz. Took me 18 years to feed my kids with music and I’ll still knock something I hear on the radio cuz I didn’t write it.
So, we tried our best to put it all in a Twanger. And this is what we got. I hope it makes y’all talk about stuff that matters.”
And the result is a song about the entire experience:
“Well I woke up this morning and read something mean
Something in the orange tells me you’re feelin’ green
Felt like throwin’ punches but I just held ’em back
Cause Jesus didn’t die for me so I could fight with Zach Bryan
No hard feelings, cause man I’d be lyin’
If I said I ain’t never talked sh*t about a radio record
Cause I thought mine was better
It’s kinda funny, oughta feel half hypocritical making money
Making songs, cause I know
Most of us die trying to be Zach Bryan”
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This might be the classiest beef in country music.
