Song Exploder - Noah Kahan - Stick Season

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

Noah Kahan is a singer and songwriter from Strafford, Vermont. Last year, in 2022, he released Stick Season, his third record. The title track from that record went viral on TikTok when Noah was first writing it, and posting pieces of it. One of those videos has over 10 million plays. And as of this recording, on Spotify, the full song has almost 100 million streams. For this episode, Noah talked to me about the process of making that song: What led him to first post half a song on TikTok, and what happened after that. You’ll hear the raw recordings off of his phone; the different drafts he made as he worked; you'll hear the different versions he first shared on social media; and you’ll hear his bracingly honest appraisal of the winding path he took  —  in his life, and in his music – to get to where he is now. For more, visit songexploder.net/noah-kahan.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. This episode contains explicit language. Noah Khan is a singer and songwriter from Stratford, Vermont. Last year, in 2022, he released Stick Season, his third record. The title track from that record went viral on TikTok when Noah was first writing it and posting pieces of it. One of those videos has over 10 million plays, and as of this recording, on Spotify, the full song has almost 100 million streams. For this episode, Noah talked to me about the process of making that song, what led him to post half a song on TikTok, and what happened after that.

You'll hear the raw recordings off his phone, the different drafts he made as he worked. You'll hear the versions he first shared on social media. And you'll hear his bracingly honest appraisal of the winding path he took in his life, and in his music to get to where he is now. But it's the season of the sticks and I talk your mom. She forgot that I existed and it's half my fault. But I just like to play the victim. I'll drink alcohol till my friends come home for Christmas and all.

My name is Noah Khan. I graduated high school and I got a record deal when I was a senior and I had to kind of decide between going to Tulane and New Orleans or taking this record deal. And, you know, it was a pretty easy choice. a great student, never really applied myself and kind of just fucked around in school. And I didn't think college was going to be something that was beneficial for me. My parents were kind of like, hey, this is so expensive. Like, if you can get a record deal and go pursue music, then do it. But, you know,

ultimately, I was such a fledgling artist and fledgling signing for the company that it wasn't like an immediate rise of stardom. It was kind of like, go back to your parents' house and start writing some songs and building up the portfolio. And I didn't realize that it was going to be such a long process of development and a lot of that development was spent in Stratford. So stick season kind of goes back almost three years now. Stick season is between autumn and winter where all the leaves are off the trees. I had been hearing the term my whole life from older neighbors and people in New Hampshire, Vermont, where I grew up. Everyone was like, yeah, stick season is the worst. I would always just kind of get super depressed at that time of year. I had been trying to write a song with stick season in it

for a while. I had a song that was called The Season of the Stick. that was this really gloomy interludey track that never ended up seeing the light of day but I was really trying to incorporate that phrase. So I was in Los Angeles making my second record in November of 2020. At the time, I felt like I was making music that I didn't love and it was tough making the record

and feeling that way. It definitely felt like the last pop-centric record that I was going to make. My heart has always been with folk music and storytelling. And so I would go back to my Airbnb or wake up in my Airbnb in the morning before the session and try to write little stories about New England and try to write songs that sounded like the ones I loved growing up.

You know, artists like Counting Crows and the Ava brothers and Paul Simon, guys that told stories and transported you to a different place. In my life, I was feeling insecure and I was really looking for a way to kind of have a burst of approval that might artificially make me feel better about myself. And so I was like, I'm just going to write a verse tonight and I'll put it up on TikTok because I want to feel approval.

from people because it certainly wasn't coming from myself. So I started writing about being stuck at home, which is something that I'd felt for a long time. I started writing about a person that doesn't want to stay in one place but can't leave and that feeling of separation and kind of somebody leaving you and knowing you can't do anything about it and knowing that maybe some of it's your fault.

And I wanted to set it to the metaphor of driving. As you promised me that I was more than all the miles combined, you must have had yourself a change of heart. like halfway through the drive because your voice trailed off exactly as you passed my exit sign he kept on driving straight and left our future to the ride now i am stuck between my hair and the plane that i can't face the memories or something even smoking weed can not replace and i am terrified of weather because i see you when it brings and doc told me to travel but there's COVID on a plane so I'm fucked.

I'm fucked. And I suck. You suck. And this sucks. Fuck. And I captioned it. I don't want to keep buying weed from high school kids anymore, which was the perfect caption for a song about feeling like you're stuck in your hometown.

