Arriving as Track No. 7 on Noah Kahan's fourth studio album, The Great Divide, ‘Haircut’ finds the ‘Orange Juice’ singer-songwriter delving into a strained relationship. Throughout the evocative offering, Kahan regales listeners with the circumstances of a breakdown in an old friendship. It touches on the central theme behind the record, which finds Kahan exploring how his success and his decision to move away from Vermont have altered some of his most cherished relationships.

Kahan eschews the angsty, furious electric guitars that pepper much of The Great Divide in favour of a more Stick Season-esque arrangement, with the folk titan's vibrant vocals gliding across an energising beat and a refreshingly bright guitar riff on ‘Haircut’.

We do get Kahan's signature twangy electric guitar entering the fray for the stirring hook, but it still feels notably more understated and subdued compared to the likes of ‘American Cars’ and ‘Doors’. As ‘Haircut’ reaches it crescendo, Kahan yells out into the void, accentuating the drama and gravitas that permeate this soulful ode.

While Kahan is either mournfully introspective or uncontrollably frustrated for large portions of The Great Divide, the tone throughout ‘Haircut’ is strangely one of a man at peace with the end of a friendship. There's no real lingering bitterness, rather, it sounds like the Vermont native is simply stating clearly where he now stands.

Kahan sings about an old friend who he feels is just trying to help him to make themselves feel better for some unknown past conflict. Some fans have suggested that he is singing from the perspective of the friend in the title-track, ‘The Great Divide’, who Kahan feels like he's let down. In that case, the narrator's accusatory words are aimed at Kahan himself, much like ‘Porch Light’ and ‘Downfall’.

The line, “It ain’t a high road now, it’s just uneven ground”, is incredibly visceral, and it captures the sense that one of the friends once felt as though they had the ‘moral high ground’. But now, this feeling of superiority is just the cause of their resentment.

There's been one admittedly strange fan-theory that ‘Haircut’ could be about Zach Bryan, given how there are numerous lyrics that double-up as Bryan songs, like ‘High Road’ and ‘Bad News’. Bryan also allegedly got a hair transplant last summer.

The duo were friends, and even collaborated on ‘Sarah's Place’ from Bryan's 2023 Boys of Faith EP. However, there were then rumours that the ‘Something in the Orange’ hitmaker was meant to come out during Kahan's Fenway Park shows in 2024, but - according to Bryan's ex, Brianna LaPaglia - he was too drunk to do it, and then Kahan covered for him with a socials post afterwards. The references on ‘Haircut’ to no longer needing a ‘co-sign’ could imply Kahan is singing to someone else in the music industry, or it could just mean he's singing about himself.

We're not sure we can get behind this particular theory, especially as Kahan sings about Vermont on this track, implying it's a friendship based there that he's referring to.

Either way, the stellar track pivots around a broken friendship, and if anything, Kahan's cryptic references make it more relatable and easier for fans to apply to their own lives.

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”.

“Storm took the phone lines down

And now your ride can’t call

And you’re bouncing off the walls

I stretched my arms real wide

Tried to break your fall

But you got up mad as hell, told me that I had it all

-

I tried to heal your wounds

Just to say I helped

Just to say that some small fame ain’t made me someone else

It ain’t a high road now

Just uneven ground

And I ain’t even around to slow your speeding down

-

You told me if a lie turned true

A lie it would still be

You ain’t a god damn hero now cuz you cry on live TV

-

But at least I got a soul still

Even if I’m in a bad place

Even if I’m eating fast food

Sleeping at my dad’s place

I’m happy for your haircut

I’m glad you got your act cleaned

But you’re showing up like bad news

And leaving like a bad dream

Help me if it helps you sleep

-

Don’t need your cosign now

Oh, we get along just fine

For two hundred years we laid bricks in the dirt

Put solar in the copper mines

-

You grew your hair out long

Now you think you’re Jesus Christ

Ain’t nobody mistaking your guilt for some great sacrifice

-

Got bored in the New Hampshire space

You left us for the New York Times

Now you stumble around like a ghost, tellin’ people how you died

-

You told me if a lie turned true

A lie it would still be

You ain’t a god damn hero now cuz you cry on live TV

-

But at least I got a soul still

Even if I’m in a bad place

Even if I’m eating fast food

Sleeping at my dad’s place

I’m happy for your haircut

I’m glad you got your act cleaned

You’re showing up like bad news

And leaving like a bad dream

Help me if it helps you sleep

Help me if it helps you write

Help me if it helps you leave

Help me if it helps you lie

Crying in the bathroom, baby

-

I drove your ass home

You walked into a haunted house

And got angry at the ghosts

We were fine without you baby

Long after you’re gone

Spare us all the pity love

Save it for the microphone

-

But at least I got a soul still

Even if I’m in a bad place

Even if I’m eating fast food

Sleeping at my dad’s place

I’m so happy for your haircut

I’m glad you got your act cleaned

But you’re showing up like bad news

And leaving like a bad dream

Help me if it helps you sleep

Help me if it helps you write

Help me if it helps you leave

Help me if it helps you lie

-

We were fine without you, baby”

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Noah Kahan

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