Historically, if you were to hear someone in New England mention “Stick Season,” it wouldn’t be cause for celebration.
“It’s the time between peak foliage and Halloween and the first snow — when all the leaves are off the trees. It’s a time of transition. And it’s super depressing,” Noah Kahan explained during a Zoom call with Insider in late September.
“I can’t even enjoy fall because I know it just means that winter is coming soon and it creates a lot of anxiety,” he added. “So people in Vermont say, ‘It’s Stick Season,’ and no one really likes it.”
The vocalist musician was brought up in Strafford, Vermont, an unassuming community with a populace of scarcely more than 1,000. Save for a couple of juvenile years in New Hampshire, it’s where Kahan has spent most of his 25 years on The planet.
“If I get too close and I’m not how you hoped / Forgive my northern attitude, oh, I was raised out in the cold,” he sings in the opener. Later, in the album highlight “Homesick,” he describes his hometown as “such great motivation for anyone trying to move the fuck away from hibernation.”
6 months ago I called my manager and told him I didn’t have enough music to make this album and I told my mom that I thought I’d never make anything good again. Today I have 14+ songs for an album that I can truly say is the best I’ve ever done and maybe the best I’ll ever do
— Noah Kahan (@NoahKahan) July 8, 2022
Kahan’s music speaks to the power of vulnerability and the ‘female gaze’
One of the songs that was born during this time, and fans quickly fell in love with during those Instagram lives was ‘Stick Season.’ Fans have been calling for its release to streaming platforms or to be played at concerts for over two years now.
On June 30, the long-awaited announcement finally came with Kahan tweeting “Stick season is finally out on July 8. This song wouldn’t have existed with you all. This is just the beginning, thanks for believing in this tune.”
