It’s safe to say that the newest album by Noah Kahan has been greatly anticipated by his fans. I didn’t know what to think going into my first listen of “The Great Divide: The Last Of The Bugs.” Knowing Kahan as an artist, I should have prepared myself more for the emotional turmoil I was about to be put through. Just hours after its release, Kahan surprised fans by dropping four additional songs for the extended edition of “The Great Divide.” These songs are: “Lighthouse,” “Staying Still,” A Few of Your Own,” and “Orbiter.”
In respect to each song from the album, I wanted to discuss my thoughts on each song descriptively. Going through the songs, I thought it was most meaningful to me to write about what their message was, or rather what made them so beautiful and haunting. I went into detail about what I thought these songs meant, but as with most things music is very open to interpretation. My thoughts on the album as a whole are at the end.
Kahan opens the album with such a strong song, one that actually made it into my top three. The piano instrumental opening was immediately soothing and enough to let me know that the song was going to take me places. For me, this song encapsulates perfectly the feeling of letting your childhood go, especially in the fleeting summertime. It’s the sick feeling in your gut when you think about being a kid again. Summertime was a magical place as a kid. The life chapter of warm nights, fireflies, playing in the street, fireworks, and what seemed like never ending laughter finally needs to be closed. There is some amazing symbolism to the lyric “everything you see out here will die.” It beautifully emphasizes the impermanence life brings with memories.
There is so much nostalgia encapsulated in this song, creating the perfect “End of August” feeling. There are a few bug sounds, but are quiet and fleeting, so if you don’t listen closely you could miss them completely, which was done masterfully. Getting older means trying things over and over again, even when it may feel too late. When you’re young, it’s easy to feel like the world is at your fingertips, like you could do absolutely anything. It’s harder to have that same mentality as you grow and the world pushes back. Life moves so quickly, it’s difficult to see how far you’ve come while trying to keep your head above the water. I really loved this song. I wasn’t expecting to cry right out of the gate, but it just ended up happening.
There is a much faster rhythm going for this song. In my mind, “Doors” is doing a few things. First, I can see this as a song about having a fear of hurting someone who becomes close to you. It talks about giving another person options, or “Doors,” to leave or find someone else. The narrator repeats this; it seems the other person stays with the narrator and doesn’t leave. The narrator in the song seems to believe they’re not good enough for the other person. They know they’re going to hurt the other eventually, so our narrator is trying to give them options to leave.
In addition, I also see this song as talking about a person with an overactive imagination. When we get strong feelings for someone, it’s easy to jump to seeing the worst in different situations, or ourselves, as a form of self sabotage. This idea becomes easier still since the narrator is talking about their rocky childhood. The song includes lines such as: “So, forgive me if I jump
at the rattle of your keys. ‘Oh, are you leavin’?,’ ‘No, babe, I’m just wakin’ up.’” I paused for a minute when I heard this. I could place myself in an eerily similar situation and needed a minute to get myself together for the rest of the song. It’s exhausting sometimes having an overactive imagination and overthinking situations. I really appreciated this song and felt a personal tug with it. It’s a good way of detailing how your active imagination can work against you.
I would argue that there isn’t one specific feeling this song embodies. There’s pain, emptiness, sadness, and emotional exhaustion. The upbeat sounding instruments misleads the listener in the beginning into thinking this song would be a happy one… spoiler alert, it’s not. This song is a different kind of sadness though. It has elements like trying to disappear, lying to your friends saying you’re busy just to be alone, burying yourself in alcohol day after day, and begging for the person who makes you feel better to come back to you. Within that scope, there are a few forms of self sabotage, but the song is also about telling yourself and another person that the time has come to patch the broken relationship.
“American Cars” reminds me of another song of Kahan’s called “Orange Juice.” In “Orange Juice,” it explores sobriety and the loss of friends, while “American Cars” is more about gaslighting other people and drinking. This could be two perspectives of the same situation, one from the friend and the other from our current narrator who is self destructing. The narrator for “American Cars” knows they have a friend that’ll always come back for them, which is a really powerful sentiment. One can only assume the emotional strain on their friendship, but the fact that they still have each other brings a little hope to the situation. I really liked how this song focused on just wanting one single person to make yourself feel better. Sometimes all we need is one person to quiet the immense noise in our heads. Cars that are American are known to be though, just like our narrator. Overall, this was a really good short story about having a supportive friend during an extremely hard time.
