A Review of Noah Kahan’s Stick Season, an Album I Have Never Heard
It’s late in the morning and I’m in a car with people that, although I’ve been in school with them for the past eight years, I barely know. Driving home through winding country roads, passing trees and trees and cows and trees, the car is silent. It’s... awkward. It’s senior year and we have nothing but our location in common anymore, but we’re holding on through the last months before we head off to new lives, schools, and strangers.
And then a song comes through the speakers, “Mess” by Noah Kahan. Suddenly the silence collapses and we’re all singing along because everyone in the car has actually taken the “89 to Boston”, and we’re momentarily united by Kahan’s moody lyrics. (Even though we all know that it’s actually 89 to 91 to Boston, but poetic license, right?)
We cut Noah Kahan a lot of slack around here because he’s the micro-celebrity of Hanover High School. His career started on stage before us in school talent shows for as long as we can remember, and every kid has at least one of his songs on their playlists in residual loyalty. When I’d meet someone from outside our little bubble, my standard icebreaker was: “Hey, do you know Noah Kahan?” The answer was almost always a confused “no”. “He went to my high school,” I would end limply, their confusion deflating my efforts at desperate small talk. He did not seem to exist outside of the town I grew up in, and yet I bragged about our connection as if foreseeing that it might actually mean something one day. And now, finally, living in New York, I am haunted by his music. Whether wafting through the aisles of CVS or circulating around TikTok, everyone around me seems to be obsessed with Noah Kahan and his 2022 album, Stick Season. My Californian roommate suddenly wants to come home with me to Vermont to experience the misery of stick season for herself. (For those lucky enough to not be familiar with New England’s quirky six season calendar, stick season is the few weeks between the last leaf falling and the first real snow, characterized by bare trees, gloomy skies, and general unhappiness.)
So here we are, Noah Kahan is gaining fame and finally my old connection is starting to mean something, but I can’t actually bring myself to listen to his new album. Call me conceited, but I don’t think this will hinder my ability to rate Stick Season, because I know what I’ll find therein. For example, I am sure it recreates the folksy sound that takes me back to the green mountains. I can already hear the drumbeat that will provide a perfect backing for screaming out the car window while driving across a back road that looks like all of the others. His album cover has a visceral effect on me. I know those hills, that mist. I can smell the grass, the trees, and the air warning it’s about to rain, thundering Vermont rain that crashes on the tin roof. I imagine his songs will emulate his earlier music, warbling themes of love and home over an acoustic guitar.
If I gave the album a real, honest listen, I might even like it. But before even pressing play I know it will be lacking. I grew up down the road from him. He’s been famous for years in my little town, as a musician, yes, but more as the local legend who supposedly lost a toe to the snow. I know where he comes from, I know who he used to be, and I guess I want him to sing the truth, my truth, and to bring us all with him.
To me, the music I haven’t heard feels like it's holding something back, leaving words unsaid. Gaping voids between lines like the potholes in the interstate, carved out by endless brutal winters. I’ve read a few lyrics, heard a couple choruses, and I just feel angry. Bernie Sanders is emailing me about him, everybody around me is talking about him, but I just feel oddly betrayed and possessive. Without ever having much interest in him personally, I feel the urge to become a gatekeeper, to remind people that they simply do not understand Noah Kahan like I do. And so what if I have never actually listened to the album myself, he’s singing about my life, and he needs to get it right.
Am I jealous? Maybe. Am I panicking watching a kid from my hometown performing at Radio City while I play bass in my dorm room? Potentially. Perhaps I’m afraid that to let his music into my brain is to allow it to taunt me with how far he’s come and how far I have to go. I’m sorry Noah Kahan, I hope that you can one day surpass the unfairly high standards I’ve set for you just because once upon a time your big brother was friends with my big brother. I hope one day you give me no choice but to listen to your albums, unable to nitpick your words because it’s the soundtrack of my life and the dead zone before you reach the bridge and the misty river. You know what I’m talking about.
Just for that, for imaginary reasons about hometown connections, dreams, and escape plans, because of the distance between us and how you’ve written me wrong, I rate this album that I have avoided and may never sit down and really listen to, a 6/10.
Did I tell you we went to the same school?
Words // Lily-Rose Voelkel
