The first time I heard The Smith Street Band it didn’t click with me. I’m not sure why, but I listened to a few tracks and didn’t get that gut impulse I have with music that sticks in my soul. So I moved on to something else and didn’t think twice about it. Then I saw them live. Restorations were touring the UK and Europe with them and I went down to the show at the Old Blue Last in London. When the Smith Street Band took to the stage I was hooked after two songs. Their live show is passionate, heartfelt, grabs you and makes you participate. I’ve seen them more times than I can remember now and every single show is always totally flawless and a brilliant few hours for the soul. You leave feeling like you can take on the world.

This month in Best Of… I am tackling The Smith Street Band. Since that show all those years ago in London, music from this band has played a vital part in my dealing with life. Anxiety, changes in my life, moving, all of these things and more I’ve had songs from this band helping me manage my mental state. I’ve blasted them out at all hours of the day and sang along till I’ve lost my voice. It seems weird to me now that the first time I heard The Smith Street Band I didn’t click with them because now they are up there with bands I don’t know what I’d do without. Will Wagner has an extraordinary way with lyrics that just speak to you when you listen because he writes with such honesty and rawness.

Here are 11 songs by The Smith Street Band that have got me through tough times, remind me of people I love and just put a smile on my face and a little bit about why they mean so much to me.

1. The Belly of Your Bedroom

I actually didn’t listen to this album for a really long time, my bad but I am notorious for things passing my by. This song, and album, was pushed my way by a friend of mine, this song specifically at first. It’s the perfect combination of acoustic guitar, Will Wagner’s vocals, some kickass harmonies that turn into full band at the end. It’s a banger of a track.

“Our hero sits unsteadily on a highway rocking chair
Bottle of white wine, the wind it ruffles his well-cut hair
And her eyes they focus backwards to the people that he needs
They hold my instruments and my backup, and shirts with cut off sleeves”

2. Bigger Than Us

“Maybe with a little hope and a dash of self esteem we could start something our little world has never seen” is my life motto. I’ve spent the last two years chasing one huge goal that everyone told me I couldn’t achieve and there were days when I thought they were right. But this song always went on when I was feeling low, when I needed to be kicked in the ass and told I could do whatever the hell I wanted to do if I just worked at it. “We could do more than we were ever taught, let’s start something bigger than us” is something I constantly sing to myself as well as this brilliant set of lyrics below. This is one of those songs that just makes you want to do everything with your life.

“There are more open doors now than there have ever been
So let ’em close, and jump out the window with me.
Worst case scenario, we land hand in hand on the street
But imagine if we flew how beautiful we’d let that be.”

3. Calgary Girls

The thing I love about Will Wagner’s lyrics is that he spins total stories in his songs, you can imagine everything going on so vividly. But also that he’s just so totally honest and open in his lyrics. They are full of fear, love, vulnerability and this is what makes them so relatable, because you feel like he’s singing about something that’s happened to you. This song in particular tugs at your heart, it certainly tugs at mine.

“And I know there’s a script that I could rehearse
And there a lines I could make them work
But I don’t want them, I want you,
And its not like there’s a space that I need to fill
Or like I have anytime we could kill
But I don’t need this, fucking need you”

4. Don’t Fuck With Our Dreams

This song was what sold me on this band all those years ago in the Old Blue Last. There is something magical about hearing 150 people in a room shout “DON’T FUCK WITH OUR DREAMS” with smiles on their faces, dancing, sweating, having the time of their lives. You just can’t help but feel like this is the best thing in the world. I firmly believe that live music does something absolutely brilliant to the soul, it makes life far better and this song is the perfect example of that. Go on YouTube and find a live video, tell me it’s not making you want to go out and do a million things with yourself.

“Cause we’ve been driving round singing songs about
Driving round singing songs
And I don’t wanna have fun with anyone but you
So take the Great Ocean Road at midnight
I’ll get in at three and meet me in between
Where I am and where I wanna be”

5. Ducks Fly Together

I think this might be my favourite song from The Smith Street Band. It’s definitely my favourite song of theirs to sing my slightly off key harmonies too when I am alone in my room. It’s again a song that tells a story, goes through emotions. I always like the songs like this because dating when you have anxiety is bloody ridiculous and there’s always lines you can pull out that describe exactly how weird you feel sometimes.

“And I was so scared to talk to your friends
Pretended that I was a real person
Trying to remember names, smiling and nodding
But I couldn’t kick the grin from when you’d gone
and kissed me quickly in the kitchen.”

6. Get High, See Mice

Another one I was late to the party on, just because I was generally late to the party on this album. One of my very good friends and I became pals through our mutual obsession with The Smith Street Band, and there would be text message exchanges when we weren’t in the same country of “What is your favourite TSSB song currently?”. This one came up. The chorus is just the prettiest thing ever and it was a definite better late than never moment for me.

