Hi Jaime,
Noah is friends with me, not the other way around!
Joking, of course.
I met Noah a month before his nineteenth birthday—before he could rock such a great beard. (Still, he had pretty good stubble.)
It was December of 2015. He came to Nashville to work on songs for his debut album. My old publisher had set us up to write together. Noah was on the verge of signing with Republic Records. I think I was in the room because my songwriting mentor, busbee, wanted me there—and he (busbee) was supposed to be there too. Record labels and managers would request him because of his success. But for whatever reason, he couldn’t make the session.
So it was me, Noah, and the incredible Ben West, who swooped in at the eleventh hour—which, no offense to myself (none taken), was probably why management kept it on the books.
It’s weird, but in Nashville, cowriting can feel very transactional. Noah would tell you the same. Writing songs—something you once held so precious—is suddenly a commodity thrown into the marketplace. The loss of control, the awkwardness—it’s enough to send some songwriters packing their bags.
And so this was one of those days where, honestly, Noah Kahan was a name on a shared Google Calendar. Almost a number.
Like most mornings, the publisher sends some intel about what the label is hoping for and what the artist is hoping for. What most songwriters normally do is take all that information and throw it in the garbage, because it’s fairly meaningless if no trust has been established. And you can’t do that until you meet the person.
I don’t remember where that first writing session was. Somebody’s studio. I just remember it was December and there weren’t any windows. Ben sat at the control board. Noah and I were next to each other, across from Ben.
The first thought I had about Noah was, “Poor kid. The label sent him to Nashville. No artist likes to be told, ‘We don’t hear a hit in any of your songs—why don’t you go to Nashville.’”
(Of course, years later we’d all learn the joke was on us—record labels included. Noah didn’t need anybody. Just his fans, an internet connection, and a global pandemic.)
My next thought was, “I like this kid. He’s from a small town like I am—where it’s cold and the snow sticks around forever.”
You can know a lot about someone based on whether they’ve shoveled snow for a significant percentage of their existence.
Then we started to get to know each other, and he was funny. Self-deprecating and quick-witted. Dry humor.
So there we were—three dudes from cold weather (Ben’s from Michigan) who knew how to shovel snow and didn’t take themselves too seriously. That meant the work would probably be good. And if nothing else, it would be a good hang.
And it was both of those things.
I was proud of the song we wrote. Noah and his team shortlisted it for his album. And I think we all enjoyed being together.
And that was that.
Until February of 2016, when my publisher said, “How would you like to go to Vermont for a few days and write with Noah at his house?” He was still working on material for his first album.
In the music industry, there are seasons to say yes and seasons to say no. Honestly, until my wife and I had our third and fourth kids—and I was in my late thirties—I said yes to almost anything. It didn’t matter if it didn’t make sense. It didn’t matter if the odds were nearly zero that it would amount to anything.
Nearly zero is pretty good odds in the music business.
So with that reasoning, Strafford, Vermont sounded as reasonable a place to be as anywhere else in the world—writing songs with Noah Kahan, a kid I’d only hung out with for a few hours. I knew I liked him. I knew he was talented. And I knew I hadn’t yet reached my season of no.
I flew out the following month, rented a Toyota Corolla, and got a hotel in Hanover, New Hampshire—just across the border from Vermont.
The next morning, Noah and I met at a breakfast place, sat in a booth, and caught up on the past couple months over eggs and hash browns. He drove a Subaru with his iPod connected to the stereo. Whether he was being polite or not, he had one of my songs on his playlist.
One thing that became clear to me was the stark contrast between him and his peers (who didn’t seem to be around). He had chosen to pursue music while all his friends went off to college. That’s a lonely place to be.
Sure, it might seem exciting—especially with a record label chasing you—but life is mostly a bunch of pretty boring moments followed by a few interesting ones. And that takes a lot of patience for an eighty-year-old, much less a recent high-school graduate.
We wrote for a few days at his parents’ house. There was a living area above the detached, barn-shaped garage.
Vermont, 2016
We made lots of music over the course of those days. Most of it okay. Some of it pretty decent. And a couple songs I really liked and still have in my head sometimes.
But like most music a songwriter creates—regardless of where it falls on the “like to love” spectrum—its home address is often the same: a Dropbox folder somewhere.
The road to Noah’s house is mostly paved in mud, especially in March. It’s way out in the sticks. My Corolla couldn’t make it up one day, so Noah and his dad drove down in his dad’s front-end loader to where the tar stops and where I had parked on the shoulder. We all crammed into the cab and drove back up.
We would write and take breaks, walked through his parents’ property—trails, ponds, farm equipment.
One evening, I took Noah and his mother, Lauri, to a burger place they recommended. While Noah went to the bathroom, she candidly asked me—essentially—why I was there. Why did I come all this way? Why was I spending all this money on dinner, a car and hotel, plane tickets?
Having been in Nashville for so long, your senses become dulled to how weird the industry can be. To a caring mother in Vermont, all of this probably seemed somewhat suspicious.
I told her as honestly as I could that my publisher—and, truthfully, I—was making a bet that this would be worth it. Not just financially in the long run, but relationally. My publisher thought Noah was going to be big. I liked writing songs, and I liked writing with Noah. I hoped he was going to be big someday.
But all of that aside, I just like writing songs with people I like. And I liked Noah. That’s about as simple as it gets.
Nearly a decade later, it feels strange to think about that conversation. Things didn’t go exactly as planned. Noah’s first album didn’t do as well as anyone hoped.
He moved to Nashville to be based. He called and asked for some stuff. He was bored without many friends. He didn’t have a car. I brought him a bag of supplies and some books including my copy of East of Eden. I offered my Nissan pickup, but he said he’d been drinking—though he might take me up on the offer later.
We went to lunch one day, and I remember him being so excited and antsy to get going. To play out. To perform in front of people.
“Dude, do you have any shows coming up? I could open for you,” he said.
I didn’t.
But I remember saying, “If anything, man, someday I’ll be opening for you.”
Strafford, Vermont