Beautiful songs

Pip asks the following question on his blog –

“What are two of the most beautiful songs you know?”

I thought this was going to be hard, but the two that came immediately to mind are so achingly beautiful that I think I’ve hit the jackpot straight away –

Inconsolable by Jonatha Brooke (from the album ‘Plumb’)
Everybody Here Wants You by Jeff Buckley (from Songs For My Sweetheart The Drunk)

both were fortuitous discoveries for me – the Jonatha CD (I think I’ve told this story before, but what the hell) I found on a listening post in Our Price (remember Our Price?) in Southgate – the write-up next to it said that she was like Edie Brickell and Carol King, both of whom I like, so I got the dude in the shop to put it on headphones for me. As I flicked through the booklet I saw ‘Bruce Cockburn appears courtesy of True North Records’, and that was it, I was buying it just for Cockburn completism’s sake. But the CD itself floored me. Every track was magical. I stood there and listened to about 25 minutes of it in the shop, grinning at the poor guy behind the counter, then bought it and played it non-stop for months.

The Buckley one I heard first when Lisa Ianson played it on Radio London. She didn’t pre-announce it and I thought it was Prince, and loved it so much I stopped the car on Finchley Road to hear it better. I was transfixed, and that’s when I finally got a copy of Songs For My Sweetheart… I’d avoided it up until that point, knowing that it was a record that Jeff would never have released, but just for that one song it was worth it… Actually, I was given it, so it was definitely worth it… :o)

There you go – the two most beautiful songs. What are yours?