‘23’ is one of the most sonically stunning songs on Noah Kahan's 2026 studio album, The Great Divide. It finds the ‘Stick Season’ singer-songwriter stepping into the shoes of a protagonist whose family-member has a history of addiction. Across a sparse, evocative instrumental, Kahan croons about wishing he could keep a more rose-tinted memory of their relationship at the forefront of his mind.

One of the few songs on The Great Divide penned entirely by himself, ‘23’ is a demonstration of Kahan's ability to craft rich, visceral and often deeply relatable vignettes, even if they're not 100% autobiographical. The themes of nostalgia and broken relationships tie in with the broader narrative that runs through The Great Divide.

Throughout The Great Divide, Kahan and his production team of Gabe Simon and Aaron Dessner provide numerous masterclasses in how to build out a song from sparse, gentle beginnings into a soaring, galvanising crescendo - and ‘23’ epitomises this.

Helmed by just Kahan and Simon, the track opens with an undulating electric guitar and the ‘Northern Attitude’ crooner's wistful vocals, and continues with this atmospheric, minimalist composition for half of the song. Kahan keeps us in the palm of his hand, with the introduction of emphatic drums towards the latter half of the song giving it a final boost of emotional weight as he approaches the conclusion.

It's one of the most musically fascinating and compelling songs on the project - which, given how varied and captivating The Great Divide is from start to finish, is saying something.

Kahan has underlined that ‘23’ is not intended to be taken as an autobiographical story, revealing that it's instead an amalgamation of tales he's pieced together from various friends that have gone through similar experiences with family.

Throughout the song, the protagonist addresses a relative who has been struggling with addiction. They express their deep-seated desire for them to go back to a more innocent time when that beloved family-member was “23 and clean”, i.e. off drugs.

Kahan's paints a rose-tinted picture of that family-member showing them how a car engine works, a simple and seemingly insignificant moment on the surface, but one that has gained more meaning in years since as their addiction has apparently worsened.

Although not about the old friend that Kahan references throughout The Great Divide, the line “Sprinting my way past your bedroom” conjures up the album artwork, where we see two children running through the lens of a window-frame. It harks back to that idea of the romanticised innocence of youth, a key theme of the record.

In a post explaining the inspiration behind ‘23’, Kahan has explained, “The song itself is not based on a story of my life, but based on a lot of friendships I have with people who have family members who are struggling with addiction or who have siblings who they can't connect to. It's that feeling of ‘I want you back, but I don't want this version of you back’ and ‘I want that moment when were were sitting over the car hood and you were showing me how the engine worked and everything was normal’. And so seeing who you are now betrays this version of you that I really want you to be in this memory I have of you. It's a little selfish, because it's like you're asking someone to change for you, but it's that kind of childlike innocent hope that somebody we'll just be exactly where we are”.

Noah explains that 23 is a story about the narrator having a sibling with addiction and wanting the old version of them back. It’s utterly heartbreaking https://t.co/lU0P25ceRF pic.twitter.com/bfh82d8aQC

— Noah Kahan Archive (@KahanArchive) April 24, 2026

As part of his official The Great Divide album announcement, Kahan shed some illuminating light on what this body of work represents to him, “From a long silence forms a divide, a great expanse demanding attention. I stare across it. I see old friends, my father, my mother, my siblings, my younger self, the great state of Vermont. I want to scream these feelings, to gesticulate wildly at the figures on the other side, but my voice has grown hoarse and muted after years of climbing a ladder towards the wild, spiraling dreams that have materialized in front of me”.

The Vermont native offers insight into his creative process, “Instead, I wrote them down next to a piano in Nashville, next to a pond in Guilford Vermont, in a legendary studio in upstate New York, on a farm with a firetower in Only, Tennessee. 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. I am grateful for all of it, for all of you, for listening to them, if you choose to do so”.

Kahan has repeatedly touched on how challenging he found the writing process for The Great Divide, as the pressure to outdo his magnum opus, Stick Season, weighed on him, something he explored in-depth in his 2026 Netflix documentary, Out of Body. During an interview with Zach Sang, he reflected on how he managed to overcome his writers’ block, “It was a hugely cathartic experience. I had been so stressed and so lost and was literally thinking about quitting and going to work at my golf course as a divot repair person”, adding, “The Great Divide for me, I’m so proud of, because not only did it come out of a time of great pressure and expectation. I felt like I was fully able to say what I wanted to say in the songs”.

“Half as drunk as I thought I’d be by now, that’s good

I can still see the people around me change shape

Speak their minds and pretend they were misunderstood

Preachin’ about sin over lines of cocaine

Even when you’re not here, it becomes about you

They all want me to tell them your story

You broke in and stole china from our living room

Kinda makes all the other parts boring

-

You stand over half a foot taller than me

Your marks on the wall of the weight room

Naive to believe you would come back and see

If I could finally take you

-

Oh well I’ll beat your ass till the morning

You know I’ve been running all this time

Sprinting my way past your bedroom

Lifting the weight of you off my mind

'Cause if I never see you again

You could be anything I want

23, clean in the engine heat

Teachin’ me how the thing runs

Stay gone, won’t you stay gone

Stay gone, Stay gone

-

Tattooed your initials into my right arm

So I’d see your name when I lift up a drink

There ain’t nothing else here worth catching up on

So I hope that it’s warm wherever you sleep

-

And I’ve got a feeling that won’t go away

The doctors are calling it just moving on

I still ball up my fists when they mention your name

No one gets to talk shit but the ones you shit on

-

Well I’ll beat your ass in the morning

You know I’ve been running all this time

Sprinting my way past your bedroom

Lifting the weight of you off my mind

'Cause if I never see you again

You could be anything I want

23, clean in the engine heat

Teachin’ me how the thing runs

Stay gone, stay gone, won’t you stay gone

Stay gone

-

Yeah well I’ll beat your ass until morning

You know I’ve been running all this time

Sprinting my way past your bedroom

Lifting the weight of you off my mind

-

'Cause if I never see you again

And you could be anything I want

23, clean in the engine heat

Teachin’ me how the thing runs

23, clean in the engine heat

It can all be the way that it was

If you stay gone, stay gone

Won’t you stay gone, stay gone”

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Noah Kahan

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