"English Rose"

Not many love songs have the merit of being as simple and straightforward, yet as plangent and ethereal as this one. Anyone who remembers The Jam and their angry indictments of modern day injustice and unpleasantness was probably as surprised as I was to hear this. Like Nick Lowe's "Tonight", this is as simple as ABC, yet it's packed with all the pent-up, raw, pure, idealistic emotions that we've all felt, whether 18 or 80. Paul Weller had the wit to write a song that takes us out into the depths of the universe, and yet brings us right back home in the next line which, to me, is what love feels like.