HERE COMES THE SONG

Texas-born alt country singer-songwriter Jess Williamson explores her complicated relationship with the concept of home on her sixth studio album A Mile South Of Heaven. On the aching Hum Of The City, our Song of the Week at herecomesthesong.com, she finds herself betwixt and between, uncertain if she can belong to two worlds at once.

On hearing of Dolly Parton’s passing I would not have been alone in reaching beyond the tissues for one of the two albums she recorded with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, Trio and Trio II. The track I settled on was a storytelling classic she wrote herself, Wildflowers, our Song of the Week at herecomesthesong.com.

For a song title it’s a bit of a tongue-twister: Pott County Call Return. Can you please repeat that? Our pleasure. We’ve had Samantha Crain’s single on repeat. Our Song of the Week at herecomesthesong.com is simply too engaging to ignore.

We all remember that First Aid Kit moment, now it’s the turn of Tenille Townes. The Swedish sisters reduced Emmylou Harris to tears with their gorgeous song Emmylou, a tribute to their hero and an ode to the joy of singing with someone you love, when she received the Polar Music Prize in Stockholm in 2015. Harris may have to negotiate another lump in her throat whenever she hears the new offering from Canadian singer-songwriter Townes, Grey Like Emmylou, our Song of the Week

The track, which will feature on the Florida-based band’s forthcoming album Future Soul, is a collaborative creation: stellar guitarist Derek Trucks’ hypnotic hook, his wife Susan Tedeschi’s soulful vocal from the opening lines she penned ‘You had me at hello/ Poetry and the wine flowed’, and the lyrical contributions of vocalist Mike Mattison and keyboardist Gabe Dixon. Who Am I is our Song of the Week at herecomesthesong.com.

Midlake have been in mischievous mood, creating a cryptic album title to confuse the grammarians among us. Think of Far as a place, and the ‘to’ rather than ‘too’ makes sense. A Bridge To Far is a beautiful track, our final Song Of The Week of 2025 at herecomesthesong.com, and my favourite album of the year.

My favourite concert of 2025 featured the same artist as last year, Brandi Carlile. She and her band wowed London’s Drury Lane theatre in 2024. When she repeated the feat this year, I didn’t even have to leave the house. Her five-song performance at NPR’s Tiny Desk in Washington is proving a YouTube phenomenon, and her first offering, A War With Time, from latest album Returning To Myself, is our Song Of The Week at herecomesthesong.com.

Phil Shaw presents his favourite 10 songs of 2025, from Nadia Reid and Bon Iver to Van Morrison and CMAT

The wonder of Jenn Wasner’s voice can trick the listener into underplaying the emotional turmoil behind the lyrics. The Life You Save, her third album under the alias Flock Of Dimes, is her proudest solo work. Our Song Of The Week at herecomesthesong.com is the hypnotic Keep Me In The Dark, which she regards as perhaps her finest ever composition.

The opportunity to honour two heroes with one song was too inviting to miss for jazz-blues artist Jon Batiste. The late Ray Charles first recorded Lonely Avenue in 1956 and it is covered by Batiste on his new album, Big Money, in the company of a living legend, Randy Newman. The wonderfully soulful duet is our Song Of The Week at herecomesthesong.com.

McMurtry can make you smile with his wry humour but it is his snarl that commands your attention

Bridges Are All Burnt is hardly sunshiny as Wall’s rich vocal navigates a dark personal theme and Brown’s trumpet deepens the melancholy

Laura’s homage to the splendours of nearing 30 but feeling like a teenager is as celebratory as crotchets and quavers get

The stripped-back sound perfectly suits the songs that have acted as anchors through her life and will lift the spirits of all who hear them

A mouthpiece for the marginalised: no wonder this indie artist of Puerto Rican heritage received the Folk Alliance People’s Voice accolade

Phil Shaw presents his favourite 30 songs from 2024: from John Cale and MJ Lenderman to Arooj Aftab and Lemon Twigs. Plus: his top covers

Maloney’s most intimate and vulnerable collection of songs will be released on January 31, five years after her last full-length offering

The beauty of doing Desert Island Discs this way is you don’t have to tell Lauren Laverne about whether you were happy in your childhood

Written by Becky Unthank to the old American folk tune of Nettleton, it slowly builds towards a choral climax with the voices of 60 devotees

As Little says, this album was 46 years in the making: a life so thoroughly lived in has produced an outstanding set of authentic songs