- 2026-04-23
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MUSIC
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Noah Kahan Performs Two New Songs “American Cars” & “Paid Time Off” at NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert
American singer-songwriter Noah Kahan appeared on NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert to perform “American Cars”, “The Great Divide”, “Orange Juice”, and “Paid Time Off”.
This marks his musical guest debut on Tiny Desk Concert.
Noah Kahan said, “I'm just so excited to be here. We're all such huge fans of NPR. I grew up up driving from Stratford to Hannover, New Hampshire, and there was never any cell service, so I would just listen to Laxmi saying. She's my president. And we're just grateful for what you guys do, and we love you and we grew up watching these, so thank you so much. This is so cool. Obviously I'm stressed. I'm sweating deeply. I makeup on. It's getting in my eyes. It's awful. But we're so honored to be here.”- “Orange Juice” was featured on his third album “Stick Season”, which was released in 2022.
“American Cars”, “The Great Divide”, and “Paid Time Off” are featured on his upcoming fourth studio album “The Great Divide”, which is due out this Friday (April 24th).
The title track “The Great Divide” was released as the lead single from the album back in January.
Especially, “American Cars” and “Paid Time Off” premiered on the program.
He said of both songs, “That was 'American Cars' off of my next album which called 'The Great Divide'. Which is cool. We're gonna play more cheerful one. In context. There's a D chord in it. But this one's, it's called 'Paid Time Off', and it's my one of my favorite songs off my new album.” -
“The Great Divide”
“My life had changed so much and I felt this real gap growing. I started to think about divide in my life, whether that was the divide between me and this older version of me, or me and the people that I used to know growing up, or the people that are in my life that I'm still trying to keep a relationship with. This song in particular is really about two people who grew up together, but maybe didn't know each other as well as they thought. A lot of my life recently has been realizing the things I wish I could have said to people and the things I wish I could have done differently, and so this song is kind of just an expansion of that.”
“Orange Juice”
“I wrote orange juice about 2 friends reconciling after years of being apart a tragic accident that they went though and kind of separated them. One person found religion and the other person stayed in the town where the accident happened and kind of just moved forward. It's really a song about how trauma can bind you and how it can also separate you. I always think that going through something traumatic should at least bring you closer to the person you experienced it with you. And I think the hardest thing about that is sometimes it makes you go farther away and I wanted to write about 2 people coming back together after that time. I drew on a lot of inspiration of my own life. My own struggle with addiction and alcohol and friendships that I've lost and haven't been able to maintain and I wanted to create a story about two people that represented a lot of the challenges that I've gone through and that people in my life have gone through. That's what orange juice is about at it's core” - source : NPR
