Talking about the best songs of Washington means talking about one of Australia’s most restless songwriting careers — a catalogue that swings from jazz-club piano pop to psych-country without ever losing its emotional core. Meg Washington (formerly performing simply as Washington) has spent nearly two decades proving that a hook can be clever and devastating at the same time, and this list pulls together twenty tracks that show exactly why. I’ve spent way too many nights with these songs on repeat — in the car, on long walks, on headphones at 2am — and what follows is less a ranking and more a love letter to a discography that rewards close listening. If you’re building out a wider queue afterward, our full songs archive has plenty more where this came from.
Sunday Best
The lead single from her 2010 debut album I Believe You Liar, “Sunday Best” is the perfect introduction to Washington’s whole deal: bright, hyperactive piano chords wrapped around lyrics that are quietly devastating underneath. Produced with John Castle, the track moves in propulsive common time, stacking guitar and keyboard riffs until the chorus practically detonates. What gets me every time is how she buries real heartbreak inside a tune this upbeat — it’s the songwriting equivalent of smiling through gritted teeth, and it’s why the song still gets pulled out at festival sets over a decade later.
Rich Kids
“Rich Kids” is where Washington’s jazz training and pop instincts collide most obviously, built on a swinging drum pattern and rhythmic piano counterpoint that critics have rightly compared to power pop with real muscle behind it. Lyrically it’s a sharp, character-driven story rather than a straightforward confessional, and that storytelling instinct is part of what separates her from more generic singer-songwriters of the era. On a good pair of over-ears you can really hear how busy the arrangement is without ever feeling cluttered — a mixing achievement that’s easy to miss on tinny laptop speakers.
The Hardest Part
Released as the second single from I Believe You Liar in October 2010, “The Hardest Part” slows things down just enough to let Washington’s voice carry the emotional weight of the arrangement. There’s a theatrical quality to the vocal performance here, a nod to her background performing jazz standards before she pivoted to indie pop and alternative rock. The bridge is where the song really opens up, and it’s a masterclass in restraint — she lets the tension build instead of rushing to the big finish.
Cement
Originally released as part of her early EP work before landing on I Believe You Liar, “Cement” has a scrappier, more urgent energy than a lot of her later, more polished material. You can hear the DIY spirit of her pre-fame Brisbane days in the mix — it’s rawer, a little looser around the edges, and all the more charming for it. It’s the kind of deep cut that longtime fans bring up specifically because it never got the same radio push as the singles, even though the songwriting holds up just as well.
Underground
“Underground” leans into a darker, moodier register than the singles that surrounded it on I Believe You Liar, with a rhythm section that feels almost claustrophobic by design. The arrangement gives Washington room to explore a lower, more grounded vocal register, which is a nice contrast against the brighter, bouncier tracks elsewhere on the record. It’s a song that rewards a proper listen on decent audio gear — the low end does a lot of storytelling work that gets lost on phone speakers.
How to Tame Lions
Before it became an album cut, “How to Tame Lions” won first place in the inaugural Vanda & Young Global Songwriting Competition in December 2009, which tells you everything about how strong the songwriting bones are here. Co-produced with John Castle, the track is unapologetically about diving into love and lust despite knowing heartbreak is probably coming — a theme that runs through a huge chunk of her early catalogue. Live, this one takes on a completely different energy; the crowd-singalong moments hit differently than the recorded version.
I Believe You Liar
The title track of her debut album is arguably the most theatrical moment on the record, stretching past five minutes and letting Washington’s jazz-cabaret instincts fully take over. Where a lot of the other singles are compact and punchy, this one is a slow-building, almost operatic statement piece that closes out the album’s narrative arc. It’s the kind of song that works best uninterrupted, ideally through a solid set of headphones where you can actually track the layers building underneath her vocal.
