Down, Down, Stream Songtext
von Zach Bryan

I bought a house from a man in New York
This house had four small apartments in it when he got it in ′78

He said he had seen children grow old and
Elderly people die in each little apartment
He said he didn't change the wooden floors for sixteen
Years because he knew where each scuff came from

We talked for a bit and he took me around the corner
And told me everything had gone down downstream from him
Like that cold water of his life had gone up
His back, down his front and around his legs
That before he could drink any of it, it had already passed him by


I went home after drinking with him a bit
And made a pallet and a fire on the floor
I closed my eyes right there in the middle of one
Of the coldest nights Manhattan had seen all winter
I imagined my dog jacking me back home, cutting through
Some Oklahoman landscape of greens and moisture and heat
And finding some stream running right there in the clearing
He jumped, chasing something naturally, and I
Just let that water run past my shoulders, under
My neck and down to my feet and down downstream

Every good and bad thing that had ever
Happened to me floating down downstream
There just floating: the Tulsa bars and all the throw-up in
Them, the ducks we killed, the fights we had, the New York
3 AMs, the piano through my neighbor′s wall and the Italian
Restaurant voices mashing together through the opposite one
My mother's couch that I sang her songs on, the African desert heat
Running from the police in school and my father's soul and pride

There just floating by: every woman I had ever
Loved and every man I had ever called a brother
The New Year′s fireworks and the July 4th′s too
Every failure and every ugly little victory
Screaming off the Grand Canyon and hearing one of my best
Friends had gotten into a wreck under some cold, dark western sky
My sister laughing, the streets of London and my band
Playing sweet notes and a hundred thousand people


I took a big gulp and wondered if all that water led to
More streams and those led to some big ocean somewhere
I prayed all that suffering and all those
Belly laughs led to some big ocean somewhere

As soon as I took that big gulp, my eyes opened to a fire in that
Living room and the fire department came and hydrant filthy New
York water was going up my back, down my front and down downstream
And so were we