The season of the sticks is ending and new “Doors” are opening up for Noah Kahan with his new album “The Great Divide.”
Kahan has been creating music since he was 9-years-old and released his first album “Busyhead” in 2019. Kahan is a folk pop music artist whose career took off in 2020 when he released his album, “Stick Season.”
On Jan. 30, he released his single “The Great Divide.” This single was a great opening for Kahan’s music after his nearly three-year break from releasing music. The great divide perfectly describes how it feels to grow apart from friends and realize you should’ve been there for them.
Following “The Great Divide” single release, he released another single titled, “Porch Light” March 13. This song explores the feeling of wanting someone you love to want more but also hoping they choose a simpler life and come home.
Finally, on April 24, he released his album “The Great Divide.” The whole album explores how relationships change and cause everyone involved to feel so many different emotions. This album is written from not only his perspective but those of his family, friends and people from his home town. These songs devastatingly describe the feeling of losing people you want and wishing for things to go back to normal.
The album opens with “End of August” which starts with a beautiful piano intro that leaves the listener with a nostalgic feeling and immediately draws the audience in. This song is such a meaningful beginning to the album and leaves you wanting more. Kahan is conveying his feelings as summer fades into fall, and you feel your emotions changing and slowly slipping into seasonal depression.
My favorites from the album are “Doors” and “American Cars,” and “Staying Still” from the deluxe album “The Great Divide- The Last of The Bugs.” “American Cars” is such a sad song but the upbeat feel to the song makes me still feel like dancing. The song is about avoiding the emotions that come with leaving behind your hometown and fighting the feeling of wanting to stay behind. It looks at the relationships and the people around you, and goes back and forth between how you are now and how you used to be.
I really enjoyed this line from the bridge, “Make him talk, make it stop, all I want is a dialogue, Oh, we’re drownin’ here, I’ve gotta stay for Mom, Make the house a home, you know how to talk, Well, you did back then, we would talk so much, And it’s fine we don’t, but can you come home?”. This line really sums up the song as a whole. Kahan is having a conversation with a person from his past and desperately wants them to build back their relationship and just talk. “Doors” is about sabotaging a relationship you have with someone because you’re worried they will hurt you because of people you’ve been with before.
Kahan uses doors as a metaphor for not letting people get close to you. In the second verse Kahan says, “Have you ever stared directly at the sun? Have you ever shared some closeness, so exposed, to have it spit back by someone?” These lyrics really show you how much he wanted the other person in this situation to understand the way he was feeling.
“Staying Still” was a much anticipated song that Kahan had been using to tease the album. He left fans confused when the title wasn’t seen on the track list. But on April 25, Kahan released his deluxe album, “The Last of The Bugs.” I feel like “Staying Still” is an extension of “Doors.” It is that time after you finally let that person in and you just feel afraid they will leave or hurt you like in the past. In the bridge, Kahan sings, “Put in love, put in hours, put in ceremony, As I was, how you were, what was there before me, Never mind, never mind, oh, forget about it, I’ll be good, I’ll be fine, I can laugh about it.” He refers to putting in so much work and still not receiving the love you feel you deserve.
Kahan has expressed that sad music makes him feel less alone and helps him process emotions. I feel like many of his fans would say the same about his music. Kahan will be performing over 57 shows in 2026 across North America and Australia.
