Nilsson’s first album is virtually unknown, but John Lennon listened to it for 36 hours straight. Try listening only this song just once – a bass, a cello, and one magical, gravity-defying voice. You can’t do that.

Pete Christlieb (Steely Dan/Tonight Show ) teams up with the legendary Warne Marsh, 1978. Listen to two tenor saxophonists set the studio on fire.

When the weather’s right, this song can still make me cry.

Sam Cooke wrote ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ as a black response to ‘Blowing in the Wind’. It was only released a week after he was killed by a motel manager, and has become the unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights movement. Second in a series of three death-premonition songs.

You might not think that “Spookily Existential Posthumous Hits” is a genre unto itself, but here’s the first of three which are memorable, moving and eerily prophetic. Otis recorded this song two months before he died, aged 26.

Antony Hegarty, an artist of questionable sexuality but undeniable gravity, flinches at nothing: he explains how the world menstruates, writes lyrics like ‘Cut me in quadrants/Leave me in the corner’, creates the profoundly unsettling video of “Cut the World”. Artists break conventions. Antony is a gentle, tortured, spiritual queer who leaves no convention or preconception unbroken. And nobody’s laughing.

Happy Valentine’s Day?
Or maybe a domestic massacre?

We all have our weaknesses. For some it’s wine, for some it’s cocaine, for some it’s merely nostalgia. Two gifts from Henry Mancini/Johnny Mercer, as presented by Andy Williams–‘Moon River’, and especially ‘The Days of Wine and Roses’,