Noah Kahan Explores Youthful Ignorance, Guilt, and Trauma in New Single, “The Great Divide”
Earlier this week on Instagram, Noah Kahan announced his musical return with his fourth studio album, The Great Divide.
The album, out April 24, explores nostalgia, guilt, and the feelings we try desperately to hide, refusing to speak out loud.
“The songs are the words I would say if I could. They are the fears I dance with in the moments before I drift off to sleep. The music here is my best attempt to delve deeper into the people, places, and feelings that have made me who I am,” Kahan wrote on Instagram.
Ahead of the album’s full release, Kahan gave fans a preview with the album’s sixth track and the namesake of the album, “The Great Divide.”
“The Great Divide” begins with a playful banjo melody, followed by rhythmic guitar strumming. The song's first lyrics refer to the past, mentioning an old acquaintance Kahan has since lost contact with.
The lyrics, “We ain't friends / We’re just morons / We broke skin in the same spot,” describe this relationship as something built on mutual damage and shared trauma rather than a genuine closeness.
The reference to the “great divide,” in this instance, is that of an emotional drift. As an adult, Kahan can understand that his old acquaintance was severely depressed and struggling with a sense of identity.
The chorus often repeats “And not your soul or what He might do to it.” This suggests that, alongside depression, the subject was also struggling with religious and or sexual trauma.
“Do you wish that I could know / That you’d fade to some place / I wasn’t brave enough to go” is the bridge of the song and serves as a powerful metaphor for suicidal ideation. By saying “I wasn’t brave enough to go,” Kahan examines his own failures and reflects on his guilt over the situation.
Themes of regret and melancholy are not new to Kahan’s discography; in fact, many of the most beloved songs from his previous album, Stick Season, have similar sounds. However, if Stick Season was a reflection of grief and trauma, “The Great Divide” is about healing and a reconciliation of the past.
While the rest of the album doesn’t come out for another three or so months, fans can be certain that if this song was an emotional rollercoaster, the rest of the album will ruin us.
