Zach Bryan & His Mom

"November Air"

I listened to “November Air” for the first time on a long drive from Northern California back home to Los Angeles. It was late at night, and I was a newly-converted fan of Zach Bryan at this point. There was a heavy fog in the air that night, and it colored my understanding of the song. I realized first that this was a song about Zach Bryan’s late mother, and later—on repeat listens—that the song’s central conceit, “November Air,” serves as metaphorical barrier or liminal space between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead.

At this stage of his career, almost all of Zach Bryan’s songs were stripped-back, acoustic country with simple melodies, and “November Air,” which features fingerpicking during the verses and strumming during the chorus, is no exception. A cello and fiddle come in and out of the song to provide a swelling texture throughout, but the main emotional vehicle is Bryan’s sweet, raw singing.

You remember sittin' there
One rainy night in a well-used chair
Tellin' me how well you used to dance

The western wind will come again
And make you feel like you did
When all those cowboys didn't stand a chance

The song’s introductory verse sets the song’s narrative framework: Zach Bryan, speaking to his late mother, remembering the things she used to tell him. There is a nice touch of religious mysticism here as well. The western wind will come again, he sings, which suggests a gust of heaven, an afterlife that will make his mother feel young again. In the next verse he takes it a step further, and speaks the words that he wants to say so badly.

Two kids 'bout twenty-three
And the sunsets you'll never see
You were yellin' "supper" from the yard

And they grew old and sailed away
Called you on phones from far away
Wrote you novels on postcards

The lines are heartbreakingly sweet; Bryan gets right to the point. He mentions the sunsets his mom will never see; he remembers writing her cards from somewhere far away in the Navy (Bryan was stationed, among other places, in Djibouti and Bahrain).

Zach Bryan in the navy

And all you ever wanted
Was to see your children fly
Maybe one day they're a star

But there ain't no leavin'
This small town this evenin'
You can't even drive your own car

Through November air (x3)

Here the singer aches for his mother’s dreams, which are made all the more brutally poignant by their having come true. Because Zach Bryan did fly, he became a star. But his mom can’t see it for herself. When he says that “there ain’t no leavin’,” I think he is reestablishing the fantastical nature of this song. The conversational lyrics are taking place in his head; the woman he sings to isn’t really there. Or where she is—the “small town” where she died—is in the non-physical dimension.

In the song, “November Air” serves as a barrier between life and death, between the world where Annette Bryan lives and the world—the real, physical world—where Zach Bryan lives. If his mother was able to drive through November Air, she might be able to see her children again. But she can’t; she has passed on.

Dear Ma, how's it goin'?
Was the weather fair last week?
Dear Ma, they were wonderful
All the sights you'll never see

And dear Ma, if I could hold you, I'd grab you by the arms
Tell you what it means
You could take a worthless poor boy from the flats
And make him mean something

The mention of “all the sights” she will never see has always been especially painful for me. The Bryans were a military family, decidedly on the lower end of middle-class in small-town Oklahoma. Zach Bryan has become wealthy beyond his wildest dreams now; he is well on his way to being a billionaire. But he can’t take his mom to a steakhouse in New York City. He’ll never fly her to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower. These are things she will never see.

The chorus of this song is basically its own verse; in many of Zach Bryan’s best works, you get the sense that he is running out of space for his lyrics, like he’s always got more to say. He takes on a vocal urgency in the second stanza here, his voice nearly cracking as he sings if I could hold you, I’d grab you by the arms, tell you what it means. You get the sense that he desperately needs to thank her, to tell her more than he could while she was alive.

Tell us what you wanted to
In all we did, we needed you
Your dreams were too small to care

But I'm always reminded
If you look hard, you'll find it
Memory gives warmth to right here

Through November air (x3)

In the song’s final verse, Bryan makes one more impossible request. He asks his mother to tell him what she “wanted to,” hinting perhaps at a dark reality: his mother, who died due to complications related to alcoholism, may not have had the chance to say everything she wanted.

He brings himself back to reality in the next stanza, reminding himself that even if they can’t physically speak, his mother’s presence is available—bordering on tangible—conjurable through memory, which gives warmth to the present. And that memory is so powerful, so transcendent, as to pierce the aforementioned barrier of the titular “November Air.” In these words the song is elevated to near-seance; Bryan has begged for a conversation with his mother, said what he needed to say, and—finally—realized that he is capable of finding warmth and comfort in the simple, essential memory of sitting around and talking to his mom.

Zach and Annette Bryan