You once called me forever, now you still can't call me back

[sovay]

It's not a disappointment, exactly, but I came into the middle of Noah Kahan's "Stick Season" (2022) while driving and not knowing what the song was called, heard the title lines of the chorus as it's a season in the Styx and I saw your mom and she forgot that I exist, which made perfect sense by the rules of the Greek underworld. It turns out it's just autumn in New England; I am just the kind of audience who has something chime in their head at and I'm split in half, but that'll have to do and later realizes it was the last line of Housman's "He would not stay for me, and who can wonder?" With Housman, I can be reasonably confident it's an allusion to Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium. I don't know that it's an allusion to Housman in Kahan. It's an extremely catchy hook, though.

Comments

[cafenowhere]

I love that you're getting at least twice as much out of the song as was intended. Kahan would probably be tickled, too.

[sovay]

I love that you're getting at least twice as much out of the song as was intended. Kahan would probably be tickled, too.

Thank you! That's nice to hear. Reading against the text for artistic benefit.