Yeah, I posted it and I was not confident in it at all. Put my phone down for a few minutes and went and I brushed my teeth and got into bed and looked at my phone. I was like, man, no one is reacting to this. Like, this does suck, and I do suck. Perfect. I woke up the next morning, and the song had really started to take off on TikTok, and it had like five or 600 comments, which for me was so much.

And people were like, post a full song, post a full song. And I'm like, oh, no, I have not written anything else besides this. And so I kind of fell into this trap where I had half of a song, and people really liked it, and I knew I needed to write a chorus, which was a little bit daunting. And I thought, you know, this is a folk song. It feels like it needs to be simple and it doesn't need to be musically all over the place. So I kind of started to write over those chords

that I used in the verse over again. And I remembered that I had a song called The Season of the Sticks. And I started singing, I love Vermont. And I think I kind of wanted it to sound like a country song. And so I was like, I love Vermont. And I was singing it like with a twang. I love Vermont in the season of the sticks.

And I saw your mom. She forgot. And it somehow made it so narcissistic when I'm at it hole with the point of my distance. And it somehow made it like way easier for me to write. I don't know why. I was like this is cool. It felt like I was outside of myself for a second and it was fun and kind of stupid.

And so I was messing around with a ton of different melodies. And I think I was trying to do some falsetto flips in there. You know, dream each night of some version to you and I'll feel your life and do whole in it all. Ooh, my man boot is from them home, and I woke you out. I'll call it all right. That's all the same morning. I believe it was October 29th.

You know, I had gotten to a point where I was, like, struggling so much to write that I was like, if I have something cool, I need to sit down and finish this or else I will not come back to it. And so I kept kind of digging at it that morning and I wrote the chorus, and I posted the chorus. Talk told me to travel, but there's COVID on the planes, and I love for her mom, but it's the season of the sticks, and I suck your mom, and she forgot that I existed, and it's half my fault, but I just like to play the victim. I'll drink alcohol until my friends come home for Christmas, and I'll dream each night of some version of you that I might not have, but I did not lose. Now, your tired tracks in one day. pair of shoes and I'm

split in half that'll have to do and then the chorus really did well on TikTok people were really into it and then it became like another added layer of like oh my gosh I have to write a second verse. The second verse took a lot longer to write. I didn't finish

it in Los Angeles. I had returned to Vermont because it was the holidays. It was like Thanksgiving and I spent like three, four full days just like sitting around messing around with lyrics and And yeah, ended up, you know, writing a little bit about my dad. So I thought that if I piled something good and all my bad, that I could cancel out the darkness I inherited from dad.

I have depression and anxiety, which I've dealt with my entire life. And my dad and my mom both did. And my dad particularly struggles with depression. And a lot of my life, I wasn't dealing with my depression in the right ways. I was trying to just tour through my depression or drink through my depression or eat. through my depression and, you know, piling these things that are supposed to be fun and cool over a really real problem. And it was not working for me. But I find that in songs that I grew up listening to, when I was really struggling with a problem that I thought no one else in the world had,

I would hear a song lyric that just hit the nail on the head with what I was feeling and it would make me feel understood. I feel like the amount of help that I got from artists when I was growing up that if I could provide that for somebody else, then maybe the discomfort of talking about my dad's depression would help somebody. So the next thing for the life of the song was starting to play it live. Tons of people already knew the words to the song. It was the first tour after COVID,

so that COVID on the planes line was really exciting for people. What was funny about stick season was how easy it came at the beginning and how difficult it ended up being to see it through the end. My manager manages a producer named Gabe Simon. And so I went down to Nashville to work with Gabe. And we spent a couple hours of kind of just hanging out and talking.

And I felt super comfortable. And I was realizing that the success of song had was from this very nonchalant Airbnb TikTok. And I was like, let's just kind of try to make it feel like that. Fun and energetic, but not too self-serious. The first thing we recorded at Gabes, we did like a vocal and guitar to a click

just to kind of get a scratch down. and actually felt really good. So then the next thing we did was we tried a couple different guitars, and Gabe used the pick guard to kind of create the rhythm and sound almost like a kick drum, which was a really cool touch. That's Gabe Simon playing the banjo on the record. He professes that he is not a banjo player,

but I thought he played it quite nicely. It just felt like home to me in a lot of ways. When I was growing up, my mom played the banjo. And when I lived in Hanover, we lived right across the road from the Appalachian Trail, and we would hike it all the time. You know, I felt like incorporating that was kind of an ode to Appalachia in a lot of ways.

