Spirits

"Spirits" is a song by Canadian indie folk band The Strumbellas. It was produced by Dave Schiffman and was released as a single from the band's third album "Hope" in 2016.

The official music video was released on January 28, 2016. It depicts the band performing the song at a funeral where all the mourners are wearing masks and costumes. During the procession, it becomes a lively parade based on a jazz funeral. The song was used in the film Z"Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life" in 2016.

In 2020, the song went viral on TikTok, with a slowed-down version, and a remix version made by DragoKG. It has been in more than 289.7K videos on TikTok as of March 23, 2021.

As a result of the viral popularity of "Spirits" on TikTok, on September 10, 2020, the band re-released an official lyric video to the song more than 5 years since it was released to YouTube, which received more than 977K views as of November 2, 2022.

"Basically, the song is about fighting your inner demons. Trying to change and become a better person in life. I write songs to reflect where I’m at in life, and this song is me saying to the world that I’m doing my absolute best right now to be a good person."

Ward also talked to Billboard about what they want from their goal was for their new album saying, “The strategy for this record, as opposed to the other records, was that we were really looking for a bigger sound.”

In an interview with The Star, lead singer Simon Ward conveyed this about what influenced this song’s creation:

Ward wrote it during a period of depression during a seven-week North American tour away from his wife Amy, son Theo, 5, and daughter Frances, 2, who was then just a newborn:

”I was going through an exceptionally hard time and this song and most of the record was just about, “I’m not happy.”

I felt like a loser. A lot of doubt, a lot of lack of self-worth. “Spirits” and most of the record is just about, “I feel down, I don’t feel like a good person, I don’t feel like I’m doing a good job, but I’m going to try”.