Few songwriters working today turn heartbreak into something as quietly devastating as Julia Jacklin. The Australian singer-songwriter has spent a decade building a catalogue that moves between alt-country twang, indie-rock muscle, and stripped-bare confessional folk, and picking the best Julia Jacklin songs means tracing that whole arc — from a scrappy 2014 debut single through to her fourth studio album, The Gem. This guide runs through the essential tracks, the deep cuts that reward repeat listens, and the covers that somehow feel just as personal as her originals.
Santafel
Santafel is where the story starts — the title track of Jacklin’s self-released 2014 EP, recorded before major labels or festival slots entered the picture. The production is sparse, almost demo-like, but that rawness is the point: it captures a songwriter figuring out her voice in real time. Listeners who discover Jacklin through her later, more polished records often find Santafel a revelation, a glimpse of the alt-country bones underneath everything that came after. It’s a track best experienced through a decent pair of headphones, since the room tone and acoustic detail get lost on tinny laptop speakers.
Motherland
Pulled from her 2016 debut album Don’t Let the Kids Win, Motherland leans into pedal steel and a loping, homesick melody that marked Jacklin as an artist steeped in classic country songwriting. The lyrics wrestle with distance and belonging, themes that would recur across her catalogue, but here they’re delivered with an almost old-fashioned narrative directness. Producer Sam Cromack helped shape the album’s warm, unfussy sound, and Motherland is one of its clearest showcases. It’s a song that rewards a slow, attentive listen rather than background play.
Hay Plain
Also from Don’t Let the Kids Win, Hay Plain is arguably the most purely country song in Jacklin’s discography, built around a driving rhythm and vivid rural imagery. The arrangement gallops rather than ambles, giving the album a burst of energy between its more reflective tracks. Critics at the time singled it out as evidence Jacklin could write hooks as easily as heartbreak. In the car, with the windows down, it still holds up as one of her most purely fun listens.
Cold Caller
Released as part of the 2017 Eastwick / Cold Caller single, this track shows Jacklin experimenting with a slightly fuller band sound between her first two albums. The mix pushes the rhythm section forward while her vocal stays conversational, almost offhand, which makes the song’s sharper lyrical turns land harder. It’s a transitional piece in her catalogue, bridging the country leanings of her debut with the more indie-rock textures that would define Crushing. Fans who go deep on her back catalogue tend to rate this one higher than casual listeners would expect.
Don’t Know How to Keep Loving You
From 2019’s Crushing, produced by Burke Reid, this is one of the album’s emotional high points — a slow-building, almost West Coast rock arrangement that swells into a genuinely cathartic guitar-led climax. Jacklin’s songwriting here is unflinching about the exhaustion of staying in a relationship past its expiration date, with a vocal performance that moves from weary to wailing without ever feeling theatrical. The mastering gives the guitar swell real headroom, so this one genuinely benefits from being played loud rather than as background music. It remains one of the most requested songs at her live shows.
Convention
Also from Crushing, Convention is quieter and more skeletal than Don’t Know How to Keep Loving You, built around minimal guitar and a lyric that examines the small, suffocating expectations placed on women in relationships. The arrangement trusts silence as much as sound, which is a harder trick to pull off than it sounds. Meanwhile, the song’s understated production has aged well; it doesn’t chase a particular era’s trends, which is part of why Crushing still sounds fresh years later.
Someday (The Strokes Cover)
Jacklin’s 2019 triple j Like A Version cover of The Strokes’ “Someday” became an unlikely fan favourite, racking up over a million YouTube views before she officially released the studio version in 2022 via Polyvinyl. Stripping away Albert Hammond Jr.’s jangling guitar in favour of slow, layered strumming and vocal harmonies, Jacklin turns a garage-rock classic into something closer to alt-country lullaby. It’s a genuinely inventive reinterpretation rather than a note-for-note tribute, and it says a lot about her ear for melody that the cover holds its own against the original. On headphones, the vocal layering really opens up.
to Perth, Before the Border Closes
Released as a 2020 single through Sub Pop, this track captured the strange, suspended feeling of the early pandemic, when Australian state borders were closing and distance from loved ones suddenly felt permanent. The arrangement is sparse and aching, letting Jacklin’s voice carry most of the emotional weight. It’s a snapshot of a very specific moment, but the underlying ache of separation gives it staying power well beyond its original context.
Army of Me (Björk Cover)
In 2021, Jacklin teamed up with fellow Melbourne act RVG for a haunting, shoegaze-tinged cover of Björk’s “Army of Me,” recorded for the RISING festival’s Single Club series. Jacklin has said she was drawn to the song’s sense of self-reliance, and the collaboration reworks Björk’s industrial-pop original into something jangling and guitar-driven while keeping the darkness intact. RVG’s Romy Vager brings a different vocal texture into the mix, and the interplay between the two singers gives the cover real tension. It’s one of the more adventurous entries in Jacklin’s catalogue, production-wise.
You’re Still The One (feat. Christian Lee Hutson)
This one’s technically credited to Christian Lee Hutson featuring Jacklin, released in 2021 on the third volume of Hutson’s covers series The Version Suicides. The pair take on Shania Twain’s 1997 ballad and strip it back to acoustic guitar and close harmonies, with Jacklin taking the second verse solo. Rolling Stone called the result genuinely excellent, noting it could pass for a b-side from Crushing given how naturally her voice sits in the arrangement. It’s a reminder that Jacklin’s voice translates beautifully outside her own songwriting, too.
Lydia Wears A Cross
The opening statement of 2022’s Pre Pleasure, produced by Jacklin alongside Marcus Paquin, Lydia Wears A Cross sets the album’s tone immediately with wry, conversational verses about religion, girlhood, and identity that build to a surprisingly grand horn-inflected outro. The arrangement is more expansive than anything on her previous two records, hinting at the sonic ambition running through the rest of the album. It’s also one of her funniest songs, in a catalogue not typically known for humour.