This song was really moving and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I could also relate to it quickly. The tempo of the instrumentation along with the steady pace of the lyrics made the piece really easy to understand, which I appreciated. The song is about waiting for someone to come back to you, even if you don’t know they ever will. The line “I don’t mind being your dead end, I think it’s fine to never move on,” was really powerful. It’s about keeping yourself as an option for someone even if they keep throwing you away casually. Listening to this song made my stomach drop. I could pinpoint relationships, both romantic and platonic, where I express the same feelings. Kahan’s harmonies and constant drum beat drive the song forward and help to emulate the emotionally broken tone.
I think the song explores such an interesting premise, one that is not talked about enough, which is the idea of rooting for someone’s downfall. I know that I do this, but I don’t think I personally recognize it, so being faced with the concept head on was something eye-opening. You won’t rub their failures in their face, you are just hoping they fail so there is no other option but to come back to you. There is even a moment in the song where it mentions wanting the other person to experience pain in their new relationship with the hope that they remember how good it felt to be with you. Listening to this song confronts me with my issues of self worth. In a way, it makes me realize that when people choose to leave your life it’s not healthy to keep wishing them back. There needs to be a time when you allow yourself to let go.
Oh boy, this song was really sad. There is some really slow instrumentation in the beginning, so you know you’re going to be in for a rough ride, especially with the slow moving lyrics. To me, “Lighthouse” is about looking back at someone who has left, often remembering their presence in a painful way. Things they once had their touch on, like their house, are changing without them there to see it. It’s hard to cope with this empty feeling and simply watching it unfold before you. You still hear people talking about them and get angry when they tell their story wrong.
The song is extremely melancholic and reflective. The tears came pretty fast and hard with this piece. It can be so hard letting someone go, especially if the way they left was particularly painful. The narrator calls the former home a “Lighthouse,” because they hope to see the person come back by morning. I think that is a great descriptor of what it feels like to miss someone. As long as their memory lasts, you’ll look for them. Perhaps you’ll see them when they aren’t there at all. You try to give something hope, attempting to make a situation a little brighter, because if you do, maybe something will change. Maybe it’ll get better, but it never does.
This song made me really teary eyed. The beginning starts out really slow and progresses into something quicker and a little more upbeat (or whatever the word for less soul crushing is because, let’s face it, the last thing Noah Kahan is is upbeat). I think of the song as an idea of a toxic relationship. The narrator says “I called you but I’d run out of words” as soon as the song starts, showing the emotional exhaustion of having nothing left to say about a relationship. When the song picks up, the narrator brushes off the worries or trouble with the relationship, seemingly willing to accept it for what it is. Anything and anyone is better than dealing with the loneliness of life.
There is some irony placed in the notion of “Paid Time Off” in the song. It seems the narrator can afford all the paid time off that they want, but are too exhausted to really do anything with it, perhaps because of their emotional exhaustion pertaining to the toxic relationship. Some people grow, move away, or change, and the narrator recognizes that, maybe even feeling some sadness attached to them. The romantic partner, however, doesn’t care. The narrator then says he “don’t mind at all” that their partner doesn’t care, and almost brushes it off. To me, this represents the sacrifices we make for relationships. One wants the big city job, the other just wants the simple life. Sometimes it’s worth it to give up your aspirations because you have someone by your side, but it’s sad seeing a person shrink into themselves.
I really liked this song. I picture it to be about wanting to hold on to a relationship through different physical or emotional strain. The narrator doesn’t want to keep starting over, so they want to know if the other person is going to stay or go. There were some very fact pacing lyrics in the very beginning that I didn’t understand without the lyrics, but it quickly drops down to a much more auditorily appealing pace. My favorite part of the song is when it said “All love must leave, oh, but search for it I will.” I thought that was a really moving way of saying you’ll stay optimistic for something you desperately want, which is to be loved.
