"In Your Eyes"

Sinead O'Connor called Peter Gabriel "completely barking" mad once. Fair enough, he's worn some pretty strange stage costumes in his time, but at the same time he's produced some pretty astounding music. O'Connor's fairly thoughtless comment just makes one wonder whether sanity really is a prerequisite for art. Anyone who's heard the epic, elegiac "Here Comes the Flood" or "Don't Give Up" will testify that the man could draw tears from a stone. The difference with this track is that, for me, the emotion doesn't come so much from the beautiful sound the song makes, but rather from the closing vocal solo by Youssou N'Dour: a soaring, wailing, joyous sound that skips around the chorus like a child, absorbed in its own intricate patterns, a sound of innocence and redemption at the same time.