Serious Contenders: Jeff Buckley, "Lover, You Should Have Come Over"

While we're thinking of Jeff Buckley, let's do this. From a sweetened set of pipes and a calm rainfall, to a thrashing wildstorm of emotion in 6 searing minutes, this song encapsulates the ruminations of nostalgia, of loss and regret and lovesickness and anger at a missed chance... "Lover, you should have come over." What a lyric, and what a song to hang around it. Everything I said about Buckley's performance of "Hallelujah" goes here, too, from his voice to his guitar to that ineffable quality of "realness" when just the right notes are hit.