“It Really Scared Me To Be Like That”: Noah Kahan Says ‘Haircut’ Was Inspired By Filming His Netflix Documentary

During his GRAMMY Museum performance and Q&A, Noah Kahan opened up about a number of songs on his new album, The Great Divide, including his vulnerable ode, ‘Haircut’.

The song finds Kahan singing to himself from the imagined perspective of his family and loved ones in Vermont, as they chastise him for only coming home when he needs inspiration for his next song (“You ain't a goddamn hero now ‘cause you cry on live TV”).

At the GRAMMY Museum, the ‘Stick Season’ hitmaker reveals that he was inspired to write ‘Haircut’ about the challenges of filming his Netflix documentary, Out of Body, which entailed bringing extensive camera crews into his family's life.

He reflects, “That song, I started writing it while I was on the road, and I was thinking a lot about returning home. We'd just started making this documentary and, you know, I was bringing camera crews into my house. And I'd get home from tour and it'd be me and nine people with cameras. And it just felt like, ‘Oh my gosh, I'm returning home as this, like, Hollywood guy’. And it really scared me to be like that”.

In the insightful documentary, Kahan discusses how he feels a sense of regret at how personal some of the material on Stick Season was, especially with regards to his parents’ divorce, with the Vermont native admitting in Out of Body that his mother had expressed some discomfort about that. Now, as he outlines at the GRAMMY Museum, he felt like introducing camera crews to record deeply intimate moments between him and his loved ones could be similarly invasive.

The folk titan candidly muses, “I wanted to always maintain this relationship with my family and where I'm from that feels authentic and feels like an escape, and suddenly, it's like, ‘Look at you coming back to, like, you know, adulterate this peace’”.

Kahan movingly concludes, “I guess that's what my fear was. No one ever said I was doing that, but it's what I was so worried about. So I wanted to write a song about how people can feel used by art, and how people can feel a place can be adulterated by exposure. And how that kind of coalesced with my fears about where I was in my career. This idea that I was coming back and asking people to perform in the way that I perform, when most people don't perform for a living”.

‘Haircut’ is one of the many gems on The Great Divide: The Last Of The Bugs, with Kahan once again showcasing his ability to weave evocative, rich tapestries about his relationships with his siblings, parents, friends and wife, while wrapping these raw, visceral meditations in cushioning, comforting melodies and hooks.

It's not hard to see why Kahan would feel hesitant about inviting Netflix camera crews into his family home in Vermont, given how he has aired his loved ones’ dirty laundry in the past.

But ultimately, Out of Body makes for a truly powerful watch, and his revelations about body dysmorphia, depression and anxiety will no doubt help to offer reassurance for those who are struggling with similar things that they are not alone.

Hopefully, Kahan and his loved ones feel the loss of privacy that they had to temporarily endure during the filming was worth it for the message they were able to share through the striking visuals. Kahan's honesty in his songwriting has always been one of his most captivating qualities, and it's one of the reasons The Great Divide is unquestionably in the conversation for 2026 Album of the Year.