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Sam Fender’s favourite songwriter of all time
Sam Fender has proven himself to be an ethereal songwriter, and he’s currently well on track to become the British artist of his generation following his sophomore album, Seventeen Going Under, deeply connecting with people on a level that is seldom seen.
The 27-year-old Geordie’s road to arena stardom was no overnight success, and he’s been no stranger to hardship over the last decade since he first began chasing his dream. Battling against the usual issues of growing up, music has been a constant sought of solace throughout the abnormally challenging times he’s survived, and his songs are now consoling his fans in a similar fashion.
As his record, Seventeen Going Under reflects upon, when he was a late teenager, his life was turned upside down when his mother’s illness stopped her from working, and Fender was forced to become his family’s breadwinner.
Furthermore, when he was 20, the North Shields native was forced to put his career on hold after he suffered a potentially life-threatening illness. The singer has also been frank about the mental health problems he’s faced, but there’s one artist that has accompanied him through his darkest days.
In an interview with Absolute Radio in 2019, Fender spoke about his love of Joni Mitchell. He named her “probably my favourite songwriter of all time” and highlighted ‘Both Sides Now’ as one of the songs that helped shape his life.
“First up I have picked ‘Both Sides, Now’ by the amazing Joni Mitchell, who is probably my favourite songwriter of all time,” he noted. “It’s a song about coming of age, it’s a song about growing up and how you see the world differently as you’re getting older. It’s spellbinding. It’s such an incredible track. The first time I heard it, it’s one of them things when a song just punches you in the chest. It did that. I was like proper, proper in tears, sat in the tour bus like (mimics crying).”
He continued: “The thing about this song for me, I think like a lot of people I got into my mid-twenties and had a bit of a tussle with mental health. Which I think a lot of people, at some point in your life, you do. I think that song is almost like the anthem for coming of age or the anthem of early adulthood – for me anyway.
“As your perspectives change and the rose-tinted glasses fall off and you’re starting to understand politics to the point where it makes you feel sick, and you’re waking up and the hangovers are getting worse… I think that’s what that song resonates with myself, like. Most people who hear this song or know this song I think it means that for them too.”
While Bruce Springsteen is the obvious comparison to be made with Fender’s work, his love of Mitchell has bled into his sound too, and he’s graduated with honours from the same school of confessional songwriting.
