Not afraid of making people sit up and take notice, this otherwise sentimental song stuck out of the crowd thanks to its alarming imagery. In exactly that moment. ‘Salford Skyline Blue, always you’ … Though the whole 2008 LP The Seldom Seen Kid was dedicated to a recently passed away friend of the band it’s the final track on it that perfectly sums up all the love for this kid and all the pain around his demise. This song is the culmination of all of Elbow’s strengths—lyrical prowess and grand instrumentals—set to one of the most memorable string motifs in years. “If I loose a sequin here and there/More salt than pepper in my hair/Can I rely on you when all the songs are through/To be for me the everthere?” – ‘The Everthere’ (Leaders Of The Free World, 2005). Get ready for an emotional trip into Elbow’s back catalogue. Where else could a line like ‘Stockport supporters club kindly supplied us a choir’ work within such a highly emotional piece? Probably the band’s strongest moment so far. It’s no wonder they were asked to perform it when the athletes returned to London’s Olympic Stadium for the 2012 Summer Olympics Closing Ceremony: It’s one of those songs. But within this setting comes also beauty. Voted best song musically and lyrically at the 2009 Ivor Novello Awards, ‘One Day Like This’ sees Guy Garvey on top, loved-up form. “I haven’t been myself of late / I haven’t slept for several days,” he sings, before adding, “But coming home I feel like I / Designed these buildings I walk by.” Later, he repeats, “I never know what I want but I know when I’m low that I / I need to be in the town where they know what I’m like and don’t mind.” Moving away from home can be scary, and adulthood can be stressful, but oftentimes, going home to see mom (“I haven’t seen my mum for weeks,” he admits) can be the best medicine. The opening line of Elbow’s breakthrough hit was grotesque and intriguing in equal measure. “The neon is graffiti singing make a new start/So I look for a plot where I can bury my broken heart” – ‘Forget Myself’ (Leaders Of The Free World, 2005). A simple ‘Love you, mate’, a deeply sad ballad. The title, which comes from a line in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra (“Come, let’s have one other gaudy night / Call to me all my sad captains / Fill our bowls / Once more, let’s mock the midnight bell”), depicts drinking and pub culture in a positive light, illustrating the fun nights instead of the hungover mornings. The state of beauty is a highly subjective one. “Dexter & Sinister,” which clocks in just over seven minutes, is a tour de force that showcases everything we love about the Manchester band’s heavier side in a single track. Garvey is a very specific lyricist, always finding the perfect phrase to convey his message. This track marked the band’s first ever national radio play, three years before the release of their debut album, on John Peel’s Radio 1 show. It’s Garvey & co.’s entry into the all-timer club. The Manchester group, founded in 1997, match gorgeous orchestral strings with distorted bluesy guitar riffs and Guy Garvey’s poetic ruminations about love, loss and aging. A particularly Garv-ian take on romance, this slow-burning ballad sees him imploring his lover to stay with him, even when he’s old and a bit bonkers. “I’ll be the corpse in your bathtub/Useless” – ‘Newborn’ (Asleep In The Back, 2001). And just in case you’re not familiar with the lads around unique vocalist Guy Garvey – it’s never too late. Don't miss their new single "I See Your Ghost" on top of our newcomer playlist, along with exciting new picks by HighSchool, Joni, Laura Fell, Luca Wilding, Villa Rivercat and more. ‘I come back here from time to time’ … The final track from the band’s debut album Asleep In The Back is still one of their best ones. by Norman Fleischer. “My favourite poetry often involves nature,” Garvey has said. ‘Send up a prayer in my name’ … Sometimes one moment can change a song and lift him up on the next level. Even the most obscure and ordinary sceneries get a certain amount of dignity when Garvey sings about them. Even though Elbow are always dodging comparisons to that other big British piano pop-rock band, they’re truly one of a kind. Guy Garvey looks back on his childhood in this first album tearjerker, which sees him returning to his family home and reminiscing with a heavy heart. But they stand alone in a sea of bands who might vaguely fall under the “adult contemporary rock” category. If James Bond was from Bury, then this is kind of glorious one-liner he’d mutter before taking the bad guys down and then smooching a lofty Eastern European countess. The majestic Guy Garvey is many things: Elbow frontman, BBC Radio 6Music presenter and former magazine columnist – he used to have regular pieces in the late lamented Manchester listings bible City Life. Not the best, not the catchiest, just the most beautiful ones. One that combines everyday elements with a certain lyrical beauty. Taken from Elbow’s Mercury Prize scooping third album, the opening salvo from ‘Grounds For Divorce’ is