One of my favorite lines I've ever made was drinking alcohol until my friends come home for Christmas just because it's just such a, it was so true to my experience living in Stratford when all my friends were gone. But I just like to play the victim I'll drink. Alcohol till my friends come home for Christmas. I'll just kind of count the days down

until December 20th when my buddies would get back from college. And those days when my friends came home I felt like I was kind of back to her normal life, which was really valuable to me at the time. And so we did a bunch of gang vocals at the end because I wanted it to be like, all my friends were back home singing the last chorus with me. It was Gabe and Conrad and I yelling and shouting,

Conrad Snyder, who engineered it. Half my fault, but I just like to play the victim, I'll drink. Alcohol till my friends come home for Christmas, and I'll be each night of so. And so we sent in a draft. to the management. They were like, this is really cool,

but I think it might be a little corny. Just like huge gang vocal at the end of this kind of more stripped back, intimate song. And we were like, yeah, I think you might be right. And then I went down the rabbit hole of production,

trying new things and re-recording vocals, but it was definitely a slog and a grind. After the second verse hits, I wanted to give it another lift with some harmonies. I am the biggest fan of, like, a beautiful harmony, like right when it clicks into the melody, like, it just feels so satisfying. The ending definitely feels, to me, like a reunion with the friends coming home from Christmas,

the people being back in that feeling of being alone not being there so much anymore. And I think that's what I really wanted to accomplish with the gang vocals of like, I'm not alone anymore, but I think there was a more nuanced way to do it. By the time the song was finished, it was cool to kind of have that full circle moment of, you know, going from a place where I was feeling very burnt out creatively to having my most successful song be one that I just wrote because it was funny and made me happy and I was bored of my Airbnb. I've come to the realization that no amount of success and no amount of creative fulfillment will ever make me a complete or fully happy person. I think it used to be if I can just get in the room with this person or if I can get this many streams or play this venue, then I'll be happy.

Unfortunately, that's not really how it works. And I've had to do a lot of work in therapy and just in my life trying to find out what makes me happy and how to find fulfillment. I think what was really cool about the whole process was that seeing people react to stick season in that way reaffirmed my belief in what creativity means and what a job in the music industry can look like. How about your feelings about stick season?

Has that changed at all? Do you like that time of a year better now that it's responsible for this big hit of yours? I still absolutely hate stick season in Vermont. It's miserable. There's just nothing redeeming about it. It's so gray and cold. Everyone in my family gets like super depressed, and then we're all like grumpy and annoying to be around.

So no, absolutely not. I could write a million songs last stick season. I would still hate it. And now here's stick season by Noah Kahn in its entirety. As you promised me that I was more than all the miles combined, you must have had yourself a change of heart like halfway through the drive because your voice trailed off exactly as you passed my exit sign. Kept on driving straight and left our future till the right.

Now I am stuck between my anger in the blame that I can't face. Memories or something even smoking weed is not replaced. terrified of weather because I see you when it rains Talk told me to travel but there's COVID on the planes and I Huffer my pitise the season of the sticks and I Salk your mom she forgot that I existed and it's half my fault but I just like to play the victim I'll drink alcohol till my friends come home for Christmas and I'll dreamish night of some version of you that I laid on

half but I did not lose now your tired tracks in one pair of shoes and I'm splitting half but that'll have to do so I thought that if I piled something good and all my bad that I could cancel about the darkness I inherited from dad no I am no longer funny because I missed the way you laugh once called me forever now you still can't call me back and I I love her mom, but it's the season of the sticks, and I sock your mom. She forgot that I existed, and it's half my fault, but I just like to play the victim.

I'll drink alcohol till my friends come home for Christmas, and I'll dream each night of some urging of you that I might not have, but I did not lose. Now, your tired tracks in one pair of shoes, and I'm splitting half. but that'll have to do. I put it's the season of the sticks, and I talk your mom.

She forgot that I exist, and it's half my fault, but I just like to play the victim. I'll drink alcohol till my friends come home for Christmas, and I'll dream each night of some urgey to you that I might not have,

but I did not lose. Now your tired tracks in one pair of shoes, and I'm... Spitting hat that'll have to do Have to do For more, visit songexploder.net. You'll find links to buy or stream stick season, and you can watch the music video.

I've also linked to the original TikTok videos that Noah made when he was first writing. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out of full ink, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh, her way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists.

And it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Weinrobe. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city. Like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzuchas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage. And then I'll play with my band.

The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs were out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co. Or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. This episode of Song Exploder was made by me, Craig Ely, Kathleen Smith, and Mary Dolan. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm. You can follow me on Twitter

and Instagram at Rishi Hereway, and you can follow the show at Song Exploder. You can also get a songexploder t-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi-Kesh-Hirway. Thanks for listening.