To authentically Burn, Burn, Burn through life: Zach and Kerouac
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles...”
“So let me go down the line
Let me feel it all
Joy, pain, and sky
So let me go down the line
We all burn, burn, burn and die”
Jack Kerouac, the pioneer of the Beat Gen. The author of the sprawling, spontaneous and societally rejective American classic On The Road. The poet and novelist has had an inevitable influence on many songwriters and artists, especially those with a little angst and some wandering hearts, but one of the most recent is Zach Bryan. Zach’s an obviously well-read guy, he has a passion for literature, and you just can’t write like he does without spending time with the outpourings of the American greats, but Burn, Burn, Burn is perhaps his most direct tribute to one of those authors.
In terms of writing style, the four-minute standalone track goes against the classic country structure, or any kind of song structure, and instead wildly leans into a Kerouac-like stream of consciousness. Seven rambling verses written with a kind of urgency that seem to leave Zach close to tripping over his own thoughts – even more so on the Live From Red Rocks recording. It has that same rhythmic lyricism combined with a jazz-style improvisation that allowed Kerouac to put his life, and his characters, on page so vividly. For both poets, it's the kind of writing style that allows for an overthinker and deep-feeler to empty their heart and mind in a moment of free-flowing beautiful prose, it just comes with slightly varying degrees of burning.
Kerouac’s characters are desperate to live to the fullest, brightest, most intense burn possible. Their flames setting alight anything in their path, if it leads to another spark to catch onto then they’ll chase after it through the day and the night, across the country and into foreign lands, exploding unapologetically along the way. There’s a desperation in Zach’s lyrics too, but instead of a desperation for the thread of momentary highs of Kerouac’s stories, it’s a desperation to constantly and consistently embrace all aspects of life.
There’s a similarity in Jack and Zach’s rejection of the modern world, Kerouac’s being an opposition to the post-WWII American culture of consumerism and conformity, and Zach’s to the ‘TikTok talking, late night TV’ emptiness that might just be plaguing a lot of today’s world - so not all that different. They both have a desire to remain restless in a way that leads to self-discovery in a society that tries to tell you who you should be and what you should be doing. Burn, Burn, Burn kicks off with a longing to go back in time, to before our current world in which everyone (apparently) knows everything and people move ego first, compassion second before diving into a nostalgic desire for simplicity. It’s at this point that Zach’s idea of what it means to burn through life really sets alight.
Perhaps the thing that links Zach and Kerouac so closely is that constant desire. No matter what that might be for, more than anything they are chasing after authenticity and the chance to feel everything as intensely as you can. It's just that Kerouac’s intensity relates to the wildest nights, the loudest friends and the busiest places. Zach’s intensity relates to the acceptance of passing time, the appreciation for those most important to you, and the need to live without regrets. Or when you do regret something, wholeheartedly feel that regret.
Feel everything, the good and the bad, but keep going forwards. We can’t ‘go down the line’ without embracing everything that comes our way - embrace simplicity, embrace a desire for it, and embrace the ‘joy, pain and sky’ - it'll keep that burn going. That’s not to say that Zach doesn’t have his Kerouac moments, the verse that sees him ‘head to Paris on a late-night flight, find a bar and get in a fight, write a few poems on a sunny balcony’ is as Beat Gen as they get. But it doesn't take long for this to get tiring for Zach, and he reverts back to wanting to be ‘breathing in the fresh outside air’ before he knew ‘this life was unkind’. Who’s to say which experience has more worth - a big-night-bar-fight in Paris or having a ‘well-trained dog on a couple of acres’ - they’re both parts of moving down the line.
Kerouac makes it crystal clear that his soulmates are the ones that are ‘mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved’, the people that are larger than life to the point of almost true madness. For Zach, his soulmates are the same, just to a slightly quieter, and significantly more comfortable extent. To authentically burn through life, he needs the ones that are ‘mad to live’, but that living can be ‘getting lost on some old back road’, the ones that are ‘mad to talk’ but that talking might be through ‘lines of laymen guitar’, and the ones that are ‘mad to be saved’ even if that's just through ‘simple songs and some human touch’.
Authenticity is the word I always come back to when it comes to Zach Bryan’s songwriting, and it’s no coincidence that it’s the one that I relate to American literature too. It has the same authenticity that Kerouac does in his rambling descriptions of breathless enthusiasm for life. It has Steinbeck’s remarkable ability to find the authentic beauty in the everyday. It has the same straight-to-the-point authentic simplicity of a Hemingway short story, a way to say a lot in a little. But at times, it has Faulkner’s depth of character and authentic emotion too.
One of the first lyrics I heard from Zach that really stuck with me was from American Heartbreak’s stunning opener, Late July: ‘I hope your sunsets always bleed red, hope your family’s always well fed, and that song stuck in your head plays all night’. I suppose this is all I ever hope for for people, that they have a moment of burning beauty at the end of every day, they have a good meal to share with people they love, and that there’s a little soundtrack keeping them company throughout the day. These are all pure, authentic, intentional moments of living. Slow down, ‘pack the car while the creek’s runnin, cast a line with the dawn comin’ (a beautiful couple of lines from Funny Man) and live with a burning desire for the everyday. After all, something can’t burn without giving it the time it needs to catch. The deeper we care about the things that matter, the warmer that fire gets, and more golden too. It’s a slow burn that Zach longs for, but a slow burn can be just as bright.
