Noah Kahan has made a name for himself as being a very honest, vulnerable, and raw individual whose music provides a means of escape and coherency for his lived experiences, damaging thoughts, and mental health history. He is an indie-folk artist who openly advocates for the destigmatization of mental health across all ages, races, cultures, etc. Those who have struggled with even the basic feelings of sadness, empathy, heartache, loneliness, and lack of direction are able to relate to his work.
Kahan is famously known for being openly transparent about his mental health struggles and his own life experiences as he attempted to navigate through the darkness around his life. His honesty surrounding his struggles has helped his fans get through their own difficult times with music that they are able to lean on and relate to. To accept your struggles is a major accomplishment in and of itself, but to then use your experiences and pain to fuel your artistry is an act of heroism.
Topics such as depression, anxiety, therapy, individual interrelationships, addiction, alcoholism, and the feeling of never progressing are the types of intense, and often frowned-upon, topics that Kahan chooses to speak out on.
In his song titled “No Complaints”, from his 2023 deluxe version of his 2022 album Stick Season, tackled the complex feelings experienced after you finally confide in therapy. You’ve taken the steps you need to take, stayed up to date with your medication, and made an effort, and yet you are left as a scattered mess on the inside. You are seen as strong for getting the help you need to get but the emptiness felt within was just as bad as your lowest moments that led you to where you are. I call it the gray area, the zone of life where you have nothing to truly complain about, you feel as if you should be grateful, and yet you’re not happy. It is so incredibly damaging to live through this phase as you’re consistently battling yourself, your thoughts, your feelings, or even the lack of feelings. You simply exist in a world of stagnant nothingness.
Themes like this provide a meaning, a purpose, and a stance to life. His work is like a diary, he can’t put his experiences and feelings into words unless it is in a song, and I believe this is what separates every other artist from the real, true musicians.
Let's take his song "Orange Juice", off the same album, for example. The song discusses the reality of alcoholism and the very real and ever-lasting effects it has on not only yourself but on those around you. The loss of direction, stability, and your sense of identity is stripped away. The song traces this reality to the origin of alcoholism as the narrative paints a picture of the tragic events. A car accident that left the individual as the lone survivor, confiding in alcohol to grapple with the reality of the accident, the space they forced between themselves and the rest of the world around them, the drunken days and nights that blend together, and the ways in which the guilt of your mistakes can be all-consuming to the point of becoming unrecognizable to yourself and to the ones you hold close.
What is the true importance of this? It comes down to a few simple things: representation, relatability, and the cold hard truth. In this day in age, honesty can be hard to come by. So, why is it so enthralling and consuming when we are given a taste? Kahan bases his music on the human-lived experience in all its ugly glory. His unaltered truth is what he stands by and what he truly believes in, ultimately gapping himself from other mainstream artists in the best way possible. There is a degree of truth in everything in life, but is what we see, hear, and experience the entire truth? It is when it comes to Kahan.
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