There is a constant push and pull in this song. The narrator seems to want a straight up answer… will the other person stay still for them? There is a worry from the narrator that the other person will leave them, leading me to believe they’re still trying to cope from being left high and dry in former relationships. I can completely relate to this song though, and I think that contributes to why I like it so much. One of the worst things for me in a relationship is to be strung along with seemingly no progression. I would rather know straight-up if the other person is genuinely interested before I waste my time and effort on them. Even when you put immense time into a person, only to be let down, you try to put on a front and move on, laughing off being left broken hearted.
I really liked the change of pace this song brought. It felt more like a rock song and less like a completely devastating and slow one. This song is about wishing the best for someone. It’s about hoping someone, who I assume to be a friend, just be scared of ordinary things like ghosts, murders, or cancer, not to be afraid of what may come after life. It’s really refreshing hearing a song about someone who recognizes they could have done better in the past. There might not have been any concrete mistakes made, but their personality or mannerisms could have been better for the situation.
The narrator is finally aware about how poorly they acted when they were with the other person. They acknowledge that they weren’t “brave enough” to talk about the feelings of the other person at the time. I interpret this song as having past struggles with religion as well. The narrator specifically says, “I hope you threw a brick right into that stained glass.” This could be a really good metaphor to escape the prison that religion used to be for their friend. Having a song about wishing someone be afraid of regular things instead of their soul says a lot about the history of an individual. I liked this song; I thought it added some much needed color to this otherwise gray feeling album.
I have some very strong feelings about this song. It earns the right to be one of my absolute favorites of the album. This song is about helping someone just to say you tried, not necessarily because you wanted to fix what happened. The other person, rightfully, is frustrated because of this. You, who have everything, shouldn’t act out of pity. You can’t come back and pretend you care anymore when it’s clear you don’t. Just because you got a haircut or changed the way you look, it changes nothing of what’s on the inside.
This makes me think of a relationship where someone is only nice to you because they’ve already ruined relationships with everyone else and you happen to be the only one left. I really like how the song says “Help me if it helps you sleep.” I think this is a really powerful message about clearing a guilty conscience. Be kind to me if it makes you feel better about how horrible you were to everyone else, be kind if it can distract you from the kind of pain you’ve caused in your wake. Everyone is fine without you, so there is no reason to come back. Spare the pity looks and love for the stage where people actually want it. You’re not a hero because you cry on TV, so stop acting like one. Even if a lie turns into truth, it would still be a lie. Nobody is mistaking your guilt for your good deeds. You’re walking around like a ghost talking about how hard your life was expecting pity. The narrator tells the other person “at least I got a soul still, even if I’m in a bad place,” saying that even though they might not be as successful as the other, they still have dignity. This song protrudes pain and sits extremely heavy on your chest.
This song was slow and really emotional. I cried yet again listening to this, so Kahan has been doing an amazing job keeping me emotionally attached. This is another one of my favorites from the album. I really liked it because I liked the message it had. The song has themes of a strained friendship. The narrator is willing to do the work required to begin mending what was broken. There is so much lyrical exhaustion present that you can feel how the narrator feels: broken and empty. It almost sounds like the narrator wants a fight because a fight may be all they have left of the other person. People say the friend is alive, but all the narrator can see is a shadow of who the person once was. The narrator is wrestling with the feeling that their friend still thinks about something bad from the past.
The other person may only come back with an agenda. It is mentioned that the narrator will see them again in six months when they need their next song. The narrator tries to tell the truth about the other person, but when they call them out they come across as a bad person. It was so emotional when the song mentioned how the narrator wishes the other person could know them more and vice versa. They wish they could do nothing but sit and pass time with them, which is one of the most beautiful things a friendship brings. There are some very deep roots between the pair; it sounds like they’ve been friends since they were kids. One of the most heart wrenching lines was “I’ll say I love you and mean it this time.” That in itself is a lot to unpack, but it says a lot about the strained friendship without using many words at all. If the friend is willing to repair what was lost, the narrator is able to take the necessary steps to make it happen. “If you’re willing I’m able.”
