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.

Cover: Jeff Buckley, "Hallelujah"

Not, strictly speaking, one of my favourite songs. I have a problem with it being done to death and with the fact that every cover I ever seem to hear treats it as this precious thing, these meaningless pretty words to trawl out when something sad happens: Vitamin C's "Graduation" for grownups. Blame John Cale for putting an easily-replicated melody to Leonard Cohen's more naturalistic version.

I mean, if you're a competent performer, you can get it down fine. And if fine is good enough for you, it works. The song is strong enough that it'll do most of the heavy lifting and if you've got a good voice, you'll make it really beautiful, sure. But Jeff Buckley was the only one I heard who ever seemed to me to have any personal attachment to the song, any stake in its expression, and his entire soul in his rendition. Maybe it's that strange minor-key noodling that opens the track like an alarm in the back of your skull. Maybe it's just his quivering voice, his staggering pace, his minimalistic guitar... whatever it is, it seems to be genuine, to be raw and naked. This was before the song was encoded enough that every AC artist had to have it in their repertoire. When there was an element of danger and darkness and sex, not just sentimentality. I don't make it my business to insult others in praising something, most of the time, but this happens to be one case where I've really got a bug up my ass.

The other version I really like was Steven Page at Jack Layton's funeral. He knew what he was doing: it was not one of the prettier ones, but it was one of the most real. KD Lang, sometimes, maybe. But not Neil Diamond.