"Dial Drunk" by Noah Kahan is an Alt-Folk-Pop Masterpiece

Noah Kahan is a 26 year old alternative-folk-pop artist who requires no introduction if your music taste is generally like mine. His hit song "Stick Season" became extremely popular in late 2022, and fans had not been hiding their excitement for the deluxe version of his album, which was also titled Stick Season, to be released in June of this year. Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever) was released on June 9th, 2023 with seven new songs, bringing the deluxe album to a total of 23 tracks. I love Kahan’s honest lyrics and unique modern-folk sound, and

the track that stood out to me the most from the new releases was "Dial Drunk". This song is about a self-destructive person who’s still in love with someone who just isn’t able to put up with him anymore. The speaker of this song knows that he should change his ways but his unwillingness to do so drove the person he loves away. The speaker would do anything to be with his love… except get sober or better himself in the ways that the love interest would need him to in order to be with him.

(Image of Stick Season: We'll All Be Here Forever album from Genius)

Doesn’t this sound like a good story? Now let’s get into the lyrics!

(First verse)

I'm remembering I promised to forget you now

But it's raining, and I'm calling drunk

And my medicine is drowning your perspective out

So I ain't taking any fault

Am I honest still? Am I half the man I used to be?

I doubt it, forget about it, whatever

It's all the same, anyways

The song starts with the speaker thinking of the person he loves and deciding to call them while he’s drinking. He knows that the love interest doesn’t want to hear from him because he explains that his “medicine is drowning [their] perspective out,” which is him being aware that the person does not want to receive a call from him. His “medicine” could be the alcohol he’s drinking, and he doesn’t feel that it’s his fault because being under the influence is causing him to act impulsively. Even though he says that he isn’t "taking any fault", the fact that he’s aware that the love interest doesn’t want him calling shows that he does know that what he’s doing is wrong and self-serving, but he is trying to rationalize his actions to himself by using alcohol as his excuse. The speaker then starts asking himself questions about his character because he’s aware that he’s lying to himself about the phone call. He wonders if he is still a good person because he knows he is acting selfishly, and as he comes to the conclusion that he is becoming a worse version of himself he decides to push the thoughts away and “forget about it.” It doesn’t feel worth it to the speaker to ask himself these questions because he resents himself for how he acts, but the fact that he does ask himself the questions shows that there’s a part of him wishing he were a better person.

(Chorus)

I ain't proud of all the punches that I've thrown

In the name of someone I no longer know

For the shame of being young, drunk, and alone

Traffic lights and a transmitter radio

The speaker regrets many of the decisions he’s made in the past that led him to where he is now. To him, the past versions of himself are strangers because he feels that he is a different person now. Throwing a punch is an act of aggression, and maybe the things that the speaker really took a stand for or things that were important enough to fight for in his past now feel like a waste of effort. Throwing a punch at someone can also end relationships/friendships, and maybe the speaker threw some metaphorical "punches" with his actions that certain people in his life were never able to forgive him for. As the speaker tries to reflect on his past behavior, the only reason he can find for the way he acted was that he was "young, drunk, and alone". He was naive, acting impulsively, and didn’t have anyone looking out for him and helping him make better decisions. The chorus then switches to imagery that describes driving, and the specific mentioning of “traffic lights and a transmitter radio” alludes to running of a red light or disobeying traffic laws, and a police officer calling it into their radio.

(Chorus Cont.)

I don't like that when they threw me in the car

I gave your name as my emergency phone call

Honey, it rang and rang even the cops thought you were wrong for hanging up

I dial drunk, I'll die a drunk, I'd die for you

In the second half of the chorus, the police officer arrests the speaker for drunk driving after he runs through the red light. When given the choice to call someone after he was arrested, the speaker decides to call the love interest who he knows doesn’t want to hear from him. In the beginning of this chorus the police officer doesn’t come across as sympathetic towards the speaker, as it’s described that the “threw” the speaker in the back of the cop car. Even the cops can’t help but feel sorry for the speaker, though, as he waits for his love interest to pick up the phone and bail him out of jail, but instead they hang up the phone. The chorus ends with three statements that not only sound nice to sing but also sum up the perspective of the speaker. He keeps calling because he would do anything for his love, but he would die for his love before he gets sober for them. 