This song tells the story about the inescapability of oneself even after moving far away; when you’re trying to leave your life behind, but some people see it as you being selfish. No matter what you do, you’ll always carry at least a piece of your old self with you. The line “All your new friends look a lot like your last” is a really strong showing of carrying your old life into your new one. You can’t just become a new or better person simply because you left and are trying to start over.
I really liked the flow of this song. I think there are specific lyrics that drive the tone of the song forward, like the one mentioned previously and especially in the chorus when he says, “Tryna run away, change your zip code, turns out that you’re still an asshole, it ain’t our fault that you aren’t suddenly somebody else.” This song has less of the melancholy feeling like the rest of the album and brings in a touch of resentment. The resentment is for a person who thinks they’ll change just because their physical location did, but that’s not how life works. I really liked that this song felt so different from the other ones so far. There is more of a rock sounding element with the instrumentation. A person can try and run away but they’ll still have reminders of the past and people they hurt. This song acts as a criticism for people running from their problems, and a part of me found it really therapeutic to listen to.
The song “23” has some really deep emotions tied to it. My interpretation of it is about seeing a close friend or sibling struggling with the dangers of addiction. The narrator has an internal battle trying to sort through his feelings. Even though the narrator wants the person to stay away from them, at the same time they want to see them clean. To me, this song relates back to “Dashboard” as the narrator tries to accept that the person they once loved may never come back to them, perhaps for the better. If the person does come back, it won’t really be the same one who left.
The complexity of the phrase “stay gone” is strong. It explores the depth of wanting someone to stay out of your life to preserve your memory of them. Instead of witnessing their downward spiral, it’s mentally easier to remember the other person how you want to, not as they are. This one hit pretty close to home. I may not have the exact same situation as Kahan, but I can picture who this song is about for myself. There is such a huge internal battle when thinking like this. Sometimes you’re mad at yourself because you feel you should try to do more for the other person. Other times you hold on to anger for them throwing their life away. It’s so easy to see and think about them in everything you do. People always want you to tell them the story about what happened, even if it hurts.
I really liked how this sounded more like a folk song with the instrumentation and melodies. The tone of the song is very bittersweet with the sense of a hopeful longing. The metaphor of leaving the porch light on is really well done. Physically and metaphorically, leaving the light on means that you’re leaving yourself as an option for another person, hoping they come back to you. In the end, the narrator needs to turn it off on their own; you can only wait so long for the unknown.
The quick moving lyrics against what sounds like a banjo, acoustic guitar, and fiddle makes the song sound like a classic Kahan hit. There are some very hard hitting lines that really make the song heartwrenching like “you can only do what pain allows,” “I’ll leave the porch light on, heartbroken, each morning when it’s me that turns it off,” and “you act like we just sit up here and wait for you to reappear.” There is no shame in calling it quits, but the narrator seems unwilling to give up on the relationship, which is both tragic and realistic. The song is a sentiment saying that even though the thoughts of you are like poison for a soul, I’ll always leave the light on for you; hopefully one day you’ll be the one to turn it off.
I can really appreciate this song. It explores the complex relationship and emotional exhaustion of a friendship breakdown with two different viewpoints of the past. Or, maybe the other person would like to act as if the past happened differently, in denial of the events that transpired. I liked the message of the song, but the sound of it fell just a little short compared to the rest of the sets. Don’t get me wrong, I like the song overall, but others from the album set the bar really high and this one just missed it.
Both people in the song seem to be exhausted for different reasons. This is another song from the album that made a personal impact on me. I would argue that friendship breakups are one of the hardest things to deal with in life, especially if you’re at a damaged place when it happens. In most cases, it’s easier to lie about being fine than admit how you really feel about everything. This is another song that doesn’t have that melancholic feeling like the others do, which I can appreciate. This song suggests a deep and emotionally rooted connection between a pair of people, making the discourse that much more unfortunate.
This is such a real and raw song. For starters, Kahan included a mistake, or blooper, at the beginning of the song. At the end, he asks if they should keep it with the mistake (obviously they did). It’s hard to pinpoint the right words to describe it, but the song sounds like Kahan is singing right in front of you, live in front of a fireplace during a hot summer night, and not in a studio. There are more cricket and bug noises adding to the overall effect.
