Teddy Swims has made it far by subverting expectations. You see the tattooed head and face, the husky beard, and the grill gleaming out of his mouth, there’s an uncertainty to what he brings to the table. What kind of music does he make? With the rise in country transplants with tons of ink on them, it’s easy to instinctually place him in the Jelly Roll and Post Malone slot. But then, he opens his mouth to sing and something deeper and guttural comes out.
Few people could expect such a soulful voice to come out of Teddy Swims. That surprise is skyrocketed him to the top of the Billboard charts and carved out a real career for himself. Moreover, it’s allowing the blue-eyed soul singer some huge opportunities as well. Ahead of the 2026 Super Bowl, he’s headlining the Tailgate hosted by Peacock. Consequently, Noisey selected three of Swims’ songs to get acquainted with before watching him perform ahead of the big game.
3 Teddy Swims Songs You Should Play Before His Super Bowl Tailgate Performance
‘Lose Control’
The song that put him firmly into the mainstream. His raspy howl aims for an Otis Redding high note on the hook, summoning all the pain for a hefty swing. The way Teddy Swims delivers his lyrics is raw, far removed from the professional cleanliness you might hear from American Idol contestants when they cover it in auditions.
It helps that it came from a real place. He told Genius in 2024, “I was going through a really rough time. When you’re going through something and you’re with a person — and I mean this with all respect and love for that person — the song itself is about substances we were kind of on became the substance of our relationship. It was kind of like we were enabling each other in a lot of ways to not grow.”
‘Bad Dreams’
The style that Teddy Swims sings with naturally favors slower-tempo ballads. This could’ve been a career that he basked in but it would’ve made him seem one-note. A record like “Bad Dreams” shows his malleability to song structure. It plays a little more pop and alternative to his natural taste but his voice carries too much weight to drift into the background. Instead, he glides across the watery guitar riff as he coos for someone to set him free.
‘Tennessee Whiskey (Cover)’
Covering “Tennessee Whiskey” is like a rite of passage for newer artists trying to sing with soul. Chris Stapleton’s country-fried twang matches the Dave Cobb production. But Teddy Swims takes that Southern framework and funnels it through something a bit softer. Guitars aren’t nearly as scorched and the drums are heftier instead. The sparse production allows Swims’ voice to take center stage and conjure up a slight funk to the instrumentation. Those who stumbled upon this cover in 2019 likely could’ve predicted stardom in his future.
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