Noah Kahan Therapy

how noah kahan taught me creation is an act of therapy

Noah Kahan by Josh Goleman

I can’t play an instrument or sing in any serious sense, but I’ve always loved music. How it makes me feel, how it helps me forget myself, how it takes me out of my head and transports me somewhere else. When I hear a song and feel like I’m driving windows down on a sun-soaked Canadian country road with my best friend, wind whipping through my hair, mind free from care, belting out lyrics by heart in careless harmony. 

This past year, no music has helped me more than Noah Kahan’s. 

There’s a tip-of-the-tongue-type resonance in his work that remains elusive, yet connects to my core. I can’t explain it, but I do feel it. I’ve been listening to Kahan religiously since September and his lyrics still sink deep in my mind, his melodies still soothe my ears, his voice still speaks to my soul. 

I see a lot of myself in Noah, which is perhaps true for anyone we admire. 

He’s a ball of ambition and anxiety. Hopelessly self-aware and ceaselessly self-reflective. Often trapped in his own head. Often trying to escape. Writing music from his heart and sharing shreds from the fabric of his soul. Courageously, openly, honestly. All his glorious faults, raw talent, unbounded earnestness on display. Driven by a desire to make his dreams come alive, but also afraid of what will happen if they do. All wrapped in subdued small-town Vermont vibes. 

To me, his music evokes a state of pure enoughness. 

A reminder that life is very hard, but also very beautiful and entirely worth living.

awareness & authenticity 

Kahan radiates a combination of awareness and authenticity that is infectious. 

When he writes songs that scrape the depths of his soul and reflect the breadths of his mind, and expresses it through this honest outpouring of emotion, I find something inside those words that richly resonates. There’s this moment of feeling seen, understood, validated. That hits you like a brick wall but also lifts you up like a gust of wind. 

Kahan’s honesty feels like a cold drink on a hot day. He says things in public I’ve only heard people admit in private.

In an interview, Kahan noted:

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that my shitty feelings are gone just because I’ve had success. I want to be as honest as possible with everybody… My honesty and my ability to write songs from the heart is my greatest asset… Sometimes it feels like everyone around me is doing well and I feel like I’m kind of missing something.

His songs create that moment of “No way, I feel this way too!” For both the ups and the downs, the light and the dark, the triumph and the tragedy. 

In Cynic, Noah writes:

I miss the days when one was better than the last

I miss the taste of growing pains I knew would pass

I don't know why I see no light in anything

Leave it to life to turn my strengths back into weaknesses

But I'm living with 'em

I try hard to become a better person. Calmer, happier, kinder. But some days I feel just as lost and unsure of myself as ever. No further ahead. No better off. Despite all the invested time, effort, intention. My strengths—thinking deeply, caring fully—feel more like weaknesses. 

I’ve felt the drag of despair. Questioning why I make life so difficult. Questioning when I’ll finally feel fulfilled, less restless. Questioning whether I will lead the life I want. 

Then having all these thoughts and fears and desires careening around my mind. Trying to make sense of it all, still the storm, find clarity. In Busyhead, Kahan captures that struggle of being trapped in my head and detached from the world:

Hide your secrets, disguise your weakness

And lose yourself inside your busyhead

Burn your bridges and leave no witnesses

All alone inside your busyhead

Kahan created a word to describe exactly how my head can feel—busy. Crowded. Overstimulated. How incessant introspection becomes isolating. Alienating. Like I’m experiencing reality behind a plate of glass. 

But, Kahan’s concluding words feel like an anchor amidst the internal tempest:

So, busyhead, just keep breathing, oh

Oh, busyhead, just keep breathing

Underneath the prevailing struggle in both songs, there’s an undercurrent of acceptance and patience and persistence. To just keep breathing and keep living with 'em… and keep going.

Continuing on the theme of light versus dark, in Call Your Mom, Kahan sings:

Don't let this darkness fool you

All lights turned off can be turned on

Oh, dear, don't be discouraged

I've been exactly where you are

As dark as things may seem, they can (and will) get better. The tides of life are inevitable, but night always brightens to day, winter always warms to summer.

In Homesick, Kahan shares how he’s scared to imagine his dreams are actually possible:

I got dreams, but I can't make myself believe them, spend the rest of my life with what could have been.

There’s this tension between the fear of imagination and the fear of unfulfilled potential. With one, you risk falling short of your ideal life. With the other, you risk settling into mediocrity and being terrorized by a dream you never pursued, a person you never became. 

Homesick also has one of my favourite lines from Kahan that captures the pull of playful carelessness, of giving up taking everything so damn seriously and giving in to the whimsical dance of life:

I stopped caring 'bout a month ago, since then it's been smooth sailing

creation as therapy

That’s the beauty of self aware, articulate, courageous people: they notice things within themselves, universal to the human experience, and then put words around them in their own unique way. They pull flickerings of feelings and evasive emotions out of stubborn ineffability into the conscious mind, through their elegant synthesis of what I’ve experienced but couldn’t articulate or didn’t realize other people share.

It creates a platform for human connection. Listening to Noah, I realize that I’m not alone in my fears and folly, struggles and strains, dreams and desires. 

And Kahan’s work urges me to be more open, more vulnerable, more honest in my writing. He inspires me to be equally earnest. To drop my ego. To realize I don’t need to pretend like I have it all figured out to help and connect with others. To admit that I’m stumbling my way through things… because I am. 

Many things I share with you, I’m not entirely comfortable with. Like my rejections from jobs or my struggle to enjoy travel or my inability to relax. But perhaps precisely because they’re difficult to share makes them worth sharing. Perhaps through sharing my stumbling we both stumble less. Perhaps, most importantly, because I’ve felt the hug of comfort and connection when others share courageously.

Honesty is reflexive. In being honest with others, I become more honest with myself. Through being open about my imperfections, raw about my reality, vulnerable about my vices, instead of letting them lie dormant in darkness, I can confront them and make the space necessary to heal and grow. 

Creation becomes an act of therapy. Instead of a mask of ego. 

And that’s why I love Noah Kahan’s work.

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Find Noah Kahan on Spotify or YouTube.

Thank you A for helping incubate and breathe life into this essay. Thanks

Steven Foster

Camilo Moreno-Salamanca

, Kevin and Eviana for your help with this.

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If you enjoyed this, you might like my related piece on the dangers of deservance.

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