I liked the homeyness that this song embodies. “Headed North” is about missing someone greatly. The narrator is hoping their friend gets bored of the life they have and will head back North, home, soon. I really love how it says “it was shit before but at least I had you” in the chorus. It sounds like the narrator is finally realizing how sucky of a place it is, but since they had their friend it didn’t seem to matter. Now that the friend is gone, you can’t help but notice all that’s wrong with the place simply because your joy has left it. Hometowns have a way of feeling emptier when your friends leave them. I find this to be true, especially with how quickly life moves. The song did a great job embodying the feeling of emptiness and silent longing for a friend to return to their roots.
Oh man, this one made me cry… a lot. There is a really soft opening, so as with “End of “August” I knew I would be in for a rough ride. “We Go Way Back” easily jumped to one of my favorites on the album featuring a prominent acoustic guitar. The narrator has seen the entire world, but nothing compares to the feeling of being with someone you love. They are the ones that can recognize when it gets bad in your head, even before you are ready to admit it to yourself. They’ve seen you at so many different stages of life, so they sometimes know you better than you know yourself.
The song does a great job talking about how the little things are enough. It tells the story of how someone loved you even before you made a name for yourself. They really loved you for just being you, not for everything that comes with it. If it’s just sweeping the porch or letting the dogs out, that’s enough in life doing it side by side with someone you cherish. Fame isn’t needed, all that is needed is peace. The narrator is asking for the other person to tell them that they still matter deep down. They need to hear that they still have substance in life and are still important to those around them, which is extremely emotionally charged. I love that the song is about being more than content with the quiet life. The narrator used to hate silence because it made them think about the other person. However, when they’re with the other person the silence is like music. They can hear a heart beat and know they’re not alone. They love you, and they can’t pretend they don’t. A relationship like this has the power to really heal a person.
I really liked this song, and I think it has some hard hitting themes. In my view, the song is about becoming “spoiled” with fame and success while it takes every ounce of energy from you. People watch you experience it and are jealous of what you have, but they don’t want to be just like you. They don’t want to be that tired when they come home. The line “they’ll say, ‘I wanna be you, but I don’t wanna be that’” really makes the experience apparent. The narrator is doing what they know how to do, and it’s anything and everything they have of themselves.
I think this song embodies pure exhaustion. Even though our narrator knows they have become successful and made a name for themselves, they can’t help but reflect on what’s done to them as a person. They’re setting up their future family well by providing for them thoroughly. However, is it really enough to just provide money? Shouldn’t you also give your energy and effort into your family as well? How can you do the latter if you’re so tired from what the rest of the world is doing to you? It’s important to think about what success can mean. There are different levels of success. Money is one, yes, but it’s not everything, and sometimes that thought becomes lost. Our narrator is betting, or rather hoping, that his home life drags him back to reality. He hopes his children will want to be as hardworking and successful as he is, but to also learn from his mistakes.
I think I’ve lost count with how many times I have cried during this album, but this one did it again. The song starts really smooth with what sounds like just a soft guitar and piano with a little drum. It musically builds higher and higher before eventually diminishing again in the end. I think what makes “All Them Horses” hurt specifically is when it feels like no matter how many friends you have you’re always going to feel alone. It really does pay to dance around and sign about your pain. People eat it up.
When you don’t look afraid, it’s easier to hide how much you’re actually struggling. Kahan uses his life and fame as a metaphor with the horses; they’re wild and difficult to control and you may be trampled by them. Everyone can look happy in a picture, but it’s what’s behind the eyes that tell the actual story. I don’t think a song has been this gut wrenching for me in a long time. The lyric “Maybe I’m manic again, but I think this time I’m out for good” is especially heartbreaking. It shows how our narrator is done fighting or trying to get better, ready to accept his mental health for what it is. There’s a sense that Kahan has traded a piece of his soul to get his record deal, which is the price he might have paid for his success, whether he was ready to or not. Every time I listen to this song I cry, so it’s not fair to place it anywhere but with my favorites.
