Noah Kahan is back at Genius to break down his latest hit “Forever.” The song is off Stick Season (Forever), his third and final iteration of his Stick Season albums. The song is produced by Gabe Simon and the indie folk singer himself. On today’s episode of Verified, find out the inspiration behind the highly anticipated track.
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MusicTranscript
00:00 Forever is like a beautiful thing because it means to have forever to spend together.
00:03 All this time used to represent a terrible thing in my life.
00:05 Time was like my enemy and now it's just like gift because it allows me to look at you more.
00:09 This song is hugely inspired by Bon Iver.
00:18 I really wanted to emulate kind of some of the emotion in that falsetto
00:21 and some of those tense moments on the pedal steel in the beginning of the song.
00:24 White Ferrari by Frank Ocean.
00:26 You know that whole first part of the song is totally different.
00:28 The last minute and a half is this beautiful, sparse moment where you can really feel this
00:31 person's emotions coming through, not just in the lyrics that are beautiful,
00:34 but in these weird little moments of tension.
00:36 And that was a real inspiration, trying to tell a story in that tension and letting the
00:41 music almost relax the storyteller and also the listener.
00:44 And this song, the storm is not a negative thing.
01:02 It's like something coming that's going to change the scene drastically, but it's something.
01:07 Nothing's happening in my life.
01:08 I'm moving forward aimlessly and suddenly there's a change and the clouds are changing
01:11 and something's about to happen and even if it might be something bad, it's something different.
01:14 And sometimes that can be a positive thing.
01:15 The line, "I used to wish I meant anything to anywhere to anyone," is a reflection on
01:36 how a place can change with your experience, even if it's remained exactly the same.
01:39 It's like a place is always a place, but it used to be a place where you kind of were
01:43 drinking and depressed and doing nothing and moving nowhere.
01:46 And now it's a place that reminds you of meeting someone you love.
01:48 And it's crazy how quickly things can change with experience.
01:51 That's what's beautiful about consistency and things that stay the same because they're
01:56 there for you.
01:56 That's why I love my home.
01:58 It's always going to be there for me in whatever shape or form I see it in at that time.
02:01 When forever was a sentence, sentence to death.
02:09 Oh when you were a running tear, I was a drop of sweat.
02:16 And the edges of your soul I haven't seen yet.
02:23 Now I'm glad I get forever to see where you end.
02:30 "The edges of your soul" line is really just a line about that intimacy of knowing
02:34 somebody that isn't quite there yet.
02:35 You start to get to know them and you're like, "Oh my gosh, there's so much under
02:38 the surface and there's so much that I still have to explore."
02:41 And I think that is the coolest part of a relationship is finding out those intricacies
02:45 and the weirdness in somebody.
02:47 That is truly who they are.
02:48 I think that's so beautiful.
02:49 When people let you in.
02:50 And I wanted this to kind of reflect a part of the song that starts to become positive.
02:54 It's like, "This is so cool.
02:55 I have all this time to find out who you are."
02:58 I won't be alone for the rest of my life.
03:03 I'll build a boat for when the river gets high.
03:07 And I'll meet a girl in the heat of July.
03:11 And I'll tell her so she knows.
03:15 To me, building a boat serves as a metaphor for having a plan for your life, having a
03:20 future, having a project, having something that wakes you up in the morning.
03:23 Something that you can use to protect yourself from the world and something you can bring
03:26 somebody else in.
03:27 Something you can use to relax in.
03:29 Something you can use to get away.
03:30 But this feeling of having a salvation.
03:32 Knowing that no matter what happens, I have this person with me.
03:35 I'm building this boat.
03:36 I'm building this future.
03:37 And no matter how stormy it gets, how high the river gets, I will have a way out of it
03:40 now that I have this person and this positive in my life.
03:43 And I'm broke but I'm real rich in my head.
03:47 That I broke a bone.
03:49 Had never healed my hands.
03:52 When I hold her close, I might loosen my grip.
03:56 But I won't ever let her go.
04:00 I won't ever let her go.
04:03 I did break my left pinky.
04:05 I broke it on New Year's Eve in 2017.
04:09 And then I thought it was sore.
04:10 I told myself that for four years.
04:11 And then went to a doctor who was like, "Hey, your finger's horrifically broken."
04:15 And they were like, "Basically, unless you want us to re-break it and grind it down,
04:19 you're just going to have to deal with that."
04:20 So this is kind of where I'm at.
04:21 Beyond actually having a broken bone in my hand, that line represents a flaw or a peculiarity
04:26 about somebody.
04:27 I'm trying to hold onto you so if I can't sometimes, just know that it's not my fault.
04:31 It's whoever broke my hand's fault.
04:33 Remember when we called the cops?
04:37 'Cause we got too high.
04:40 And you got scared.
04:44 And the cops just left.
04:46 In high school, I ate this weed sandwich, actually.
04:49 It was a bunch of peanut butter that had whatever, oil.
04:52 And I was watching Avatar.
04:54 And it was just freaking me out.
04:56 I was so high, literally losing my mind.
04:58 I had called my mom.
04:59 And I was like, "My."
04:59 I was just so freaked out.
05:00 I was a grown man, calling my mom.
05:02 She was just like, "What are you doing?"
05:04 Did not take it as seriously as I would have liked.
05:05 So that's kind of where that line came from.
05:07 But I wanted to make that line kind of play into the story of a whimsical, beautiful moment
05:10 between two people.
05:11 Like something funny that happened that they can look back on.
05:13 The line about window shopping, I did do.
05:29 I lived in New York for two years.
05:30 And my sister lived in the Upper West Side.
05:31 So I'd be walking around.
05:33 And what always blows my mind about New York is that people just leave their curtains open.
05:36 Like you can just look into their lives.
05:38 And I'm like creeping around.
05:39 It's not my fault.
05:39 They're like right next to the street.
05:40 I'm walking my dog.
05:41 I'm like, "Oh, that person has a sweet stove.
05:43 I want that."
05:45 And I'm like, "I'm seeing all these."
05:46 And they're like just in there walking around, living their lives.
05:48 It's like Sims in there.
05:49 You can see everything that's going on.
05:50 I wrote that line about that feeling of like, "Can you imagine living this life in this
05:53 beautiful apartment in New York and willing to just let people stare into your apartment?"
05:57 Like what a crazy life that would be.
05:58 [MUSIC]
06:00 I struggle with depression my whole life.
06:01 And people think like, "Oh my God, depression.
06:03 That's so sad."
06:04 And it's like sometimes it's not sad.
06:05 Sometimes it's funny.
06:06 Sometimes there's humor in it.
06:07 Like a cynical humor that is beautiful.