You ever just not like a song that everybody else does? Let’s talk about Noah Kahan for a second. “I hope you settle down I hope you marry rich.” Car’s still in the shop, waiting on the bus. “Stick Season” was a big breakout TikTok hit in 2022, and it was unusual for a couple reasons. It wasn’t particularly memeable, and it wasn’t particularly danceable. What it did have was this kind of relentless, insistent, optimistic-shaped chorus that was about something incredibly sad: a breakup. There was something about the talkiness of that record that never quite sat right with me. The crack in the voice, that reference to Covid. And so here we are, four years later, and he’s back. Somehow, “The Great Divide” doesn’t quite rankle me the same way. “Stick Season” about a broken relationship. “The Great Divide” about a broken friendship. “Stick Season” with a chorus that kind of goes up at the end. “The Great Divide,” a chorus that kind of goes down at the end. But with a curiously similar syllabic structure. Noah Kahan is making power folk music essentially, sort of classic American roots, but made with extra punch. Like a lot of the best Noah Kahan songs, they demand this level of patience that you have to really let the story unfold. Thank you. Sometimes, I think Noah Kahan loves words more than he loves cadence. But, you know what? It’s OK to be talky — “This is Fifth Avenue and Fifth Street.” Some might say I’m talky. And when you’re listening to “The Great Divide,” these are jampacked quatrains. There’s sadness oozing out of every available corner. Kahan’s reminiscing about what it must have been like for his friend to go through such a tough life and kind of wondering from a distance why he wasn’t able to understand him better. For me, this is where “The Great Divide” succeeds and “Stick Season” didn’t quite hit. Still pained, still tortured, newly wise. He’s got his angst, and he figured out how to use it. — Also, you’re supposed to say thank you to the bus driver when you get on. — Yeah? Like, are you being funny or … This is about wistful memory. The spaces between people that seem impossible to traverse.
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