(Second verse)

I'm untethering from the parts of me you'd recognize

From charming to alarming in seconds

I'll be bedridden, and I'll let the pain metastasize

But that's morning, I'll forget it

And the dial tone is all I have

The fact that the speaker feels distance between the version of himself when he was with his love interest versus the version of himself that he is now shows that things have gotten much worse for him since they stopped talking. His being “bedridden” could be because of his emotional pain or because of his drinking problem which would make him feel hungover the next day. He says that he’ll let the pain “metastasize”, which medically means to spread from one area of the body to another. This speaker is in such deep emotional pain that he decides to drink heavily each night, causing the emotional pain to become a physically painful hangover. He makes this mistake over and over because the alcohol causes him to act without thinking, and even though he knows that he will feel sick and in pain in the morning, he decides to get drunk anyway because it’s better than thinking about how sad he feels. He puts himself through all of this time after time not to talk to the person he loves but just to get their dial tone, but he does it anyways because that’s the closest he can get to them anymore.

(Chorus)

I ain't proud of all the punches that I've thrown

In the name of someone I no longer know

For the shame of being young, drunk, and alone

Traffic lights and a transmitter radio

I don't like that when they threw me in the car

I gave your name as my emergency phone call

Honey, it rang and rang even the cops thought you were wrong for hanging up

I dial drunk, I'll die a drunk, I'd die for you

I'd die for you

(Bridge)

I beg you, sir, just let me call

I'll give you my blood alcohol

I'll rot with all the burnouts in the cell

I'll change my faith, I'll praise the flag

Let's wait I swear she'll call me back

"Son, are you a danger to yourself?"

Fuck that, sir just let me call

I'll give you my blood alcohol

I'll rot with all the burnouts in the cell

I'll change my faith, I'll kiss the badge

Let's wait, I swear she'll call me back

"Son, why do you do this to yourself?"

While the speaker spends the night in jail for driving drunk, he begs the cop to give him one more chance to call his love. You can hear the urgency the speaker feels as he pleads for one more phone call. When he offers to give his “blood alcohol,” I understood this to have a double meaning as not only to give his blood alcohol percentage, which is the measurement that got him arrested in the first place as he was driving over the legal limit, but also offering his “blood” and his “alcohol”. He is telling the cop that they can take his alcohol, which is an addiction he struggles with and wouldn’t want to give up unless he had to, and his “blood” or his life. The speaker can’t physically survive without his blood and he can’t emotionally survive without numbing his pain with alcohol, but these necessities are second to his need to call his love one more time, just in case it’s the time they actually pick up. He tries reasoning with the cop by saying whatever he thinks they will want to hear, offering to “change his faith” to Christianity (Kahan is Jewish), or “praise the flag.” He will sacrifice his morals and identity, stooping as low as offering to “kiss the badge” that the police officer wears if it will convince them to give him another shot at calling his love. The cop replies to his pleas by asking if he is “a danger to [himself]” because they can tell how irrational he is acting in his desperation. When the speaker goes on to beg a second time in the second half of the bridge, the cop just asks him the question “son, why do you do this to yourself?” The cop knows that the speaker understands his pleas aren’t going to change anything and wonders why he continues to beg anyways. What the cop doesn’t understand is that the speaker feels it to be more necessary that he can talk to his love than for him to even be alive.

(Chorus)

And I said

I ain't proud of all the punches that I've thrown

In the name of someone I no longer know (I no longer know)

For the shame of being young, drunk, and alone

Traffic lights and a transmitter radio

I don't like that when they threw me in the car

I gave your name as my emergency phone call

Honey, it rang and rang even the cops thought you were wrong for hanging up

I dial drunk, I'll die a drunk, I'd die for you

"Dial Drunk" is a masterpiece that tells a beautifully tragic story that is emphasized by the song’s indie-folk sound. I highly encourage you to check this song out if you haven’t already and to listen to Noah Kahan’s new deluxe album, Stick Season: We’ll All Be Here Forever.