Bryan’s entry into public enemies status all surrounds a song that hasn’t even been released yet. On Friday, he posted a snippet of a new song called “Bad News” to his Instagram page. The track includes the lyrics: “I heard the cops came, cocky motherfuckers, ain’t they? / And ICE is gonna come bust down your door / To try and build a house no one builds no more, but I got a telephone / Kids are all scared and all alone / The boss stopped bumping, the rock stopped rolling / The middlе fingers rising, and it won’t stop showing / Got some bad news, thе fading of the red, white and blue.”
The ICE name-drop was sure to stir up attention, and TMZ—which will reliably call up the Department Of Homeland Security hotline every time a pop star so much as posts a Trump-related infographic—saw a scoop. The outlet got a comment from DHS Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin, who told Bryan to “Stick to ‘Pink Skies'” in reference to one of previous hits. You’d think DHS would have better things to do than get in a tabloid battle with a country singer, but it seems half this administration’s job is coming up with pop culture puns, having previously instructed Ariana Grande to “Save your tears.” Fan behavior!
For his part, Zach Bryan is a fourth-generation veteran of the U.S. Navy (per The Times) who marked the occasion of his honorable discharge in 2021 by declaring that “the best eight years of my life were spent serving the best country in the whole damn world.” His view of the service may have gotten more ambiguous over time (“Eighteen years old, full of hate, they shipped me off in a motorcade / They said, ‘Boy, you’re gonna fight a war / You don’t even know what you’re fighting for,'” he sings on “East Side Of Sorrow”), but he’s continued to advocate for veterans including donating all the profits of his song “El Dorado” to a nonprofit for veterans’ mental health. “Bad News” may be an attempt to imitate his hero Bruce Springsteen (the “boss” lyric may be a reference to The Boss). More cynically, you could call it a distraction from everything else Bryan’s got going on lately. Either way, it’s drummed up a lot of anticipation for the song, which doesn’t yet have a release date.
