“Seventeen Going Under” by Sam Fender

"Seventeen Going Under" is the title track and lead single of Sam Fender's second album, released in 2021, and it was a slow burner that kept climbing until it reached number three on the UK Singles Chart in January 2022, the highest he had ever charted. Fender wrote it alone and sings it, playing guitar, acoustic, piano and glockenspiel, with Dean Thompson on guitar, Tom Ungerer on bass, Drew Michael on drums and Johnny "Blue Hat" Davis's saxophone wailing over the top like a Springsteen record turned up loud.

The honors stacked up: Radio 1 listeners voted it the Hottest Record of 2021, more than 14,000 Radio X listeners put it first in their Best of British poll, and it won the Ivor Novello for Best Song Musically and Lyrically plus Rolling Stone UK's Song of the Year. An acoustic take with Holly Humberstone followed.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.