Orbiter from Noah Kahan’s newest album has to be one of the most deeply resonant songs I’ve heard in a long time. I’d even go so far as to say it’s the best song on the album.
I think a lot of people can find themselves somewhere inside his music, but especially in this song.
At first glance, it seems like a song about orbiting around an innate support system — or perhaps someone orbiting around you. But a closer look reveals something much deeper.
“It’s not my first time bitter drunk on a red carpet. My first time losing, and it won’t be my last.”
On the surface, it’s a fairly straightforward line about losing something most people will never experience firsthand — like losing a Grammy.
Yet somehow, almost everyone understands the feeling underneath it: wanting something so badly while feeling just outside of it.
Sitting in the same room as the thing you long for, while still feeling separate from it.
That feeling is universal. It also holds space for humility right along side it.
“It won’t be my last.” – knowing that losing is just on the opposite side of winning, that it is inevitable to lose at some point in your life. You simply won’t win every time. that is a cold hard truth to life.
“You’re no more important than an insect on a window. They’ll see you climbing, but won’t care u til you get close.”
Arguably, this is a reflection about him working so hard to attain his goals and no one really saw the hard work and dedication in the years prior until he was that close to winning.
And then there are lines like.
“ You said, ‘ Oh, look babe, even God is trying to warn you. All this ain’t for you.’ But I cling to my seat.”
That line hit me directly at the core.
It feels like shining a light on grief and self-awareness that normally isn’t talked about— the way intuition often arrives long before clarity does, and how even then, we still cling to the very things we sense may hurt us.
Whether that awareness comes from someone else trying to warn you, or from a quiet knowing somewhere deep inside yourself, the result is often the same:
we stay seated anyway.
“And I clutch my cloth, and I bite my tongue.”
“If I’m going to lose you either way.”
Is about wanting to stay anyway. Despite the odds. It’s about the quiet endurance to stay even though it is painful.
To me, the song isn’t just about recognizing something is wrong. It’s about the unbearable human tendency to remain emotionally attached even after recognition arrives.
It’s about orbiting grief.
The endless loops of processing, compromise, longing, and understanding. The way grief is never truly linear. You orbit around it for the rest of your life, returning to the same feelings from different distances, different phases of yourself, different points in time.
Not trapped by it.
But tethered to the gravity of it.
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