A warm, wistful look back at the life you had to leave behind in order to become who you are now
"End of Beginning" is about the bittersweet moment when you realize a chapter of your life has closed — and you didn't get to say a proper goodbye. It's not about heartbreak or failure. It's about the quiet grief of moving forward, of outgrowing a place and the people in it, even when that growth is something you wanted.
The song lives in the space between gratitude and longing. The narrator isn't unhappy with where he's ended up — he's just struck by the weight of what he left behind. Old friends, late nights, a city that shaped him, a version of himself that no longer exists. There's no anger here, no regret about the choice itself. Just a deep, aching awareness that you can't go back, and that the people you were closest to are now memories more than presences.
What makes the song feel so honest is how specific it is. Joe Keery — the actor and musician behind Djo — wrote it about leaving Chicago, where he'd gone to college at DePaul University and played in a band called Post Animal, to move to Los Angeles after being cast in Stranger Things. His life changed overnight: from playing dive bars with friends to becoming an internationally recognized actor. The song isn't about fame. It's about the ordinary, beautiful life that fame replaced.
There's a particularly tender moment in the song involving his sister Caroline, who he describes coming into his room and talking to him during a period when everything was moving too fast. That personal detail — a sister checking in on her brother — grounds the entire song in something real and human. It's not a grand statement about growing up. It's a snapshot of one person's specific experience of it.
The production mirrors the emotional landscape perfectly. Warm, slightly vintage synths that sound like they could have come from a cassette tape, giving the whole thing a nostalgic haze — like looking at old photographs through slightly blurred eyes.
What it means: When he returns to the city where he grew up and became himself, the weight of nostalgia and change hits him physically. He can feel how different things are.
Why it matters: It's the emotional anchor of the song. Chicago isn't just a city — it's a symbol for the life he used to have. Going back makes the distance between then and now impossible to ignore.
What it means: He recognizes that the person he was in Chicago — the college kid, the band member, the friend — was a real, full version of himself, not just a rough draft of who he is now.
Why it matters: This is a mature and generous way to think about your past. He's not dismissing who he was. He's honoring that version of himself while accepting it no longer exists.
What it means: His sister Caroline comes into his room, presumably to talk or just be present during a moment of transition and uncertainty.
Why it matters: It's the most intimate, specific detail in the song. Among all the abstract feelings about change and time, this one concrete image — a sister walking into your room — makes everything feel real and personal.
What it means: What's ending isn't the whole story — it's just the first chapter. The beginning of his life is over, but there's much more ahead. An ending and a beginning at the same time.
Why it matters: The title itself is an oxymoron that perfectly captures the feeling of transition. It's not pessimistic — it acknowledges that endings contain new starts, even when letting go is painful.
What it means: This awareness of change, of time passing, of having left something behind — it's not a one-time realization. He feels it every time he goes back, every time he's reminded.
Why it matters: Nostalgia isn't something you process once and move past. It returns, reliably, every time you encounter a trigger. This line captures that recurring, almost tidal quality of missing what's gone.
Djo is the musical alter ego of Joe Keery, best known worldwide as Steve Harrington from Netflix's Stranger Things. Keery deliberately kept his music career separate from his acting fame, releasing music under a different name and rarely promoting it through his acting platform. He wanted the music to stand on its own.
"End of Beginning" was released in September 2022 as part of Djo's second album, Decide, but it didn't become a hit until 2024 when it went viral on TikTok. Users started pairing the song with videos about leaving their hometowns, graduating, ending relationships, and growing up — all the transitions the song describes. It eventually peaked at number 22 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The song received a second wave of attention in January 2026, following the Stranger Things series finale. Fans connected the song's themes of endings and new beginnings to Steve Harrington's story arc, and to Keery himself saying goodbye to the role that changed his life. The parallels were almost too perfect: a song about leaving one life behind, written by a man whose most famous role was also ending. Keery released his third Djo album, The Crux, in 2025, continuing to blend vintage synth-pop with psychedelic textures and deeply personal songwriting.
| Word / Phrase | Meaning | Example Sentence |
|---|---|---|
| end of the beginning | The conclusion of an initial phase, implying more is to come — an oxymoron suggesting that what feels like an ending is actually the start of something new | "Graduating felt like the end of the beginning — everything was about to change." |
| a version of me | A past or different iteration of yourself — acknowledging that identity changes over time while each version was real | "The person I was at 18 feels like a version of me I barely recognize." |
| I feel it | A deliberately vague phrase meaning to sense something emotionally — nostalgia, loss, change — without being able to fully name it | "Every time I drive past my old school, I feel it." |
Djo is the solo musical project of Joe Keery, an American actor and musician from Newburyport, Massachusetts, best known for playing Steve Harrington in Stranger Things. Before acting, Keery co-founded the Chicago psych-rock band Post Animal. His music as Djo blends vintage synth-pop, psychedelia, and indie rock with deeply personal, nostalgic songwriting — earning comparisons to Tame Impala and earning critical praise entirely independent of his acting career.
"End of Beginning" teaches you some of the most useful emotional vocabulary in English — phrases like "a version of me," "I feel it," and the concept of an "end of the beginning" come up constantly when people talk about change, nostalgia, and growing up. But beyond the language, the song captures something every person experiences at some point: the moment you look back and realize the life you had — the friends, the city, the person you were — is now a memory. It's not sad, exactly. It's warm and aching and true. And it reminds you to pay attention to the chapter you're in, because one day it'll be the one you're looking back on.