This song was a complete 180 from the previous one. Instead of singing about sadness and guilt, this song is more about taking a little jab at someone who is trying to associate themselves with you, living life exactly like you would. The other person lacks originality and tries to adopt Kahan’s life struggles without really having any of their own. Some people only show up for you when there’s something to gain, so there needs to be some self reflection done if that’s you.
Kahan writes this song for the people who need to make memories and live life on their own. People need to stop chasing fame so extremely. Stop acting like someone’s best friend when you barely, or don’t, know them. The overall tone of the song is a lot brighter if you choose to view the piece as having a happy and optimistic vibe, which is what I had the first time I listened to it. Something I really appreciate about Kahan is how diverse his music can be. It can mean a million different things to different people. I really liked how this song could both be a small jab at other people, or could purely be a song about chasing new memories. There are some hard hitting lines like “I grew up with a feelin’ that what’s good must be fleetin’,” and “That if I’m happy, I’m dreamin’, then I’m prepared for you leavin’,” but these lyrics are pretty classic Noah Kahan.
Can someone please tell Noah to stop cutting the onions? I’ve been through enough with this album alone. This song is a beautiful representation of how it feels to be isolated and alone. There is a heavy lyrical and echoing feeling present contributing to the personal haunting that comes with feeling like an outsider. One of the most draining things is feeling like an unwanted person. Most people never care about how hard the climb was, they only care when you get close to success. Even then, when you fail so close to the top, they just tell you to brush it off. Brush off all the hurt and pain it’s taken to get to where you are and keep pleasing other people. Keep doing what you’re good at because that’s all people will ever want from you.
There are some absolutely exquisite lines in this song. One of my favorites is “Some will never know they’re beautiful until the crowd points it out for them.” This speaks volumes on self worth. It’s so hard to see the good things about yourself without people telling you what’s there. The song is very reflective about anxiety and fame. The world is relentless and repetitive. We may need people or things that don’t need us in return. Wolves need the moon, and we need relationships. What really hurts, though, is when we realize that we aren’t needed by anyone. It’s so hard to cope with that. The last lines of the song, “If I’m gonna lose you either way ,I’m gonna lose you either way” are extremely haunting. It’s recapping the inevitable drift and loss, as well as letting go of the hope for a better outcome. This song is in my top five for the entire album. Something about it is so ethereal, real, and powerful.
I think this song is how it feels when you see one of your best friends pass away at a young age and you’re stuck with nothing but the memory of them. It’s about processing grief in a certain way, one that may only make sense to the owner. You may be expecting to see them in places familiar even though they’re really gone. Grief never really ends or goes away, it just ebbs and flows through you at will. There are so many unanswered questions about life and death, sometimes it is just easier to imagine the outcome you want.
The age old question, where do we go when we die, may never be answered in its complexity. Kahan writes that he wouldn’t mind if it were right here. If we die and stay right here, then he may be afforded the opportunity to be with his best friend once again, but perhaps that’s just wishful thinking. Every day you relive from the past turns into a bad dream; it leaves a sour taste in your mouth that you can never get rid of. You would do things much differently if you could, but you won’t ever get the opportunity. “Dan” is a representation of the life Kahan left behind. One of the heaviest lines in the song is “I think I stood right here back when Carlo died.” This is alluding to one of Kahan’s friends who passed away. You remember the exact spot, the exact words, and the exact motions of when you were there. It’s hard to get rid of those thoughts, but the memories are what keeps him alive. I really liked this song and thought it was the perfect conclusion to one of the most soul crushing albums I’ve ever experienced.
My overall thoughts:
Every song was unique, sad, hopeful, and definitely came from Noah Kahan. He might be the only human alive to convey what these lyrics say, mean, and feel. Part of me is worried that Kahan will take a break from music, especially with the way he talks about how hard his fame has become.
The songs themselves were masterpieces. They left me staring off into the distance questioning what it really meant to be human. There are so many mistakes and imperfections that come along with life, but you need to choose how you handle them. You need to think about what the most important thing in your life is and stick with it. This album is one where you close your eyes and just envision it. Life. Everything that makes you, you. If I could summarize what this album felt like for me it would be simple. “The Great Divide: The Last Of The Bugs” is a wave of nostalgia that encapsulates your whole body. The album was a movie.