Passed Alger Brook Road, I’m over the Bridge – A minute from Home, but I feel so far from It – The Death of my Dog, the stretch of my Skin – It’s all Washing over me, I’m angry again – The View Between Villages

Stick Season by Noah Kahan is a folk album released in 2022, marking a departure from Kahan’s previous more pop, or at least electronic, sounding albums. Stick season is a truly unique album, both in terms of music and artist expression, but also in terms of cultural significance and it’s ability to create a time capsule for the beginning years of COVID. While this album is not Noah Kahan’s first, it does have the feeling of a debut album – each song feels personal, raw, and full of emotion. There are moments when you get pulled away from the music by the lyrics and you are left replaying the lines over and over in your head thinking “Did Noah have the same upbringing as me? Does EVERYONE feel that way?” Songs like “Orange Juice” and “Halloween” might not be “radio worthy” or “Tiktok friendly”, but the message that Noah is conveying is captivating, and I would be lying if I said “Orange Juice” hadn’t made me tear up the first few listens. But the music alone is not why I wanted to write this article; I love this album for it’s ability to throw a wrench in my perception of music in recent years.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have a tendency to find a particular music artist and stick to them, rarely venturing out to find new bands. This, coupled with the fact that I also tend to be stuck about 15 years in the past with regards to pop culture, makes for a difficult time with new music. That is, until my wife started to hear Noah Kahan’s “Northern Attitude” on Tiktok. Tiktok, as a whole, is not my cup of tea; I feel that it has created a whole movement of what I refer to as “15 second songs” – basically songs that have one or two good lines that get played in perpetuity. “Northen Attitude” has a wonderful pre-chorus in which Kahan says “If I get too close, and I’m not how you hoped, forgive my northern attitude – I was raised out in the cold.” These lines in particular became (what felt like) an overnight Tiktok sensation. These lines resonated not only with my wife and I, but apparently everyone on Tiktok in the early days of Covid. Kahan has since rereleased the album twice, once with additional songs, and another with features on each of the original albums songs. Kahan managed to transcend the overnight Tiktok sensation and become one of the defining artists of the Covid years.

The early months of Covid, at least in the midwest of the United States, was full of anxiety, misinformation, fear, and a sense of loneliness. Every day it felt like we were getting different instructions from both the government and health professionals, and ultimately it lead to many (myself included) feeling rather numb. I remember discussions of the city I lived in at the time going into lockdown and curfew, and the idea that I would need a “hall pass” of sorts to get to and from work. And then came the anger. Every day we would wake up, and the death toll would raise. Every day more and more people were added to the insurmountable pile of names. While I never want to go back to 2020 or 2021, it is impossible to listen to this album and not be pulled back. Kahan perfectly incapsulates the feelings of this time, with songs like “The View Between Villages” or “Growing Sideways”. The View Between Villages discusses the feelings of homesickness – in the normal sense of missing home and wanting to go back, but also in terms of going back home and then realizing that you are no longer the person you were when you lived there and can hardly recognize it anymore.

“Stick Season” is an album that will catch you off guard. The folk-blues instrumentation and Kahan’s almost bluegrass like vocals lull you into a sense of false security – “this is just an album about Vermont in the Winter.” You might throw it on while driving on a lazy Sunday, or while working on a school paper way later than you planned on staying up, and then you’ll hone in a lyric. It’ll pull you out of your concentration and cause you to focus on the rest of the music. Then you’ll find yourself drawn back in time to a period in your life that you remember fondly. A simpler time. When you were a simpler you. And then it will hit you – the album isn’t just about Vermont in Winter, it’s about depression, uncertainty in life, and a desire to fix mistakes you made when you were younger. It’s about anger in being cooped up inside, resentment to parental figures for false guidance, and frustration with chapters in life. But, even with such heavy subject matter, it is also an album about joy and love. And whether you listen to the music as background noise or while reading along to the lyrics, “Stick Season” will catch you off guard.