Another new addition to the upcoming EP?
After dropping his long-awaited sixth studio album, With Heaven On Top back in January, Zach Bryan has been hitting the road hard on his current international run of shows, With Heaven On Tour. Kicking off back in March, the “Something in the Orange” singer has already played sold-out shows at Bank of America Stadium, Raymond James Stadium, Memorial Stadium and more here in the U.S. He’s also hit the likes of the U.K., Spain, Germany, Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands across the pond, selling out there as well.
Though he’s been on tour internationally for the majority of the year, Bryan took most of July off. In typical fashion, however, he was far from off the grid. Returning to social media after being deactivated on most accounts, he went back to the basics on the 4th of July weekend, taking to YouTube on July 3rd to tease “Lodi When” once again. Additionally, he’d post a full-length teaser of a brand-new track, “Better Friends.” In the caption of both of these videos, which have since been deleted, the Oklahoma native revealed that he has a new EP on the way with an incredibly interesting, for lack of a better word, name called Young Manhood and Other Donatable Organs:
“A snippet of ‘Lodi When’ off the new EP, ‘Young Manhood and Other Donatable Organs’”
After confirming that the likes of “Lodi When,” “You’ll Get By,” “Backwards” and “Robot Killed The Working Man” will make appearances on the project throughout the past month or so, during his second sold-out show at Rogers Centre in Toronto on September 22nd, he officially confirmed that the EP will be released on Friday, October 16th, “if all goes well.”
Flash forward to this past weekend, during a two-night stay in Foxborogh, Massachusetts at the New England Patriot’s Gillette Stadium, Bryan made all sorts of headlines for a variety of different reasons.
On night one, he outraged a good number of fans online by wearing a “Free Palestine” shirt, along with some of his band members. Of course, this was in response to the ongoing controversy surrounding rapper, Macklemore, getting kicked off of Ed Sheeran’s tour due to his comments on the ongoing Israel-Palestine war and blaming Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft for his ouster.
After speculation on whether Kraft would pull the plug on Bryan’s second night at Gillette, he’d return to the stage on Saturday.
Once again sporting the same “Free Palestine” shirt, he managed to break the Gillette Stadium attendance record with a crowd of 73,538, topping the previous record of 71,723 which was ironically held by Sheeran back in 2023. (To put it in perspective, the stadium also hosted three shows on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour that same year).
Though the “Free Palestine” shirt and Gillette Stadium record dominated headlines over the weekend, the “Oklahoma Smokeshow” singer decided to debut yet another song during his record-breaking second night at Gillette Stadium.
Seemingly titled “Dog Days,” the new track continues Bryan’s continued exploration into a brass-heavy, Springsteen-inspired production throughout, especially in the first verse where he laments the current state of the world.
“Well, we’re dog days, darling
Welcome to hard times too
All the tumultuous times of my stubborn youth just a troubling you
Aboard the dog days, darling
I ain’t ever eat from no silver spoon
All this burecratic, gotta have it, circus-level sh*t’s got me feeling blue”
Despite the bleak perspective in the verses, Bryan finds some light at the end of the tunnel in the high-energy chorus. Remarking how you have to make it through the titular “Dog Days,” he draws a parallel to an early track from 2022’s American Heartbreak, “Half Grown,” by telling his lover he’s all the way grown in the final line.
“They told me I would never be something
Gotta make it through them dog days, darling
If you wanna go far, then you oughta go long
But I ain’t a boy, darling, I’m all the way grown”
Given the fact that he name-drops the phrase, “young manhood,” later in the track, it seems more than likely “Dog Days” will appear on the upcoming EP, which is set to drop on Friday, October 16th.
Watch here:
@allixmel Zach Bryan performs new ep “Dog Days” for the first time ever at Gillette Stadium #zachbryan #gillettestadium ♬ original sound – Alli
