Sam Fender has has opened up about how the death of a "very close" friend and mentor inspired his latest single.

The singer said People Watching is about Annie Orwin, who he described as "a surrogate mother in a lot of ways".

He told BBC Radio 1's Jack Saunders the song was inspired by walks to and from the care home where Annie died last year.

Sam said Annie "always used to complain about me not ever mentioning her" but hopes he has "repaid her" with the single.

"I hope she's up there thinking, 'about time, kid'," he said.

People Watching is the title single from the North Shields singer's upcoming third album.

His previous albums, 2019's Hypersonic Missiles and Seventeen Going Under, released in 2021, topped the UK charts, with the second shortlisted for the Mercury Prize.

Sam said Annie was the person who gave him the confidence to get up on stage but told Radio 1 "she was always like, 'why haven't you mentioned us in your acceptance speech?

"I taught you everything.

"She always used to guilt trip us about it."

Annie was an actress who for 17 years starred in Byker Grove - a coming of age drama centring on a Newcastle youth centre which ran from 1989-2006.

Her character was a foster carer and her agent, who described Annie as "a force to be reckoned with", said after playing the role, she went into teaching and mentoring in the north east.

In the single, Sam sings about promising to get Annie out of the care home where she died, which he describes as "falling to bits and understaffed".

He said he was with Annie when she died, a moment referenced in the song with the line: "I stayed all night till you left this life cos that's just love."

He told Radio 1: "It’s just a song about how much I love her really and how much I respected her.

"She was larger than life, so I felt like she needed something that was soaring."

The song struck a chord with fans like Enqruita who told BBC Newsbeat it helped her reconnect with feelings of grief she felt when her grandmother died two years ago.

"When I listened to it, it made me cry," she says.

"Grief is something we've all been through and the fact Sam is so brave so share this, it makes you feel like you're not alone, that you're not the only one who feels this pain.

"I feel like it made me heal a part of myself I didn't know needed to be healed."

Sam said People Watching was the last song he wrote for the album.

Around the time of Annie's death, he says he was finishing up the album but then "wrote a load of new songs", including the new single.

"It ended up being one of the most euphoric tracks on the album, I think," he says.

"It made sense, it's about Annie."

He says the album, set to be released in full in February, is "more outward-pointing than Seventeen Going Under was," describing it as "a collection of stories".

"It's about people I know and my hometown and [People Watching] felt like a great title."

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