Stephen Mugford reckons anxiety has a cruel irony to it: spend too long worrying about what might wreck your life and you forget to live it. “Fuzzy Socks (Na Na Na)”, his new single, is his answer: a warm, piano sing-along about noticing the small stuff before it passes.

“The irony of anxiety is that worrying about everything that might ruin your life gets in the way of living it,” the Boston singer-songwriter says. “I think living is found less in the monumental stuff and more in the little joys and wonders we so often rush past.”

The song earns that sentiment by covering a lot of ground. Across three verses it moves through a whole life—a midlife search for meaning, back to a child’s bedtime fears, then forward to the final chapter—with each verse landing on a “na na na” refrain that’s genuinely hard not to join in on. It’s a song about anxiety that somehow makes you want to sing along.

Mugford writes and arranges everything himself before refining it in the studio with producer John Escobar and Emmy- and Grammy-winning guitarist and arranger Claudio Ragazzi. His sound pulls from classic 70s and 80s singer-songwriter territory with touches of funk and jazz—warm, observational, and built on the kind of lyrical detail that rewards a close listen. His 2024 debut album Palooza Beach drew strong reviews for exactly that.

“Fuzzy Socks (Na Na Na)” is the first taste of his forthcoming album Letters Never Sent, due early 2027, and on this evidence Mugford has found a way to make the heavy stuff go down easy without losing any of its weight.

“Fuzzy Socks (Na Na Na)” is out now. Listen here.