First performed in December 2024 in Charleston, South Carolina, and eventually released as part of Noah Kahan's fourth album, The Great Divide, ‘All Them Horses’ finds the Vermont native reflecting on the floods that devastated his home-state in 2023.

One of the most eagerly anticipated songs ahead of the ‘Northern Attitude’ singer-songwriter's 2026 album, ‘All Them Horses’ epitomises Kahan's ability to pen rich, evocative odes to his home-state, something he showcases across The Great Divide.

‘All Them Horses’ opens with an atmospheric, ethereal acoustic guitar, which creates an immediate sense of drama and gravitas. Kahan's heartfelt vocals accentuate the emotional weight that's laced into this track, as the song builds and builds towards its heart-rending crescendo with the raging electric guitar and layered vocals.

Over the course of ’All Them Horses’, Kahan reflects on the floods that wreaked havoc on Vermont in 2023, using the powerful image of a herd of horses in the deep water. He notes how, despite the fear spreading through the state, the horses looked at peace, betraying a sense of admiration at how stoic and trusting they are.

Kahan crafts a visceral metaphor as he describes being high above Vermont in a jet while the floods are causing damage, symbolising how he feels a disconnect to his home-state since becoming a global ‘star’. There's also a feeling that he has abandoned his home by touring the world and temporarily moving to Nashville, implying a deep-seated guilt that is exacerbated by the terrible flooding.

There's a particularly captivating line, “The rivers meet and spread like veins”, which highlights Kahan's penchant for lyrics that use body-related imagery in a graphic, intentionally disconcerting way. We see this throughout his catalogue, such as on ‘Growing Sideways’ (“Keep the bad shit in my liver and the rest around my heart”) and ‘Pain is Cold Water’ (“Cut a hole in my heart that bled into my liver”). It's a striking literary tool that elevates the anguish and turmoil in so many of his songs.

In addition, the “Double yellow murdered deer” line ties into the “roadkill fawn” lyric of ‘End of August’ at the start of The Great Divide. Kahan sings about driving as a recurring theme, with the roadkill seemingly symbolising how Kahan feels as though he hurts people along the way. It's an idea he explores in more depth on ‘Doors’.

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”.

“Window seat in a ‘90s plane
See the rivers meet and spread like veins
Another airport lounge, another time zone change
Gonna dance around and sing about my pain
Okay, it pays
-
See the dried flood lines on the neighbors’ porches
Do you remember crying for all them horses?
They did not look scared at all
They did not look scared, they did not look scared at all
-
So tell me when it feels you cannot escape me
Just yell like dad would yell at all the noise I’m making
I’m just happy you still call
I’m just happy, I’m just happy you still call
-
City kid bought the farm, he’s a real nice guy
Left a lifetime invitation for my friends and I
Couldn’t make it back even if I tried
Oh some things live forever even when they die
Oh my
My my my my my
-
You know I wanna beat it, I wanna beat it bad
Oh, everyone looks happy in a photograph
I crossed the county line I cannot go back
I’m always on my own
Couldn’t make it home 'cause of all that rain
Oh, run of bad luck in a nowhere state
I’m high above us now in a big jet plane
I’m always on my own
I’m always on my own
-
I ain’t planned it, the plane
Plane just landed out here
Rubbed my eyes on 89
Double yellow murdered deer
You can vanish, yes love
You can try to disappear
Thousand eyes on a dirt road
Strike a light, let it burn slow
Maybe I’m manic again, but I think this time I’m out for good
I’m a sidewalk preacher with a record deal
I’m the weight of new sneakers on some dead wood
This ain’t mine anymore
I made too much goddamn noise
Done staring at the void
I’m spin-castin’ with the boys
-
You know I wanna beat it, I wanna beat it bad
Oh, everyone looks happy in a photograph
I crossed the county line, I cannot go back
I’m always on my own
Couldn’t make it home 'cause of all that rain
Oh, run of bad luck in a nowhere state
I’m high above us now in a big jet plane
I’m always on my own
I’m always on my own
-
See the dried flood lines on the neighbors’ porches
You remember crying for all them horses
They did not look scared at all
They did not look scared, they did not look scared at all”

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Noah Kahan

Artist