Understanding Joe Keery's "End of Beginning" and Why It Resonates
"End of Beginning" is the standout track from Joe Keery's 2024 album Hometown Glitch. It's a wistful, lo-fi-tinged meditation on memory, nostalgia, and the feeling of being stuck between who you were and who you're becoming. The song blew up largely through TikTok and Spotify algorithmic playlists, but it's not just another viral moment — it's genuinely well-crafted. The lyrics capture that specific ache of looking back at your younger self while standing in the present. Here are the core lyrics: "Dreams don't work unless you do / And we were built to break the mold / Never been a kid for long / Always felt out of place"
"Now I'm back in my hometown / Wondering where the time went / All those summer nights / Burning bright and burning out" "It's the end of beginning / All the things I thought I'd be / All the roads I didn't take / All the people I used to see" The song structures itself around the tension between aspiration and reality. Keery isn't being cynical — he's being honest about the gap between teenage ambition and adult comprehension.
How the Song Actually Works
The production leans on warm analog synth pads, a relaxed drum machine pattern, and Keery's breathy vocal delivery sitting slightly behind the mix. This creates a specific kind of distance — the sound itself feels like memory. The verse melodies stay relatively narrow in range, which keeps things feeling grounded. The pre-chorus lifts just enough to signal emotional movement without going over the top. I spent a few weeks trying to reverse-engineer the chord progression for a cover arrangement. The main progression sits around Am–F–C–G with some add9 colorings that give it that hazy quality. The trick is the voicings — close-position chords on synth versus open voicings on guitar completely change how nostalgic it feels. I learned this the hard way when my first demo sounded flat and generic. Switching to suspended and add9 voicings in the left hand of the keyboard arrangement brought it to life almost instantly.
Get the Full Details
Why People Fixate on This Track
The song taps into what I'd call generational ambiguity. Keery is old enough to remember life before smartphones were ubiquitous but young enough to have his formative years reshaped by them. That specific temporal position — somewhere between analog childhood and digital adulthood — gives the lyrics a weight that doesn't require you to be exactly his age to feel. The line "It's the end of beginning" works because it's grammatically slightly off in a deliberate way. It's not "the beginning of the end" or "the end of beginnings." It's compressed. That compression mirrors the way we actually remember things — not as full narratives but as fragmented emotional snapshots.
Common Misreadings of the Lyrics
A lot of people treat this as purely a sad song about regret. That's incomplete. There's warmth in the delivery and the music that undercuts pure melancholy. Keery isn't mourning his past — he's reconciling with it. The distinction matters for anyone trying to perform or interpret the track authentically. Another frequent miss is reading the hometown references as literal. Chicago comes up in interviews as Keery's base, but the specificity is deliberately fuzzy. The song works because you can project your own location onto it. Keeping that ambiguity intact when discussing or covering the track preserves what makes it connect.
Where the Song Falls Short
For all its strengths, the track isn't for everyone. The tempo sits around 72 BPM with a relaxed feel that some listeners find too slow or mellow. If you're looking for something more driving or emotionally intense, this isn't it. The production choices prioritize atmosphere over punch, which means it rewards repeated listening but doesn't grab you on first play. The album version runs about four minutes, and while the structure is tight, some sections could have been trimmed. The bridge, in particular, lingers a beat longer than necessary before returning to the final chorus. In a live setting this drag is more noticeable, which is why Keery's performances often extend the outro into a longer instrumental fade rather than sticking to the album cut.
Where to Find the Lyrics
The official lyrics are available through Apple Music, Spotify, and Genius. If you're looking to learn the song yourself, Guitar Center and Ultimate-Guitar both have chord charts, though I'd recommend cross-referencing with the actual recording since some user-submitted versions get the voicings wrong. The Add9 and sus4 choices are what give the song its character, and generic power chord versions miss the point entirely. The track is also available on YouTube with lyric videos from official channels and fan uploads. For sheet music, MuseScore has community arrangements if you want to go beyond chords.
