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Reflection for June 27th 2025
“East Side of Sorrow” by Zach Bryan. Warner Records, 2023
18 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"
I lost friends in the August heat
At night it was God I'd always meet
I said, "Lord, won't you bring me home?
I've got women in the west I wanna hold"
I lost you in a waiting room
After sleepin' there for a week or two
Doctor said he did all he could
You were the last thing I had that was good
So I walked miles on the Tulsa streets
Light started beamin' in from the east
6 a.m. and messed up again
Askin' God where the heck he'd been
Chorus:
He said the sun's gonna rise tomorrow
Somewhere on the east side of sorrow
You better pack your bags west
Stick out your chest, and then hit the road
The sun's gonna rise tomorrow
Somewhere on the east side of sorrow
Don't give it a reason to follow
Let it be, then let it go
Heard your brother lost his mind in the city last fall
Was it his blood, or his conscious, or the alcohol?
Did the Navy do him well or did he wind up sick
Like every other brave boy from these run down sticks?
Do you ever get tired of singin' songs
Like all your pain is just another sing along?
If you ever get the time come on home
I heard Turnpike's back together and they're writin' songs
Chorus
Reflection by Jeremy O’Neill
I have always appreciated the brutal honesty of Country Music. It is often said the key to the genre is “three chords and the truth.” Though this normally applies to vivid stories of hard working people, in the case of Zach Bryan’s 2023 song “East Side of Sorrow,” I would argue that there is theological truth there as well.
The narrator in this song experiences profound loss and trauma, inspired by the songwriter’s personal experiences going to war and losing his mother. Distraught and wandering the streets, the singer prays to God and asks the Creator a relatable question: where are you? This is a common biblical theme, found everywhere from Job to Jesus on the cross. But what is particularly unique in Bryan’s story is how God responds. Frequently in scripture we are given details about how God speaks (in a loud voice, in a burning bush, etc.) but we are occasionally left wanting as to what words were actually said, like in the Pentecost story. The song makes no mention of how God speaks, but God’s words stand up on their own. “the sun’s going to rise tomorrow somewhere on the east side of sorrow.”
It is such a cliché to say that the sun will rise tomorrow. But this statement is as true as one can be, and orients us towards the reliability of God’s creation. Even when God feels distant and our lives feel chaotic, the rhythms of creation remain there to ground us.
The verses of the song contain specific events that we can presume “really happened” which are then cast against a chorus that would seem more miraculous. It is a common musical technique to play the verse and chorus against each other, particularly in country music. It is as if we get devastating detail of the earthly and then are redeemed by the abstract and the heavenly.
Like many country songs, we can debate as to whether the events in the song really happened as they are described. The singer’s personal biography leads me to believe much of the song did happen as described, but I am also sure there was some creative license taken. But does this matter?
I will always remember one of my mentors saying “Everything in the Bible is true. Some of it actually happened.” Now asking the question of “what is truth?” rarely gets us far (it certainly wasn’t helpful to Pontius Pilate) but I do think that it is helpful to keep this in mind when we read scripture. The events in scripture tell us about God and about God’s creation from stories, and some of them actually happened as they are described. But even if they didn’t, there is still something sacred to them. God reveals God’s self in numerous ways, and in that revelation, we stand to learn something about ourselves as well.
What we learn from scripture and from this song is that there is always hope of resurrection. We may not know exactly what that will look like, but new life and the overcoming of death is always a possibility somewhere.
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