It may just be TikTok's curated algorithm or my own inclination to play it as soon as I open Spotify, but Noah Kahan's "Stick Season" has been unavoidable since the Vermont native released the single in July.
Bridging the gap between the viral track and the album it shares its name with, out October 14, was "Northern Attitude," a solid follow-up to a breakthrough track and the perfect precursor to autumn.
In his own words, Kahan crossed over into a new realm of songwriting with "Stick Season." "Northern Attitude" completes that transition. He's living in that space now; this song is what you get when a songwriter grants himself the freedom to feel deeply.
"The lyrics I sang came from a place of total creative freedom and I did not think they meant anything at all at first," he wrote of "Northern Attitude," adding, "It wasn't until I listened to the lyrics that I had vomited out of my brain that I realized I had been trying to write them for years. I was singing about isolation, about loneliness, about trying to assess who you are and where your life is going, and about accepting that and opening yourself up to love either way."