Clementine
Originally released back in 2008 as part of the Clementine EP, this song later became a single off I Believe You Liar in June 2011, and its lasting popularity says a lot about how strong Washington’s earliest material already was. There’s an intimacy to the production here that feels almost demo-like in the best way — you can hear the piano pedal work and the small imperfections that got left in on purpose. It’s become something of a fan-favourite deep cut, the kind of song that gets requested at acoustic shows more than almost anything else from that era.
Holy Moses
Released as a single in August 2011, “Holy Moses” carries a gospel-tinged urgency that stands apart from the more conventional pop structures on the rest of the album. The vocal performance leans hard into belting dynamics, giving the track a cathartic, almost sermon-like quality that fits the title perfectly. Meanwhile, the arrangement keeps building layer after layer, so by the final chorus it feels like the whole song is threatening to burst at the seams.
My Heart Is a Wheel
Taken from 2014’s There There, an album Washington made with producer Samuel Dixon after chasing a deliberately late-’60s, gold-lamé Shirley Bassey sound with big brass and James Bond-style melodies. “My Heart Is a Wheel” channels that vision beautifully, with cinematic instrumentation wrapped around lyrics that are far more emotionally direct than her debut. Dixon reportedly pushed her to write more candidly about her personal life during these sessions, and you can hear that vulnerability sitting right at the surface of the vocal take.
Lazarus Drug
A standout from 2020’s Batflowers, “Lazarus Drug” is what Washington herself described as a kind of space odyssey within the record’s genre-hopping tracklist. The song found a whole new audience in April 2024 when it soundtracked the closing scene of “The Sign,” a 28-minute special episode of the children’s series Bluey — a genuinely unexpected crossover moment for an art-pop deep cut. On repeat listens, the atmospheric synth work and patient pacing reveal themselves as some of the most sophisticated production on the entire album.
Dark Parts
The lead single from Batflowers, released in May 2020, “Dark Parts” is a genuinely strange pop song built in seven-eight time, which somehow still manages to feel danceable rather than academic. Produced with Sam Dixon and Konstantin Kersting, it was recorded in the same Sydney studio where Tones and I had tracked “Dance Monkey” just a month prior — a fun bit of studio trivia that makes total sense once you hear the syncopated drum programming. Washington has said she was chasing pure fun with this one, and that looseness comes through in every unpredictable chord change.
Batflowers
The title track of her third studio album, released in August 2020, sets the tone for a record Washington has described as having no single genre at all. It’s a shape-shifting song, moving between sections that feel almost like distinct movements rather than a conventional verse-chorus structure, which mirrors the album’s larger identity as a collage of styles. Universal Music’s own liner material frames the record’s whole aesthetic — cartoon flowers over real emotional stakes — and this opener sets that tone immediately.
Kiss Me Like We’re Gonna Die
Closing out Batflowers, this one is a proper torch song straight out of the 1960s, recorded with producing duo Alex Evert and Alex Tierheimer at two in the morning in a Los Angeles loft. Backing vocalist Erin Fischer reportedly showed up in her Ugg boots for an emergency recording session, and that spontaneous, slightly chaotic energy is baked right into the finished track. It’s a genuine callback to Washington’s pre-fame life as a jazz singer, and it’s one of the most purely beautiful vocal performances in her whole catalogue — ideal late-night listening on a good set of headphones.
Achilles Heart
Released in July 2020 as one of the propulsive, upbeat highlights of Batflowers, “Achilles Heart” keeps a driving momentum that critics singled out as one of the album’s strongest tracks. The production here is warmer and more layered than a lot of her earlier work, thanks to contributions from John Congleton and Japanese Wallpaper’s Gab Strum, both handpicked by Washington herself. It’s a song built for a car stereo at full volume, honestly — the kind of chorus that demands you sing along badly and don’t care who hears you.
Eastcoaster
Released in July 2023 and billed by Washington herself as a psych-country single, “Eastcoaster” marks a genuine stylistic pivot away from the piano-pop and orchestral leanings of her earlier records. There’s a looser, twangier guitar sensibility here that hints at where her fifth album would eventually land, trading polished pop hooks for something more sun-baked and unhurried. On the road with the windows down, this is the track that makes the most sense — it’s built for open space, not headphone close-listening.
