Recommended to congratulate them on winning the Mercury prize this year. Irrelevant I know, but you can't help feeling pleased for them - nice guys sometimes win!

This is the opening track from the winning album, and whilst it ticks the "epic" and "melancholy" boxes often associated with Elbow, it is also a startling track, with it's hypnotic, careworn sound punctuated by jagged blasts of brass. Then there's Garvey's bruised but beautiful voice. A cracking start to a cracking album.

Well done lads!

Simply beautiful music. Fontaine and Higelin take turns singing verses, accompanied by a jazz band that delivers spare, but beautifully affecting melodic touches. The chemistry of the two voices is great, and everytime I hear this song, I can't wait to hear the next reply in the flow of their odd, sad conversation about influenza, love, and death. "Ma grippe vous va tr�s bien... La mort vous ira tr�s bien." (My flu suits you very well... death will suit you very well.)

Hands down, this ballad by Kate Bush has THE BEST violin solo of any non-classical song. The song itself, though a bit of a downer, is really very beautiful.

"The Fog"

You see, I'm all grown up now.
He said,
Just put your feet down child,
'Cause you're all grown up now.

Just like a photograph,
I pick you up.
Just like a station on the radio,
I pick you up.
Just like a face in the crowd,
I pick you up.
Just like a feeling that you're sending out,
I pick it up.

But I can't let you go.
If I let you go,
You slip into the fog...

This love was big enough for the both of us.
This love of yours was big enough to be frightened of.
It's deep and dark, like the water was,
The day I learned to swim.

He said,
Just put your feet down, child.
Just put your feet down child,
The water is only waist high.
I'll let go of you gently,
Then you can swim to me.

Is this love big enough to watch over me?
Big enough to let go of me
Without hurting me,
Like the day I learned to swim?

'Cause you're all grown up now.

Just put your feet down, child,
The water is only waist high.
I'll let go of you gently,
Then you can swim to me.

Quirky but beautiful nonsense with an infectious Brazilian beach party beat. The song "So Nice (Summer Samba)" from the same CD shows the range and class of the performer.

Clocking in at around 2 minutes, this B-side is very simple, but beautiful. It was something of a 'holy grail' to me as a young Smiths fan, hidden as it was on the rare 'Suedehead' single (cassette and CD singles only!). I managed to procure a tape of it via my brother, and was instantly entranced. Morrissey has recorded many songs which are catchier and more intense than this, yet it has a unique power. The lyrics are entertaining - 'I found the fountain of youth and I fell in', and the accompaniment is delicate and sparse, with some great guitar playing from Vini Reilly. It ends with something rather lovely - it's nothing really, but it's one of those little details which when I was young, I used to pick on in songs - as Morrissey repeats 'I'll never learn', a spooky, echoey sound comes in and envelopes the entire song. Such little things used to please me...

This is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. Opeth's music is powerfully passionate and it shows strongly in this song. Sounds like the kind of song that would be at the ending credits of a sad movie.

this song is so creepy but beautiful.

Lou Barlow of Sebadoh has a gift. What would sound corny and clich� if sung by any other -- Lou pulls it off and actually succeeds in moving you. This is just one side of Sebadoh; some of the other stuff is loud and noisy but beautiful in its own right.

simple, short but beautiful song. features (in true waits fashion) some absolutely gorgeous melancholic lyrics, not to mention the superb arrangement. I can�t believe how many people there are out there who doesn's see what a fantastic album Alice is. easily one of my favourite tom waits records, along with rain dogs.