'Maine' by Noah Kahan – Lyrics & Meaning

Before Stick Season made Noah Kahan a household name, there was Cape Elizabeth, a modest EP from the Vermont-bred singer-songwriter that – in just five songs – perfectly showcased the undeniable talent and gripping songcraft that has a vice grip on the world today.

The star recently revisited the 2020 release, showcasing one particular song during a stint of shows at Boston's Fenway Park, which would then appear on his subsequent Live From Fenway Park collection.

'Maine' has been a cherished song among Kahan fans old and new, the gorgeously melancholic offering a testament to the artist's ability to succinctly capture a certain time, place and emotion in mere minutes.

Sonically, there isn't much to 'Maine'. Born from a trickle of delicate strings and a gust of breathy vocalizations, the song is a wash of no frills acoustics, a trade-off between earnest strums and precise plucks. All of Cape Elizabeth is much the same, an acoustic-fueled masterwork that places more weight on its story rather than its sound.

"Tell me, lover
Now that you made your change
Was your soul rediscovered?
Was your heart rearranged?
Are you still taking pills in the morning?
And did you lose that longing now?
For a walk through an ocean town
'Cause this town's just an ocean now"

According to Kahan, 'Maine' is meant to be a continuation of another Cape Elizabeth offering, 'Glue Myself Shut'. That track follows a couple who go their separate ways and 'Maine' depicts what happens in the aftermath when a love fractures and scatters.

In the beginning, the song finds one half of the couple wondering where the other ended up, how they're doing or what they're feeling. They have all these questions, curious as to whether or not the other found what they set off to discover.

The song's narrator seems to be haunted by the memories of the love they once had – Kahan croons, "I miss this place, your head and your heart" – left to drown in the place they once called home, singing: "This town's just an ocean now."

"I wanna go to Maine
I wanna go to Maine"

The narrator asks to be taken back to the life they had, back to a time and place when things felt good and familiar, before everything fell apart. They long for simpler times spent pondering traffic light camera and Sunday morning church bells together.

"Can you even hear them from the subway now?" they wonder, realizing, in the end, that the chapter they once shared is closed. They compare the fading relationship to fossils buried by the shore, marking the end of their love and the end of their life together in Maine. This town really is just an ocean now.

"Tell me, lover
Once you've had your change of heart
'Cause we're no more than the fossils
On Crescent Beach State Park
And we used to sing along to church bells on Sundays
And can you even hear em from the subway now?
And I hope that we make you proud
'Cause this town's just an ocean now"

"'Maine' just felt like the perfect closer sonically, and also, just speaking to that kind of simplicity of going back to an easier time," the artist shared in an interview with Atwood Magazine shortly after the release of Cape Elizabeth.

"'Maine' is about two people who used to be together – used to be with each other – and are in very different places, and the perspective of one person wanting to go back to that simpler time, and reconsidering the aspirations that took him away in the first place. I feel that; I really feel that, and I wanted to explore that idea, but also do it in the lens of this Cape Elizabeth concept."

Tell me, lover
Now that you made your change
Was your soul rediscovered?
Was your heart rearranged?
Are you still taking pills in the morning?
And did you lose that longing now?
For a walk through an ocean town
'Cause this town's just an ocean now

You don't hate the summers
You're just afraid of the space
Asking strangers for answers
To forget what they say
A boat beside a dock in the sunlight
Nothing but the water and the sunrise now
Just the lack of an open mouth
'Cause this town's just an ocean now

Bad
I'll miss this place, your head and your heart
And my dad still tells me when they're playing your songs
Laughing at the way that you would say
"If only, baby, there were cameras in the traffic lights
They'd make me a star
They'd make me a star"

I wanna go to Maine, mmm
I wanna go to Maine, oh

Bad
I'll miss this place, your head and your heart
And my dad still tells me when they're playing your songs
Laughing at the way
That you would say
"If only, baby, there were cameras in the traffic lights
They'd make me a star
They'd make me a star"

I wanna go to Maine
I wanna go to Maine, God

Tell me, lover
Once you've had your change of heart
'Cause we're no more than the fossils
On Crescent Beach State Park
And we used to sing along to church bells on Sundays
And can you even hear em from the subway now?
And I hope that we make you proud
'Cause this town's just an ocean now

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