Honeysuckle Island
Released in July 2024 as the first taste of what would become the GEM album, “Honeysuckle Island” leans fully into the record’s guitar-spangled, nature-soaked concept. Co-produced with longtime collaborator Ben Edgar — who’s also worked with Matt Corby and Angus & Julia Stone — the track has an unhurried, dreamlike quality that suits its island-set concept perfectly. It’s a song that rewards patience; nothing about it rushes toward a hook, and that’s exactly the point.
Shangri-La
The second single from GEM, released in March 2025, “Shangri-La” continues the record’s loose concept of an isolated tropical escape, both sonically and lyrically. The arrangement is sparser than a lot of her back catalogue, giving the guitar work and Washington’s vocal plenty of room to breathe rather than competing against dense production. In contrast to the maximalist pop of her earlier singles, this one feels almost meditative — a deliberate creative choice on an album explicitly about looking inward.
Kidding
Released in June 2025, “Kidding” is, in Washington’s own words, about reframing your own story and owning your context on purpose rather than chasing someone else’s ideal. It’s also notable as reportedly the first song she’s ever written that incorporates stuttering directly into the lyrics, a small but genuinely bold songwriting choice. The music video was shot on North Stradbroke Island in Queensland’s Moreton Bay, tying the visual identity directly back into the GEM album’s whole “deserted island” concept.
Fine (feat. Paul Kelly)
A genuine highlight of GEM, “Fine” is a hymnal, round-style duet with fellow Australian songwriting legend Paul Kelly, written as a set of overlapping vocal sections rather than a conventional call-and-response. The pair first performed it together live at Washington’s December 2023 Melbourne show on “Gravy Day,” and a choral version later featured in How to Make Gravy, the 2024 film Washington co-wrote with her partner Nick Waterman. That choral cut went on to win the 2025 AACTA Award for Best Original Song, and honestly, hearing Kelly and Washington’s voices overlap on this is one of the most quietly moving moments in either of their careers — whether you catch it through cheap earbuds or a proper set of over-ears, the harmony still lands.
Taken together, these twenty songs map out a career that keeps refusing to sit still — from jazz-inflected debut singles through orchestral pop reinvention, genre-scrambling art-pop, and now a country-tinged concept record about solitude and self-discovery. Whether you’re revisiting I Believe You Liar for the first time in years or catching up on GEM right now, there’s a real argument for spending proper time with the source material rather than just streaming the singles on shuffle. If your current setup is holding the mix back, it’s worth checking our headphone comparison guide before your next deep-listen session, and our earbuds comparison if you’re mostly listening on the move.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Washington the musician?
Washington is the stage name of Australian singer-songwriter Megan Alexanda Washington, born in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, and raised in Brisbane. She started out performing jazz before shifting into indie pop and alternative rock, and has released five studio albums, most recently GEM in 2025.
What is Washington’s most popular song?
“Sunday Best” and “Holy Moses” remain among her most streamed and requested tracks, largely because they were the singles that first broke her into the ARIA charts back in 2010 and 2011. That said, “Lazarus Drug” picked up a huge new wave of listeners after appearing in a 2024 episode of Bluey.
What genre does Washington play?
Her music sits mostly across indie pop and alternative rock, though her jazz training shows up constantly in her piano playing and vocal phrasing. More recent work, especially on GEM, has pushed toward psych-country and folk textures.
Is Megan Washington the same artist as Washington?
Yes. She performed simply as Washington from 2006 to 2014 and again briefly from 2020 to 2022, used the full name Megan Washington from 2014 to 2020, and has gone by Meg Washington since 2022.
What is Washington’s newest album?
Her most recent album is GEM, released independently through her own label Batflower Records on 8 August 2025, produced alongside longtime collaborator Ben Edgar.