Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season” Captures New England’s Essence
Noah Kahan's Stick Season was released on October 14. Source: Abby Audenino '23
Noah Kahan, a Vermont native, released his third album “Stick Season” on Oct. 14. The title of the album comes from a term frequently used to describe the period of time between autumn and winter when the trees have all lost their leaves, but it has yet to snow. The term and the image it invokes draw a strong sense of nostalgia and for some, even sadness. These are some of the themes prevalent throughout the indie-sounding album.
The leading tracks, “Northern Attitude” and “Stick Season,” were released as singles prior to the release of the album and garnered great popularity on TikTok. Both songs draw upon the feeling of fear in being too vulnerable with a loved one, as evident in the chorus of “Northern Attitude” – “If I get too close/ And I’m not how you hoped/ Forgive my northern attitude/ Oh, I was raised out in the cold.”
What Kahan does remarkably well in this album is weave together the complicated feeling of being tied to your hometown, while also trying to navigate growth, love and fear in creating a life in a place that is separate from the one you grew up in. While the whole album feels like a type of twisted love/hate letter to his hometown, there are a few tracks in which these themes are amplified.
On “Homesick,” he takes a term that is commonly associated with missing the place in which you grew up and flips it to discuss how sick and tired he is of being in his hometown. He manages to expertly capture how difficult it is to still be in your very small hometown following your graduation from high school, and how it invokes a sense of fear that you may never make it out. He sings, “Well I’m tired of dirt roads/ Named after high school friend’s grandfathers,” in the second verse, only to follow it up with the chorus – “I would leave if only I could find a reason/ I’m mean because I grew up in New England/ I got dreams, but I can’t make myself believe them/ Spend the rest of my life with what could’ve been/ And I will die in the house that I grew up in.”
Kahan also spotlights mental health throughout the album. On “Stick Season,” he sings, “So I thought if I could pile something good on all my bad/ That I could cancel out the darkness I inherited from dad.” He also focuses on the mental health of some of his loved ones. On “Orange Juice,” he discusses a friend’s struggle with alcoholism. In the first verse, he sings, “Honey come over/ The party’s gone slower/ And no one will tempt you/ We know you got sober.”
The album ends with Kahan coming home in a bittersweet track titled “The View Between Villages.” He references passing a road he knew fondly as a child, remembering those he has lost and the feeling of being young again without care or concern. He sings, “A minute from home but I feel so far from it,” and ends the song with, “I’m back between villages and everything’s still.”