The collab appears on Bryan’s new self-titled album, out now
One of the immediate highlights from Zach Bryan’s brand-new self-titled album is “I Remember Everything,” a somber duet with Kacey Musgraves.
The aching, simmering ballad recounts a past summer beach romance in an ’88 Ford, with a verse each from the perspective of the two past lovers. “A cold shoulder at closing time/You were begging me to stay ’til the sun rose,” Bryan, and then, later, Musgraves, sings as the two vocalists alternate leads on each subsequent chorus. “Strange words come on out/of a grown man’s mouth when his mind’s broke” is one memorable line.
Bryan first teased “I Remember Everything” earlier this summer, releasing a snippet of the song to fans. When he announced the tracklisting to Zach Bryan earlier this month, he clarified that “I Remember Everything” was an original, and not, as some had wondered, a cover of John Prine’s posthumous ballad. “I originally changed the name out of respect but just didn’t sit right after I wrote the song,” Bryan tweeted last week.
Musgraves has been relatively quiet in the past few years since the release of her 2021 album Star-Crossed, dropping a handful of covers and jumping on the occasional track as a featured artist.
“I Remember Everything” comes halfway through Zach Bryan, the singer’s follow-up to his 2022 blockbuster American Heartbreak. “Some of them are heavy, some of them are hopeful,” Bryan said of the songs upon the album’s release. “But more than anything what’s most important to me is that they’re all mine.”