A bright folk-rock anthem about fighting the dark voices in your own head and choosing, one more time, to keep going
"Spirits" is one of the most cleverly disguised songs in modern folk-pop. From the very first note, it sounds like a celebration — handclaps, big stomp-and-clap drums, group vocals chanting like a campfire singalong, the kind of breezy folk-rock that you'd expect to soundtrack a beer commercial or a road trip movie. It's the kind of song that pulls you into singing along before you've understood a single word. Then you start listening to the words, and you realise the song is something completely different from what its sound suggested. It's a song about depression. It's a song about fighting suicidal thoughts. It's a song about not wanting to be alive, and choosing to live anyway.
That contrast — between joyful music and dark subject matter — is the song's whole emotional engine. Simon Ward, The Strumbellas' lead singer and songwriter, has spoken openly about writing the song during a period of severe depression while on a seven-week North American tour, far from his wife and young children. The "spirits" in the title aren't ghosts in any literal sense. They're his own dark thoughts — the doubting, despairing, self-attacking voices that fill his head when his mental health is at its worst. The song is a kind of conversation between him and those voices: I hear you, I know you want me out, but I want to live. I'm asking you to let me.
What makes the song so emotionally generous is the way it handles the subject matter. Ward doesn't dramatise his pain. He doesn't ask for pity. He doesn't even fully explain what's wrong. He just writes a song that feels like a folk anthem you can shout in a crowd, and lets the lyrics carry the weight underneath. That choice — to make something joyful from something painful — is one of the most quietly courageous things a songwriter can do. It says: yes, this is dark, but I'm still here, and I'm still going to clap my hands. The song becomes a kind of survival ritual.
The song also captures something universal about the experience of depression — the way it makes you feel like you have a stranger living inside your head, telling you things you would never say to anyone you loved. The "spirits" image gives that experience a face. It externalises the dark thoughts, treats them as something separate from the person experiencing them. That's a deeply useful way to talk about mental health, because it reminds the listener (and the singer) that the despairing voice is not the same thing as the self. You can argue with it. You can talk back to it. You can ask it to leave. The song is exactly that argument, set to music.
Simon Ward has spoken about how, after the song was released, he was flooded with emails from listeners telling him that "Spirits" had helped them through their own dark periods. Many shared their own stories of depression, suicidal ideation, and the daily work of survival. Ward has said those messages were what made him willing to talk about his mental health publicly — he realised that the song's biggest gift wasn't its commercial success but its ability to make people feel less alone. In 2019, after a European tour, his depression became severe enough that he checked himself into hospital. He has continued to write and perform openly about mental health, and "Spirits" remains the song most associated with that side of his work.
What it means: I have dark, violent thoughts in my head, and they refuse to leave me alone.
Why it matters: This is the song's opening line, and it's one of the most direct openings in modern folk-pop. The "guns" image is unsettling — Ward isn't talking about minor sadness. He's talking about thoughts that feel dangerous, intrusive, hostile. The line tells the listener immediately that the song is about something serious, even though the music doesn't sound that way at all.
What it means: There are spirits — dark presences — inside my head, and they refuse to leave.
Why it matters: The shift from "guns" to "spirits" softens the image while keeping the meaning. The narrator has externalised his dark thoughts, treating them as visitors who have moved in and won't move out. The image gives the listener a way to think about depression that doesn't require medical vocabulary — and that accessibility is part of why the song has resonated with so many people.
What it means: And I can hear all the dark voices clearly, all the time.
Why it matters: It's the line that captures the constant nature of the experience. The spirits aren't occasional visitors — they're a chorus, always speaking, always there. Anyone who has lived through serious depression will recognise that endless background noise of self-criticism and despair.
What it means: The spirits will fill tonight with empty, hollow feelings — they will turn the dark hours into a place full of emptiness.
Why it matters: "Empty hearts" is the song's most quietly devastating image. Depression doesn't always feel like sadness. Sometimes it feels like the absence of feeling — a hollowness where joy used to live. The line names that experience precisely.
