Sam Fender’s new single is about someone who was “like a surrogate mother to me”
Sam Fender has revealed more about upcoming single ‘People Watching’, saying that it’s about “somebody that was like a surrogate mother to me”.
The North Shields singer-songwriter singer shared a snippet of the song earlier this week. Yesterday (November 8), he thanked fans for “being patient”, and shared that the single artwork featured an image “from down the road in South Shields” shot by the late Tish Murtha.
‘People Watching’ is due for release on November 15, but Fender promises more album details two days before that (November 13).
Fender has also revealed more about the story behind the single in an Instagram post. “‘People Watching’ is about somebody that was like a surrogate mother to me and passed away last November. I was by her side at the end, slept on a chair next to her. It’s about what was going through my head, to and from that place and home,” he wrote.
“It’s kind of ironic because she was the one that gave me the confidence to go on stage, and always used to be like ‘why haven’t you mentioned my name in your acceptance speech’. But now an entire song (and album) connects to her. I hope that wherever she is now she’s looking down saying ‘about time kid’.”
It was on August 3 that he first debuted ‘People Watching’ live, along with another unreleased song, ‘Nostalgia’s Lie’, with both set to appear on his long-awaited third album.
Last month, Fender teased that the album is finished and “mastered”, having shared a series of photos and videos from the studio on Instagram, and revealed he had input from The War On Drugs’ Adam Granduciel when working on the record.
While Fender left a gap of two years between his debut album ‘Hypersonic Missiles’ and ‘Seventeen Going Under’, there’s going to be a gap of at least three between ‘Seventeen Going Under’ and his third album.
But he admitted earlier this year that he “rushed” to complete his last album. In an interview on Sky Arts’ Johnson And Knopfler’s Music Legends, Fender shared: “The third one we started rushing and I thought, ‘No, we have got to take the time’.
“I want to do the best I possibly can. I’d rather it be late and great than early and shite. What we have got so far I am absolutely over the moon with but I want to give it that bit more time and more thought.”
Speaking to NME in September 2022, he shared some more thoughts on the album, describing his new music as “very pretty” and having a strong “singer-songwriter” vibe – adding that he wasn’t planning to write music just to fill massive venues.
“If I try and force myself to write stadium songs, we could end up fucking it I think,” he explained. “Instead, I want to write about the stories that I have and the place that I’m mentally at in my life at this point. And I’ve had a lot to write about.”
Fender’s upcoming new album will serve as the follow-up to NME‘s album of the year 2021, ‘Seventeen Going Under’ – which reached Number One in the UK, and was nominated for the Mercury Prize. The LP was also named Best Album In The World at the NME Awards 2022.
This year has seen Fender share the song ‘Iris’, taken from the Jackdaw soundtrack, and his Noah Kahan collaboration ‘Homesick’.
His forthcoming UK and Ireland tour includes two nights at The O2 in London. £1 from every ticket sold for these dates will be donated to the Music Venue Trust in support of grassroots venues. Find any remaining tickets here.
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Daniel Peters
NME