I Was Neon
Also from Pre Pleasure, I Was Neon deals with the exhausting work of trying to be a “good” partner and the resentment that builds underneath constant self-improvement. Musically it’s driving and rhythmic, with a chorus melody that sticks after one listen. The lyrics are some of the sharpest and most quotable Jacklin has written, balancing vulnerability with a real edge of frustration.
Love, Try Not To Let Go
This Pre Pleasure track slows things back down, built around a gentle, almost hymn-like arrangement that leans into the album’s recurring themes of faith and doubt. Jacklin’s vocal delivery here is especially restrained, letting small changes in phrasing carry the emotional shifts rather than volume or instrumentation. In contrast to the album’s louder moments, it’s a track that rewards close, quiet listening.
End of a Friendship
Also on Pre Pleasure, End of a Friendship tackles a less commonly written-about kind of loss — the quiet dissolving of a close friendship rather than a romantic breakup. The arrangement builds gradually, mirroring the slow-motion nature of the falling out being described. It’s a good example of how Jacklin’s songwriting has widened in scope since her debut, moving beyond romantic relationships into other forms of grief.
Be Careful With Yourself
This Pre Pleasure cut pairs a warm, almost breezy arrangement with lyrics about watching someone self-destruct and being powerless to stop it. The tension between the song’s musical lightness and lyrical heaviness is deliberate, and it’s a technique Jacklin uses elsewhere in her catalogue to keep difficult subject matter from tipping into melodrama. It’s one of the album’s most replayable tracks precisely because of that contrast.
Moviegoer
Closing out the Pre Pleasure highlights, Moviegoer is a slow-burning meditation on watching life happen from a distance, with subtle string arrangements adding texture beneath Jacklin’s vocal. The pacing is patient, almost cinematic, matching the song’s title and subject matter. Anyone exploring the deeper cuts of Pre Pleasure should not skip past this one on the way to the singles.
Shivers (Boys Next Door Cover)
Released as a 2023 single, Jacklin’s cover of the Boys Next Door’s “Shivers” (the pre-Birthday Party project of Nick Cave and Rowland S. Howard) is a hushed, reverent reading of an Australian post-punk classic. She strips the original’s gothic drama down to something more intimate, letting the song’s melodrama read as sincerity rather than performance. It’s a strong entry point for listeners curious about the lineage connecting Jacklin’s songwriting to earlier generations of Australian alternative music.
Dead From The Waist Down (Catatonia Cover)
Recorded for the 2024 charity compilation NOISE FOR NOW: Vol. 2, which raised funds for abortion access, Jacklin’s cover of Catatonia’s 1999 track was tracked in Perth with Jacob Diamond and Lyndon Blue on guitar and mastered by Heba Kadry. The version leans into the song’s Britpop-era melodrama while keeping the production relatively unadorned. It’s a smaller-scale release compared to her studio albums, but it shows an artist still actively engaging with covers as a creative outlet between full-length records.
Brand New
The lead-in to Jacklin’s 2026 album The Gem, her fourth studio record and first for 4AD, Brand New was recorded at Rat Shack Studios in Melbourne with Jacklin co-producing alongside Robert Muinos. The album explores the tension between wanting love and wanting freedom, and Brand New sets that theme in motion with an arrangement built around her touring band, including Jacob Diamond on guitar and Mimi Gilbert on bass. It marks a genuinely new chapter for Jacklin, both sonically and professionally, and is one of the current new releases most worth tracking on repeat.
If I Had The Hand Of God
Also from The Gem, this track continues the album’s recurring use of religious imagery, with Jacklin explaining she often uses God as a stand-in for herself when writing about internal conflict. The song was shaped during an unusually long, deliberate recording process — nearly a year of writing and tracking, the longest she’s ever allowed herself. For long-time fans, hearing this evolution alongside earlier tracks like Lydia Wears A Cross makes for a compelling look at how her relationship with faith imagery has deepened over the years. It’s a strong candidate for the standout track once the record arrives.
Ranking any songwriter’s catalogue is subjective, and Julia Jacklin’s is deep enough that plenty of worthy tracks didn’t make this particular cut. For a wider survey of great songwriting across genres, GlobalMusicVibe’s full songs archive is worth digging through. And since a lot of what makes Jacklin’s music hit so hard comes down to production detail — the reverb tails, the way a vocal sits in the mix — it’s genuinely worth listening on decent gear. Readers weighing up new audio equipment can check GlobalMusicVibe’s headphone comparison guide for critical listening at a desk, or the earbuds comparison guide for something more portable on the move.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Julia Jacklin’s most popular song?
Streaming numbers put “Body” and “Pressure to Party,” both from Crushing, among her most-streamed tracks, though “Don’t Know How to Keep Loving You” is frequently cited by fans and critics as the emotional centerpiece of her catalogue.
What genre does Julia Jacklin play?
Jacklin’s music is generally classified as indie folk, indie pop, and alternative country, though her catalogue moves fluidly between those styles depending on the record.
When is Julia Jacklin’s new album The Gem released?
The Gem, Jacklin’s fourth studio album and her debut release on 4AD, is set for release on September 25, 2026.
Does Julia Jacklin write her own songs?
Yes, Jacklin writes and co-produces the majority of her original material, though her catalogue also includes a number of well-regarded covers, including songs originally by The Strokes, Björk, and Catatonia.
What was Julia Jacklin’s debut album?
Her debut studio album, Don’t Let the Kids Win, was released in 2016, following an earlier self-released EP, Santafel, in 2014.