30-sec preview
2024 · From the album DECIDE
End of Beginning
by Djo
The reading
A farewell to a younger self left behind in Chicago, set off by the strange ache of returning to a place you've outgrown
02 · Interpretation
Djo's 'End of Beginning': Chicago as the Self You Can't Keep
'End of Beginning' is about going back to a city that used to be you and realising that the version of yourself who belonged there isn't coming back either. It's a song about a threshold that has already been crossed; the singer is only now catching up to the fact.
Released in 2024 on Djo's second album DECIDE, the track sits at the quieter end of a record otherwise full of synth-pop sheen. Djo is the musical project of Joe Keery, an actor associated with Chicago through both his upbringing and his early career, which gives the city references here a literal weight rather than a generic Midwestern shorthand. The song became a sleeper hit on social media well after release, in part because its central feeling, the soft grief of outgrowing a past self, translates easily to anyone scrolling through old photos.
The opening: one tear left
The song begins with an oddly rationed image: one tear, to be held back for later, for the middle of the night when nothing is clear. It's a small joke about emotional economy, but it also sets the tone. This isn't a breakdown. It's the kind of feeling you save up and visit alone. The cryptic stage directions, "Enter, Troubadour" and the muttered "Remember 24?", read like notes to himself, scraps of a private mythology. The listener is being let in mid-thought.
The chorus: Chicago as a ghost
The chorus is the song's whole argument compressed into three lines. Going back to Chicago triggers the recognition, another version of him used to live inside this place, and he is now waving that person off. The phrasing matters: not goodbye to Chicago, not goodbye to youth, but goodbye to "the end of beginning," the exact hinge moment when one chapter shuts. He isn't mourning the past, he's mourning the doorway out of it, which is harder to locate and so harder to grieve cleanly.
The second verse and Caroline
The second verse shifts the angle. The song, he notes, has already started without the listener; you're only catching up. That self-aware aside suggests the change he's describing happened a while ago, in real time, while no one (including him) was paying attention. The reference to "a major sacrifice, but clueless at the time" lands as the key biographical hint of the track: some choice, made young, that only later revealed its cost. "Enter, Caroline" with the reassurance "just trust me, you'll be fine" works as a remembered voice, the person who told him it would be okay to leave or to change. The song does not say whether she was right.
The bridge
The bridge repeats one line until it nearly disintegrates: you take the man out of the city, not the city out the man. It's a deliberately worn-down saying, but the song hammers it past the point of cliché and into something closer to mantra. The phrase keeps cutting off at the end, as if the city itself won't release him to finish the sentence.
Why it endures
The song is short, just over two and a half minutes, and resolves nothing. The final chorus simply repeats the goodbye, more softly. That's the trick: it doesn't dramatise the transition, it just sits inside it. Plenty of songs are about leaving home; fewer are about the specific, smaller event of going back and noticing that home no longer recognises you. 'End of Beginning' caught on years after its release because it gave a precise shape to a feeling many people have but rarely name, the quiet handover between who you were and who you're now stuck being.
Themes catalogued
03 · Lyrics
"End of Beginning"
Just one more tear to cry, one teardrop from my eye
You better save it for
The middle of the night when things aren't black and white
Enter, Troubadour
"Remember 24?"
And when I'm back in Chicago, I feel it
Another version of me, I was in it
I wave goodbye to the end of beginning
This song has started now, and you're just finding out
Now isn't that a laugh?
A major sacrifice, but clueless at the time
Enter, Caroline
"Just trust me, you'll be fine"
And when I'm back in Chicago, I feel it
Another version of me, I was in it
I wave goodbye to the end of beginning
(Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye)
You take the man out of the city, not the city out the man
You take the man out of the city, not the city out the man
You take the man out of the city, not the city out the man
You take the man out of the-
And when I'm back in Chicago, I feel it
Another version of me, I was in it
Oh, I wave goodbye to the end of beginning
(Goodbye, goodbye)
Lyrics via Google. Copyright belongs to rights holders.
04 · FAQ
Frequently asked
What does 'End of Beginning' by Djo actually mean?
Why does Djo keep singing about Chicago in 'End of Beginning'?
Who is Caroline in 'End of Beginning'?
What does 'you take the man out of the city, not the city out the man' mean in the song?
Why did 'End of Beginning' become popular long after its release?
Is 'End of Beginning' autobiographical?
How does 'End of Beginning' fit on the album DECIDE?
05 · Discography
