Overtime - Zach Bryan

Overtime - Zach Bryan

3:10

Zach Bryan, 2023

Written by Zach Bryan

This is a down-home country banger with rock sensibilities.  It's a declaration of being a loner, a maverick, a working man who didn't listen to the naysayers.  "But I been scrapin' by my whole damn life / And granddaddy worked a double 'til the day he died / Said, Never let this world's earthly pride get you down."  It's got a singalong groove, and Bryan is a fine lyricist, but to me the delivery lacks the fireball energy that the words inhabit.  Maybe he's been working so hard, he's too tired to give the take the oomph it deserves.  

One Less Set Of Footsteps - Jim Croce

One Less Set Of Footsteps - Jim Croce

2:47

Life And Times, 1973

Written by Jim Croce

This breezy folk-rock song describes a failing relationship, and the narrator's realization that it's time to leave: "And we've been hidin' from somethin' that should have never gone this far / But after all it's what we've done that makes us what we are / And you've been talkin' in silence, well, if it's silence you adore / Oh, there'll be one less set of footprints on your floor in the morning." The "one less" phrasing implies that the lover may have had a series of footsteps on the floor, jeans on the door, "one less man to walk in."  The arrangement, leaning on piano and guitar, features terrific harmonies emphasizing the ends of the lines.  It makes an interesting juxtaposition, the brightness of the delivery contrasting with the sad situation; perhaps the narrator has been looking forward to leaving for a while.

Old And Only in the Way - Charlie Poole

Old And Only in the Way - Charlie Poole

3:29

single, 1928

Written by Charlie Poole and Norman Woodlieff

Poole's rudimentary banjo fingerpicking is supplemented by a plaintive violin in this old-timey tearjerker, whose lyric is so maudlin that it veers into satire: "And sure for death ofttimes they do pray / For himself and faithful wife been toiling all their lives / To find they're old and only in the way."  It's genuinely bleak, but there's something almost darkly comic about just how thoroughly the song wallows in the misery of growing old and unwanted.