Earlier in August, a 19-year-old Pizza Hut manager from Ohio named Summer Rios won over America's Got Talent (AGT) viewers and judges with a stirring cover of Zach Bryan's breakout 2022 hit "Something in the Orange."
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"You know, Summer, I think you should be doing this more than slicing pizza," judge Howie Mandel said following the audition. "I feel like we've just got a peek at what you can do and you needed to open this door a crack, and you've opened it more than a crack to just take off."
Mandel's colleages brought similar praise, with Heidi Klum saying that Rios sounded like she'd "swallowed Rhianna."
After "yeses" from all four judges, host Terry Crews asked Rios if she's prepared for her life to change forever.
"Oh, I'm so ready! I'm so done with cutting pizzas," she responded. "I smell like pizza every night, and I don't want to do that."
@agt Replying to @Zach Bryan This is @sum??' moment. ? watch #agt on @NBC and stream on @Peacock #somethingintheorange
Bryan added a glowing complement of his own in a comment on AGT's TikTok post of a clip from Rios' audition.
"You sang this so much more beautifully than I ever could, thank you and it's yours now," Bryan wrote.
A Grammy-nominated (Best Country Solo Performance) smash, "Something in the Orange" made an impact upon its April 2022 release as a single. Its legend grew the following month when a rawer revision, "Something in the Orange— Z&E's Version," appeared on Bryan's 34-song introduction to the mainstream. Ultimately, Bryan's surprise megahit topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart and peaked at a beyond-respectable No. 10 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100.
An Oklahoma native, Bryan doesn't grant many interviews, so there's not a lot of first-person insight about the song's inspiration. The meaning of it and other Spotify smashes by the singer-songwriter aren't exactly cryptic, though. Orange represents the setting sun for someone on the wrong end of a breakup as our narrator tries to cope with the inevitable end of a crucial chapter in their life. Visuals in its music video further drive home the obvious.
As a great country song should, it tells a specific story while touching on a universal theme that, unfortunately, speaks to a lot of listeners' own experiences.
