Zach Bryan’s ‘Young Manhood and Other Donatable Organs’: Every Song Ranked

Bryan gets a little moody and swampy on a track that seeks to set a mood more than make any kind of literal sense. The title, which is repeated throughout, is seemingly a reference to Bob Dylan’s classic “Tangled Up in Blue,” but then throw in John Coltrane, whose last name Bryan tosses in several times and the phrase, “Roll Um Easy,” which is a Little Feat song title, and Bryan delivers a fairly inscrutable song that seems to be about a relationship with a woman who “is who she is, but she ain’t who she was before.” Just go with it.

You can take the man out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the man is the theme of this mid-tempo track featuring the Turnpike Troubadours and beautiful instrumentation including violin, cello, mandolin, fiddle and banjo. Bryan and the Troubadours’ Evan Felker trade off lead vocals here, their voices easily complementing each other, on the simple tune about “the beauty of the barren land.”

This is the closest Bryan gets to a happy love song as he reevaluates life and past bad times, ultimately landing on “All I want, are your beautiful legs around me/On that Spanish beach where you found me for the rest of my earthly days.” But that sentiment comes amid trying to come to peace with a troubled past and looking back on it with a new filter that allows for forgiveness and a different attitude.

Bryan looks at industrialization and comes down squarely on the side of deciding that technological advancement isn’t always for the better. The title pretty much lays out the premise, but he goes further, singing “Took the nail and hammer right out of his hands/sealed up the coffin/sold off the land.” The track opens with a sample of wrestler Dusty Rhodes famous 1985 speech about hard times before Bryan takes over with his searing indictment of what passes for progress. “This place don’t look like what it looked like when I was a kid/Can’t you see what a giant step for humanity did?” The focus is squarely on the lyrics here, which are bolstered by a steady, incessant mid-tempo thump.

In this genial, sloping set closer, Bryan sends the listener off with a benediction of sorts, filled with advice delivered by an unspecified “she,” who suggests that life will go just fine if you’re kind “when it ain’t easy,” as well as “take the telephone off the line awhile” and “don’t let ‘em tell ya Oklahoma ain’t in the south.”

Musically, the song has the same easy vibe as The Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses” and sends the listener off with a slight sense of melancholy but also sight ease that it just might all work out after all.

This track ups the number of rock songs with “Lodi” in the title to two, following Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Lodi.” (Fun fact: John Fogerty is playing a few dates with Bryan in 2027, so maybe they can do a medley of the CCR hit and this track.) It serves as an engaging set opener, mainly because of the group vocals that surround Bryan’s plaintive vocals, the catchy melody and the intriguing swirling synth opener.

Lyrically, the song questions if you could go back in time, would you make the same choices? “If you could go back to the places you once been/would you run back to her arms or back to Lodi when,” he asks, as the clock ticks down.

Bryan has a history of being a supple duet partner, especially with woman artists, such as with Kacey Musgraves on “I Remember Everything.” This mid-tempo effort with Del Rey is gorgeous, bolstered by swelling violins and cellos. Like Musgraves, Del Rey is a naturally laid-back, placid singer and neither she nor a vulnerable-sounding Bryan try to oversell the song, instead letting the emotional devastation about a crumbling relationship simply play out as their voices wrap around each other. It doesn’t pack quite the punch as “I Remember Everything,” but it’s beautiful in its own way.

The propulsive track opens with a spoken line from the 2012 film, The Place Beyond the Pines, “If you ride like lightning, you’re gonna crash like thunder,” before exploding into a rollicking up-tempo track with a relentless beat and an impassioned delivery from Bryan. “On the day I was born, they told me I would never be something,” he sings and from the sound of it, he’s spent every day since with his back up against the wall, with “everything you ever did being misunderstood.” It’s one of the shortest songs on the album, but it’s a standout for its ferocity and drive (and yes, he even sneaks in what sound like a few dog barks). His harmonica playing is also a welcome addition.