as dry as Garvey gets. Read more about it in our legal notice. On “Jesus is a Rochdale Girl,” Garvey nearly whispers verses that paint a picture of a childhood in Rochdale, a town located within Greater Manchester. Garvey reminisces about what was most important during his first foray into young adulthood (“And Jesus is a Rochdale girl / And forty-five CDs / Got a house that you can smoke in / So all my friends found me”). The musical diamonds off the band’s first six  albums – find them right here. This article was originally published on Mar 5, 2014 but updated on January 16, 2017. It’s their “Hey Jude,” their “Bittersweet Symphony,” their “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” It’s that song you can’t help but sing along to live, and forget everything else in the world. But what to listen to from the sheer endless sea of new records? From the opening string suite to its belted chorus, the song keeps building and building, adding guitar here and piano there, until it’s pretty much just Garvey and a chorus. She’d be a fool not to hang about, Guy. A little reflection on the songs by the Mancunian insitution that gave us all the feels. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. But instead of harping on the “single heartbreak” and a relatively dire financial situation, he remains optimistic for the future, not yet allowing himself to define his life by what he has and doesn’t have: “And nothing to be proud of / And nothing to regret / All of that to make as yet.” It’s perhaps the most poetic thing Elbow has released to date—a beautiful and unadorned track that doesn’t try to be more than the sum of its parts, yet ends up becoming so much more on repeated reads of the lyrics. Elbow Song list. Having the Glastonbury audience sing on your song? If the string section wasn’t enough to get you sending flowers to your nearest and dearest, then his passionate equating of sex with death should at least get you hastily checking your Tinder messages. ‘We still believe in love so fuck you’ … It can’t get any better than this. ‘I drink until the doorman is a Christmas tree’ … One feeling that singer Guy Garvey always manages to transport is like he’s the perfect man to have a drink with. 20 – Oakland, Calif. @ Fox Theatre “Blinking and stoned/Rain in your hair/You only smoke/’Cause it’s something to share” – ‘Great Expectations’ (Leaders Of The Free World, 2005). … Even if it was just the second LP of the band, Cast Of Thousands, you can already sense that they were destined for higher goals. A perfect song on a perfect album: “One Day Like This” is one of those life-affirming, epic... 2. Elbow approach “My Sad Captains,” a song dedicated to drinking buddies who have since moved away, passed away or stopped drinking, as a slow, mournful tune that laments the loss of late drunken nights and camaraderie. Hugely evocative, this outpouring of romance transports us from the wet Mancunian streets to a sun-dappled Italy. These are our Top 5 recommendations from today. Sometimes it’s important to remind ourselves of this. In the case of this string-drenched beauty from The Take Off and Landing of Everything it is the beauty of bro time, if you might call it that way. In 15 words he manages to conjure up a full-bodied vision of not just his ex, but the weather, the mood and the overarching importance of this hastily smoked joint. So whether you’re a big fan or are looking for an introduction, here are Elbow’s 10 best songs, ranked, in honor of their newest release, Giants of All Sizes, out now on Polydor. Take “Mirrorball” from The Seldom Seen Kid: “We took the town to town last night / We kissed like we invented it” is about as cliché as it gets in the hands of any other singer, but it works perfectly here, as Garvey describes the morning after a life-changing first date. And it’s no wonder Elbow are superstars in their native U.K., where they won the prestigious Mercury Prize in 2008 for their near-perfect The Seldom Seen Kid (they’ve been nominated two other times as well), and performed in the Closing Ceremonies for the 2012 London Olympics. Life might not be easier when you’re a kid but you are definitely far less limited. Rare for Garvey, this isn’t about him being dumped, but it’s hardly a content relationship, with the object of his affections evidently going through some tough times. No disrespect to the tense “Fly By Blue,” but “Lunette” is the real highlight in this two-song package, featuring one of Garvey’s best verses to date: “I’m reaching the age when decisions are made on the life I’m living / And I’m sure, last ditch that I’ll ask for more time / But Mother forgive me / I still want a bottle of good Irish whiskey / And a bundle of smokes in my grave.” While the former depicts the period in which Garvey was going through a breakup and flying back and forth between Manchester and Greenpoint, Brooklyn, on the latter he comes to grips with getting older, realizing this life as a pub regular may not be working for him anymore (the same internal conversation his friends had in “My Sad Captains”).