dear noah

I have just woken up from a nap, your new album has been playing in the background since it came out, I cannot seem to turn it off. I dreamt of you in this nap. Not you you, just my perception of you. I hugged you as you were singing in an old farm house. You smelled like the woods and the sea and the might of nature. You felt like the strength of a very old tree, like the happiness of a dog greeting its owner after a long trip, like the understanding someone who truly knows you has. In this dream, as you stood there singing, I composed this letter to you.

It starts off simply, dear Noah. In my dream, I remember thinking over this. Noah seems like such a small introduction for someone who has done so much, but Noah Kahan seems to formal somehow. So I settled with, dear Noah.

I’m sitting here, listening to your new album. It hasn’t been too long since I discovered your music, only 3 or 4 months, and I did so how I discover most of my favorites these days, through my sister. I knew of you, from False Confidence and some other colabs, but it wasn’t until I listened to Northern Altitude on a night I don’t remember and felt something, that I found you. And so I sit here, and I listen to you. When your not playing through one of my electronics, it’s bouncing in the depths of my head. I should be sick of your music by now, but every time I hear a song, I feel as if I’m hearing it for the first time.

Northern Altitude and Stick Season became the songs I would listen to when I would have panic attacks. Countless bathrooms, just get the headphones it, don’t cry, your wearing makeup. Breathe, it will pass. Breathe, it will be ok. Not many people know I have them. I’m good at hiding, not being broken on the outside. It’s been my greatest pride, to not let others see the struggle I go through. The problem is, not letting people in, results in quite a lonely existence.

I confess, I don’t usually hear the lyrics when I listen to most music. Mostly, they seem unimportant, unrelatable, un-understandable. It even took me a few listens to get Northern Attitude and Stick Season. My brain seems to focus better on the melodies and drums and guitars that make songs the music they are.

Your songs are undoubtedly music. But I have a hard time simply describing them as that, just that. They feel like poetry, like life, like stories told before an old campfire, like the howl of a wolf trying to find it’s pack, like the first peak of the sun over the horizon as it sheds light and warmth on the land.

No Complaints was one of the first songs I can remember, where I listened and understood, where I listened and felt the words carving themselves over my body, like tattoos. It is unarguably my favorite.

I think a lot, but not much manifests itself in words. I know when I’ve found inspiration in someone or something because of one thing - I compose a letter. This letter is a testament to the words you unlocked in my brain. Your songs turned they key, opened the door, and let the thoughts fly out.

You don’t know me. I don’t know you. But through your music, we share something, as does every single one of us who feels your lyrics in the bones of your body and cries them with the pains of our hearts and minds.