Best Sam Fender Songs: 10 Tracks Ranked

Across three albums, Sam Fender has gone from a North Shields lad singing about his hometown to one of the biggest names in British music, and he’s still singing about it.

That makes picking his ten best songs a fairly thankless task, and if you asked me again next week, you’d probably get a slightly different list. Still, I’ve done my best.

Now, the obvious omission: ‘Rein Me In’. This used to be my favourite Sam Fender song. Then Britain collectively decided I needed to hear it approximately once every six minutes. At this point Olivia Dean could turn up in my kitchen and sing it live and I’d probably ask whether she knows ‘Spice’.

So, with apologies to ‘Will We Talk?’, ‘People Watching’ and several others I’ll regret leaving out by the time this is published, here’s how I’d rank Sam Fender’s ten best songs.

The Top 10

10. Angel in Lothian

We’ll start with one for the deluxe-edition merchants. ‘Angel in Lothian’ is Fender channelling his inner Springsteen as openly as he does anywhere on this list, and it’s a bloody lovely song. Inspired by time spent in the Scottish Borders growing up, it mixes childhood imagination with much heavier thoughts about family and loss, while the harmonica and slightly rougher feel give it a warmth that makes it very easy to get lost in. It may be tucked away on the deluxe edition of Seventeen Going Under, but it’s far too good to stay hidden there.

9. The Borders

There’s something wonderfully youthful about ‘The Borders’. The jangly guitars give it a nostalgic warmth, and the closing solo has a fantastic tone. Underneath that, Fender tells a much heavier story about two boys growing up together before their lives head in different directions. He never gives you every detail, just memories and flashes of trouble, and it’s one of his best bits of storytelling. Fender has called it his favourite song from Hypersonic Missiles, and you can see why.

8. Play God

‘Play God’ is just badass. Fender’s debut single, written after reading Orwell’s 1984 while anxious about political change in Britain and America, it’s darker and leaner than the enormous arrangements he’d later become known for. The tight groove and menacing guitars give it a completely different character from most of this list. It never needs to explode into a massive chorus either; the tension is the whole point.

7. The Dying Light

Well, things have become substantially less cheerful. ‘The Dying Light’ is a sequel of sorts to ‘Dead Boys’, but where that song deals with the devastation suicide leaves behind, this one comes from the perspective of someone considering taking their own life before deciding to keep going. It opens on stark, lonely piano, but it’s the second half that gets me, as the band gradually arrives and builds to one of his best endings. Fender has called it a “triumph over adversity”, and that’s exactly how it feels. Heart-wrenching, yes. Somehow uplifting, too.

6. Remember My Name

This song has shot up in my estimation. Recorded with the Easington Colliery Band, that brass arrangement makes it feel like it should be playing over the final scene of a film, and without the usual wall of guitars there’s far more room for Fender’s voice to take centre stage. And boy, does it shine. Then I learnt the story behind it: he wrote it from the perspective of his late grandfather, about his grandmother living with dementia. Suddenly that already beautiful arrangement carries considerably more weight. Tear-jerking, hopeful and absolutely stunning. This one could easily climb higher.

5. Hypersonic Missiles

For a song concerned with nuclear weapons, political anxiety and the fairly reasonable fear that humanity might blow itself to pieces, ‘Hypersonic Missiles’ makes me remarkably happy. That contradiction is a big part of why it works. Fender surrounds all that end-of-the-world paranoia with a euphoric chorus, screaming saxophone and enough energy to make impending global destruction feel strangely enjoyable. It’s become a modern British rock classic for a reason. Happy, happy, happy. Probably not the intended emotional response, but here we are.

Read Next:

The 5 Best-Selling British Rock Albums of All Time, Ranked

Top 10 Underrated Britpop Classics That Deserve More Love

4. Arm’s Length

‘Arm’s Length’ sounds refreshingly different from a lot of Fender’s catalogue, and that’s exactly why I love it. He says it’s about being avoidant and flighty, but musically it’s lighter and more melodic than many of his biggest songs, with a gorgeous main melody that sticks with you. Apparently he nearly left it off People Watching until bandmate Brooke Bentham talked him round. Considering I’ve got it at number four, I’m quite glad she did.

3. Seventeen Going Under

For all the success it’s had, ‘Seventeen Going Under’ has lost none of its impact. Fender looks back at his life at 17: money problems, his mum struggling with her health, the DWP and a level of anger he didn’t know what to do with. Yet despite all that heaviness, I find it unbelievably uplifting. The guitar is beautiful, the saxophone is beautiful, that huge ending is beautiful. It went on to win the Ivor Novello for Best Song Musically and Lyrically in 2022, which feels fairly difficult to argue with.

2. Spice

‘Spice’ might be the coolest song Fender has ever made. Taken from the Dead Boys EP, it tackles the damage caused by synthetic drugs, but what really sets it apart is the sound. Those fuzzy, distorted guitars sit right at the front of the mix, and the verses grind away with deliberate monotony before the chorus barges in and blows everything apart. It’s grimy, abrasive and brilliantly nasty.

1. Spit of You

That riff. You know exactly what song is coming within a second. ‘Spit of You’ is about Fender’s relationship with his dad, and specifically how two people who are so alike can be utterly useless at telling each other how they feel. He’s described it as a “declaration of love” for his father, and it’s that awkwardness that makes the tenderness hit so hard. Musically, it’s huge and warm, but never loses the intimacy at the heart of it.

Then there’s the video. Casting Stephen Graham as your dad is basically cheating. He could probably make a Specsavers advert emotionally devastating, so pairing him with a song this personal was only ever going to make matters worse. Ask me again next week if you like, but I’m fairly sure this one will still be at number one.

Read More Lists:

The 5 Best-Selling British Rock Albums of All Time, Ranked

Top 10 Underrated Britpop Classics That Deserve More Love

Alex Battman
Contributor, BritRock Heaven