‘Halloween’ by Noah Kahan - Lyrics & Meaning

One of the most underrated gems on Noah Kahan's magnum opus, Stick Season, ‘Halloween’ finds the Vermont native likening the feeling of struggling to get over someone to that of a ghost haunting him. Released as part of the original edition of Stick Season in October 2022, Kahan extended the story behind ‘Halloween’ on his next album, 2026's The Great Divide: The Last Of The Bugs, on ‘Lighthouse’.

Unlike many of the more eye-catching songs on Stick Season that pivot around an infectious, soaring hook, like ‘She Calls Me Back’ and ‘Dial Drunk’, Kahan opts for a more intimate, slow-building song structure on the appropriately haunting ‘Halloween’.

The melody remains the same throughout, with the song opening with Kahan's gentle vocals drifting hazily across a sparse guitar riff. As he approaches the first iteration of the chorus, we hear the introduction of Kahan's ethereal, otherworldly vocalising.

The song builds and builds in intensity, mirroring the gradual increase in our protagonist's frustrations at the fact that he can't escape his ex. The spellbinding, falsetto harmonies bring to mind Bon Iver, making it feel apt that Bon Iver then lends his vocals to ‘Lighthouse’, widely interpreted as the sequel to ‘Halloween’.

Throughout ‘Halloween’, Kahan employs a visceral array of imagery as he details the difficulties of getting over an old flame. He admits that, although it's not Halloween, he constantly feels haunted by the ‘ghost’ of her, as he sees her everywhere he goes.

He fantasises about leaving behind his home in Vermont - a recurring theme throughout Stick Season - and living somewhere incredibly remote. He describes it as a cold, hostile place (“I'm sailin' away to a place I'm afraid of / The dawn isn't here, the sun hasn't rose”). But as long as it's a place where he doesn't see his ex, that's fine, conveying how he wants to run away and escape from his pain.

The subsequent portrayals of drinking away his days with “coastal longshoreman” foreshadows the setting of ‘Lighthouse’, in which Kahan sings, “I comb the lighthouse / And hope you're there in the morning / Burnin' your boat / Back to the ocean”.

Similarly, Kahan uses the distinctive phrase - “the wreckage of you” - in both ‘Halloween’ and ‘Lighthouse’. In ‘Halloween’, he uses this to convey how he is trying not to linger and wallow in the wreckage his ex left in the aftermath of their break-up.

In ‘Lighthouse’, he takes a more empathetic tone, underlining that, now that they've left town, he will forever try to tell their story in a way that honours them (“But I look out / At the wreckage of you / For as long as there's light / For as long as you last / I curse 'em all out / When they f*** up your story / I tell it the way that you told me”).

As ‘Halloween’ draws to a close, Kahan uses powerful imagery to capture the uniquely uncomfortable sense that you're constantly near to your old lover, but something has slightly changed that makes them feel distant. He likens this to hearing her familiar voice, but she's speaking in a language he isn't familiar with, giving ‘Halloween’ a dream-like - or, perhaps more accurately, nightmare-like - quality (“I'm losin' myself in the tiniest objects / I'm seein' my life on a screen / I'm hearin' your voice in a strange foreign language / If only I learned how to speak”).

‘Halloween’ a beautifully composed song that highlights Kahan's fantastic storytelling ability, and his capacity for crafting rich, compelling tapestries of anguish, regret, loss and loneliness, while occasionally weaving in subtly bright, hopeful undertones.

“I'm sailin' away to a place I'm afraid of
The dawn isn't here, the sun hasn't rose
I'm drinkin' my days with the coastal longshoreman
They got money to make and children back home
The last that I heard, you were down in New Orleans
Workin' your days at The Print
I drink 'til I drown and I smoke 'til I'm burnin'
Your hands are all over my scent
I worry for you, you worry for me
And it's fine if we know we won't change
Collect every dream in these old empty pockets
In hope that I'll need them some day
-
But the wreckage of you, I no longer reside in
And the bridges have long since been burnt
The ash of the home that I started the fire in
It starts to return to the Earth
I'm leavin' this town and I'm changin' my address
I know that you'll come if you want
It's not Halloween, but the ghost you dressed up as
Sure knows how to haunt, yes, it knows how to haunt
-
It's an ode to the hole that I found myself stuck in
A song for the grave that I dug
There's a murder of crows in the low light off Boston
And I see your face in each one
I'm losin' myself in the tiniest objects
I'm seein' my life on a screen
I'm hearin' your voice in a strange foreign language
If only I learned how to speak
-
But the wreckage of you, I no longer reside in
The bridges have long since been burnt
And the ash of the home that I started the fire in
It starts to return to the Earth
I'm leavin' this town and I'm changin' my address
I know that you'll come if you want
It's not Halloween, but the ghost you dressed up as
Sure knows how to haunt, yeah, you know how to haunt
-
Mm-hmm-mm, know how to haunt
Know how to haunt
Mm-hmm-mm
Mm-hmm-mm
Ah, ooh
Mm-hmm-mm
-
I know that you fear that I'm wicked and weary
I know that you're fearin' the end
But I only tell the truth when I'm sure that I'm lyin'
So I'm settin' sail once again”

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