What it means: Don't you dare give up — don't allow yourself to drown in this.
Why it matters: This is the song's small but fierce act of self-encouragement. The narrator isn't telling someone else not to sink. He's telling himself. It's a command directed inward, an order from the part of him that still wants to live to the part of him that's tempted not to. The line is the song's quiet act of rebellion against the spirits.
What it means: I want a life full of love — I want to live, and I want my life to be defined by love rather than darkness.
Why it matters: This is the song's central wish, and it's incredibly simple. The narrator isn't asking for greatness. He isn't asking for fame, success, or escape. He's asking for love. Just love. The simplicity of the request is what makes it powerful — it shows how, when you're at the bottom, what you actually need is the most basic human thing in the world.
The Strumbellas are a six-piece Canadian indie folk band from Lindsay, Ontario, formed in 2008. They built their early reputation through years of patient touring and steady album releases, becoming one of the most respected acts in the small but vibrant Canadian folk-pop scene of the early 2010s. They were sometimes compared to American folk-revival bands like The Lumineers and Mumford & Sons, but their sound carried a distinctly Canadian flavour — slightly more rustic, slightly more country-influenced, slightly more inclined toward the kind of stomp-and-clap singalongs that fill the gaps between bluegrass and indie pop.
"Spirits" was released as the lead single from their third album Hope in January 2016. The song became their unexpected breakthrough — by the spring, it had reached number one on Billboard's Alternative Airplay chart in the United States, becoming one of the year's most-played alternative tracks. The song eventually went multi-platinum in multiple countries, and won the 2017 Juno Award for Single of the Year — Canada's biggest music award. For a band that had been working steadily but quietly for nearly a decade, the success of "Spirits" was a complete change of life.
But the song's most important legacy isn't commercial. It's the way it opened up a public conversation about depression, mental health, and survival in a folk-pop space that had rarely addressed those subjects so directly. Simon Ward has spoken in interviews about how the volume of personal messages he received from listeners — people sharing their own struggles, thanking him for putting their experience into a song — gave him the courage to speak openly about his own mental health. He has continued to write and perform about depression and recovery, and "Spirits" remains the song that introduced his listeners to the deeper themes that run through The Strumbellas' work. It also remains, for many fans, a song they put on when they need to be reminded that the darkness is loud but not the only thing in the room.
| Word / Phrase | Meaning | Example Sentence |
|---|---|---|
| spirits | Supernatural beings — used here as a metaphor for dark thoughts that live inside the mind | "She had spirits in her head some nights, telling her things she didn't want to hear." |
| to sink | To go down into water — used here metaphorically for giving up or being overwhelmed by despair | "He told himself, day after day, not to sink, even when sinking would have been easier." |
| empty hearts | A poetic phrase for hearts that feel hollow, joyless, or drained of feeling — a description of emotional numbness | "After the loss, the whole house felt full of empty hearts walking around." |
The Strumbellas are a Canadian indie folk band from Lindsay, Ontario, formed in 2008. The six-piece group — led by singer-songwriter Simon Ward — is known for blending stomp-and-clap folk traditions with indie rock energy and emotionally honest songwriting about hope, struggle, and survival. "Spirits" became their breakthrough hit in 2016, winning the Juno Award for Single of the Year and establishing them as one of the most beloved Canadian folk-pop acts of the 2010s.
"Spirits" is one of the most quietly important folk-pop songs of the 2010s — a song that takes one of the hardest subjects a person can write about (depression and the will to live) and turns it into a stomp-and-clap anthem you can sing in a crowd. For English learners, it's a wonderful study in how the simplest words ("I want a life of love") can carry the deepest meanings when delivered with the right melody. Listen to the way the song never lets the darkness win — every verse circles back to the chorus, and every chorus is the sound of someone choosing, one more time, to keep going. That choice is the whole song.