Noah Kahan, known for his folk-country sound and his outstanding lyrics, has been emerging into mainstream music for the past couple of years. I know that whenever I hear a song from his album, Stick Season, there will be tears.
I once heard someone say that Noah Kahan describes the feeling of wanting to get better and worse at the same time, and I couldn’t explain the emotion of his discography better. Kahan recently announced his new album, The Great Divide, which will be released on April 24, and dropped the lead single, “The Great Divide,” on Jan. 30.
New Music
Kahan is no stranger to writing about religious themes in his songs — specifically the Christian ideals of faith and worship. He evokes these themes in songs such as “Call Your Mom,” “Dial Drunk,” and “Godlight.”
His newest song, “The Great Divide,” seems to especially highlight religious trauma, or the fear of God, in a person who already deals with great anxieties.
Like many of Kahan’s other songs, this new single revolves around his feelings of guilt, projecting anger within himself for being ignorant or hesitant towards a person close to him who was struggling. This song acknowledges that the two were never close on an emotional level because of their mental state. Blaming himself, he repeats the thematic nature of his song “Orange Juice.”
Impactful Lyrics
Kahan writes, “We got cigarette burns on the same side of our hands, we ain’t friends” to convey that their struggles were their only commonality. This also hints at mortality, which is insisted upon in that first verse with the lyrics, “And I’m high enough to still care if I die.”
He introduces the burden of religion in the chorus: “I hope you settlе down, I hope you marry rich / I hope you’re scarеd of only ordinary sh*t / Like murderers and ghosts and cancer on your skin / And not your soul and what He might do with it.”
The pronoun “He” in the last line most certainly refers to God, and in context, Kahan is referring to him as somewhat of a punishing deity. This suggests that the subject of the song had, in the past, worried about death, or the judgment he might face by this God for specific sins or beliefs.
Religious Themes and Metaphors
Kahan is declaring here that removing the anxiety of this religious guilt would be helpful for this person to move on in their mental struggles. He defines this stress of religion as almost obsessive by comparing it to murderers and cancer, making the latter sound oddly mundane.
Later in the song, Kahan writes, “I hope you threw a brick right into that stained glass / I hope you’re with someone who isn’t scared to ask.”
The metaphor of stained glass, a common staple in churches, reiterates the action of breaking through religious guilt. Sometimes the weight of a judgmental God can be overbearing, especially when you feel that your personality or actions defy that religion. Yet sometimes it’s impossible to ignore the ideals absorbed through a youth focused on worship.
Kahan reflects that struggle perfectly in this song, including lyrics that explain his regret for not fully understanding what his friend was going through. Capturing his usual emotional writing style, he’s speaking from hindsight and is self-deprecatory about his past selfishness.
Observably, Kahan also sparingly acknowledges his own struggle, separating it from his expression of regret. In the context of depression and suicidal ideation, he expresses himself as a coward compared to his friend.
In devastation, he also dictates his ignorance to this spinelessness. The lyric, “I hope you’re with someone who isn’t scared to ask,” details his fear of connecting on a deeper level, extending altruism where he isn’t familiar.
I take these specific lyrics as representing a person who isn’t ready to accept the truth or is scared to even acknowledge the possibility of their counterpart experiencing so much pain. This song is full of the anguish of comparing traumas and reaching for the freedom that forgiveness brings.
However, the subject, and it seems Kahan as well, believes that God can’t bring the acceptance that they dearly need. Sometimes, the only way out is by breaking from the confines that keep you trapped instead of trying to become comfortable with the rope burn.
With “The Great Divide,” Kahan gives us another heartbreaking song that details friendship, faith, and a mental spiral. I can’t wait for the rest of the album, knowing he has so much more to bring.
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