“But the city gets pretty for those few hours when the trains aren’t running
And I think I hear the wolves coming,
I’m knocking down my door in advance,
Cause the wolves are coming, the wolves are coming”

7. I Don’t Wanna Die Anymore

I feel like everyone on the internet knows that I moved to Chicago, hey internet I moved to Chicago! I was over last year from March to May looking for a work placement and there is a line in this song that goes “And I’ll kick and scream at your front door and unpack my bag onto your bedroom floor, leaving isn’t what I came here for” that I used as HEY AMERICA. I AM HERE AND I AM NOT GOING TO LEAVE YOU. It’s totally not what the song is about, but that’s the beauty of music right?

And I don’t wanna die anymore
So come on darling, give me something to live for

8 .I Want Friends

This song is brilliant. For people who are about to turn 30 (or any other age you think is scary) and think you haven’t achieved what people have expected of you, for people who are forever frustrated with a system of find your career, buy a house, spend money till you die this is the song you need in your life. It’s so much more important in life to do what you love, to not get stuck in 9-5’s and to remember to actually live. I told you at the start a lot of these songs are inspirational to me, this is probably the most inspirational so far.

“I see people that I love melting into mortgages
And low interest bank loans, income tax percentages
And it’s all so fucking meaningless
Trivial and self-imposed
It’ll kill you if it can, and it wants to
It’s knocking at your door
Telling you to get what you paid for”

9. Postcodes (For People Who Will Not Arrest Me)

I left London last year, and one of the last few shows that I went to was The Smith Street Band, Muncie Girls and Shit Present at the Lexington. It was in the middle of summer just before Reading Festival and I was having one hell of a low point with my anxiety. I wasn’t even going to stay for the whole show but got asked to take pictures and ended up in a group of friends from Brighton and Southampton who I very rarely see singing this song at the top of our lungs and feeling 100% on top of the world. This song reminds me about the city I left and the city I love and all the people who made it awesome.

“I’ve been dreaming of sex, drugs and violent retribution, of sound and noise pollution, the forgotten revolution I’m not singing a solution I’m just trying to get something done. These are songs about my friends and times they were few, songs about the future and of course a line or two for each of you.”

10. Stay Young

“And we’re gonna get ourselves outta here” is pretty much all I ever try and do. It’s the song I listened to as I boarded the plane and got myself out of a bad situation and will always give me this feeling of freedom, release and being totally scared. As I said at the start I have taken these songs to be something to me, just because so much has happened in the last two years and the way I deal with stuff is to soundtrack it. I have shouted “well at least I’m not the punchline” more than once in those two years.

“And I’d say, “I’m sorry,” and that I’m wrong, but how would you understand if you don’t sing along?
You’ve changed and outgrown, that’s fine I’ll stay young
Because when I die I won’t be old, so let’s take this one out into the cold
If we only get tonight, let’s go out in style”

11. Surrender

I’ve got to the end here but I’m going to let this track speak for itself. It’s pretty much everything I love about The Smith Street Band all wrapped up into 3 minutes and 9 seconds of total punk rock perfection.

“And am I satisfied or did I just come to terms with the hunger,
Blame me all my life, made me live harder when I was younger”

The Smith Street Band are on tour in the US in TWO WEEKS with Hard Girls, Worriers, Diners, Lee Corey Oswald and Signals Midwest. You can check out dates for that tour below:

3/17 – Chain Reaction, Anaheim, CA *
3/18 – Che Cafe Collective, San Diego, CA *
3/19 – The Echo, LA, CA *
3/20 – The Rebel Lounge, Phoenix, AZ *
3/23 – Club Dada, Dallas, TX ^
3/24 – The Sidewinder, Austin, TX ^
3/25 – Walters Downtown, Houston, TX ^
3/26 – Gasa, Gasa, New Orleans, LA ^
3/28 – Epic Problem, Tampa, FL ^
3/29 – The Masquerade, Atlanta, GA ^
3/30 – Local 506, Chapel Hill, NC ^
3/31 – DC9, Washington, DC ^
4/1 – Knitting Factory, Brooklyn, NY ^
4/2 – Boot & Saddle, Philadelphia, PA ^
4/3 – Middle East (Upstairs), Cambridge, MA ^
4/5 – Divan Orange, Montreal, QC #
4/6 – Hard Luck Bar, Toronto, ON #
4/7 – Mahall’s, Lakewood, OH #
4/8 – The Pike Room, Pontiac, MI #
4/9 – Beat Kitchen, Chicago, IL #
4/10 – The Nether Bar, Minneapolis, MN #
4/12 – Lost Lake Lounge, Denver, CO ”
4/13 – Kilby Court, Salt Lake City, UT ”
4/15 – The Vera Project, Seattle, WA ”
4/16 – Analogue Theatre, Portland, OR ”
4/18 – Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, CA ”

* w/ Diners
^ w/ Worriers
# w/ Signals Midwest
” w/ Lee Corey Oswald