Country star Zach Bryan is turning to poetry after a week of political whiplash.
The “Something in the Orange” singer posted a cryptic passage on Instagram Tuesday—a section from Wendell Berry’s 1973 poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.”
The verse, which urges readers to “love someone who does not deserve it” and “denounce the government and embrace the flag,” arrived just days after a right-wing meltdown over Bryan’s unreleased song that takes aim at Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The backlash began Friday, when Grammy Award-winning Bryan teased a track that included the lines: “I heard the cops came, cocky motherf---ers ain’t they?/And ICE is gonna come bust down your door.” The clip triggered outrage from Trump allies, right-wing commentators, and even government officials.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson blasted the song in a statement to Newsweek, twisting Bryan’s own titles into political barbs.
“While Zach Bryan wants to Open The Gates to criminal illegal aliens and has Condemned heroic ICE officers, Something in the Orange tells me a majority of Americans disagree with him and support President Trump’s great American Revival,” Jackson said. “Godspeed, Zach!”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also joined the pile-on, calling the track “extremely disappointing” and adding that she was “disheartened” by it. “He just compromised it all by putting out a product such as that that attacks individuals who are just trying to make our streets safe,” she told Newsweek.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin offered her own jab when reached by the Daily Beast, saying Bryan should “stick to ‘Pink Skies,’ dude.”
ICE even released another action movie-inspired montage of immigration raids, this time set to Zach Bryan’s “Revival.”
Bryan, who served eight years in the U.S. Navy, broke his silence on Tuesday. “When you hear the rest of the song, you will understand the full context that hits on both sides of the aisle,” he wrote on Instagram.
“Everyone using this now as a weapon is only proving how devastatingly divided we all are. We need to find our way back.”
His choice to quote Berry, a Kentucky farmer-poet known for championing humility, conscience, and rebellion against conformity, wasn’t random. The poem he posted celebrates doing “what won’t compute”—standing apart from systems of power and embracing contradiction.
Its famous line, “Denounce the government and embrace the flag,” is widely read as a call to love one’s country by resisting its corruption.
In 2010, Berry was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama for his achievements as a poet, novelist, farmer, and conservationist.
