It was only the second song. I was already crying and it was only the second song. I had waited for this moment for months and my heart was full, my soul was achy and I was with one of the people I love the most.
My sister, Emma and I started listening to Noah Kahan seven years ago. It wasn’t TikTok, it wasn’t his two hot hits from his newest album or his most recent collaborations with big artists. It was before his name got big, yet his songs, old and new, still speak so loudly to us.
“Everywhere, Everything” was the song I lost it to. It was my freshman year of college when he released his full album, “Stick Season.” I was in a new place with new people and I listened to it on repeat: when I was walking to the gym, or from class to class, eating lunch alone or hammocking in the park. From the goosebumps on my arms and the clenching of my heart, this song made me feel and still does. I was missing home and the people I loved. They were hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from me.
The lyrics in the song rang true to me. “Everywhere, Everything, wanna love you ‘til we’re food for the worms to eat ‘til our fingers decompose. Keep my hand in yours,” Kahan says.
Almost every song hits me on a deeper level but “Everywhere, Everything” always makes my body feel everything. During this time in my life, I had to learn to be at peace with myself while being alone for what felt like all the time. My first year in college was hard, but his music allowed me to feel it all. That’s the thing about music, it can be so powerful. It encompasses thoughts and emotions and bundles it into one feeling.
This linked emotion sparked by music is currently understood to be through the act of mirror neurons. As discovered by a University of Parma group, they form the basis for our feelings of empathy. The songs we listen to trigger empathy in us to feel the words that are being told. Research has shown that the tie of music and crying is due to empathy neurons in our brain. When we hear music that speaks to us, whether we know it is explaining how we feel or not, it triggers empathy and emotion. Sometimes that emotion turns into tears.
New age composer Laraaji explained this phenomenon to Harvard Professor Robert Barry. “You may not even realize that that’s what you’re feeling. Music can conjure up moods and feelings for the emotional body, and during that experience, a release from either congestion or release from senses of separation is accompanied by tears and crying,” Laraaji says.
For me, this song always embodied the love I hold for the people I miss. When I would walk through campus listening to this melody it made me think of my loved ones I couldn’t be with; it made me feel how important those people were to me. Hence, why it was only the second song and I was already crying.
I doubt Kahan’s original meaning and motivation behind this song is what I find in it but it still spoke to me.
Noah Kahan grew up in Strafford, Vermont. His newly found fame sprouted from his release of his album, “Stick Season” in October of 2022.
Kahan spoke with Genius about the official lyrics and meaning of his song “Stick Season.” “I was concerned that I might alienate people and I was like, this is incredibly specific like everyone thinks Vermont is in Canada I’m not sure if anyones gonna get this. But it was cool to see it connect with people and that people had their own meanings of what Stick Season might mean to them or what their hometowns mean to them so it was cool to see it connect outside of New England.” Kahan’s identity and storytelling is shaped by his experience growing up in New England. He references the East Coast often, but that doesn’t stop his listeners from connecting to his music.
The pandemic was raging when he wrote “Stick Season,” at a time where “anxiety and depression prevalence increased by 25% globally,” according to the National Institutes of Health.
But at this time, mental health struggles were not new to Kahan. This has been a struggle for Kahan since he was a child, as he mentions in his piece with TIME magazine. His return home in 2020 during the pandemic was a mental wake-up call. “[I was] temporarily awoken from my emotional hibernation by the alarm of global crisis,” Kahan says.
He spoke to Genius about how in “Stick Season” he encompasses the pressures of being successful when you’re at a point in your life where you feel stuck. “In my life so many times I felt like ‘man if I could just achieve this or play this show or get this accolade then I won’t be sad anymore. The more you do that, the more you realize that sadness is there and you have to deal with it,” Kahan says. He shared his story with TIME about returning to therapy, resuming medication, and regaining control over his mental health during the pandemic.
With the pressure being off, he found himself again.
“I made an album that brought me so much creative joy that for the few weeks we worked on it, I felt like I was floating—but this time fully cemented in the reality of it all. I smiled and cried tears of joy and of sorrow for the years that I’d wasted running toward nothing,” Kahan says.
This does not mean he doesn’t struggle anymore but he’s created a platform for people with similar feelings to help people find their own strength to carry on. However, he takes no credit when fans tell him his music saved their lives. “The strength it takes to get through difficult moments and complicated challenges, mental and physical, comes from within,” Kahan says. “Any person brave enough to share that they have made it through a struggle deserves every ounce of credit for making it to the other side.”
Kahan writes about mental health and struggles in most of his songs due to his personal experiences. In May 2023, Kahan created the Busyhead Project, named after his debut album from 2019. The Busyhead Project provides mental health resources and services to other people struggling.
“I wanted to use my public platform to help support organizations across the country that provide the same safety net I was fortunate to have. It’s no secret I pour my mental health into my music, and I will always continue to do so, but it means so much to me to be able to evolve that into actionable support,” says Kahan.
Artists can do so much more than get famous and go on tour. If you’re lucky, your favorite artist may go a step farther and help his listeners beyond his music, just like Noah Kahan. His listeners have become a community with the shared love of how his music makes you feel.
As we stood in the amphitheater with almost 10,000 other people the tears fell. We connected with the people around us. On our left, two sisters, just like Emma and I. They had traveled all the way to Morrison, Colorado from Washington State for this moment. On our right, a nurse who commutes 3 hours to Denver everyday from his home in Kansas. He came alone, yet it felt like we all showed up to experience that night together. We were meant to sit there and feel all there was to feel with these complete strangers. That was the magic of the night and that magic continues to fill me everytime I listen to his music; old and new.
Laraaji calls these moments “coming together.” The entire crowd was “coming together” at the concert that night. When I listen to his music, I feel his music. I close my eyes and feel. I cry. I smile. I struggle. I strive. These are all feelings Noah Kahan helps me be okay with bearing the weight of. If you haven’t taken the time to soak in your emotions recently, I will always recommend Noah Kahan to help you do so.