Something in the Way She Moves

This is one of the great quiet love songs — not quiet in volume necessarily, but quiet in ambition, content to describe rather than proclaim. The guitar work is delicate and conversational, two voices almost, the melody carried as much by the instrument as by Taylor's vocals. The production sits close to the listener's ear, intimate in a way that feels slightly private, like overhearing something not meant for you. Taylor's tenor here is at its most unguarded — not reaching for anything, not demonstrating technique, just settling into the words with a naturalism that makes the song feel improvised even though it is clearly considered. The lyric circles around the ineffable quality of loving someone — the way their presence creates a kind of field around them that you simply move into. It resists the grand statement entirely, preferring accumulation of small observations. This was part of the album that broke singer-songwriter music into the mainstream in 1970, and its influence on subsequent generations of acoustic artists is immeasurable — you can hear it in the way a thousand later recordings chose restraint over drama. This is music for early mornings when someone you love is still asleep in the other room and you're sitting quietly not wanting to disturb the particular quality of that silence.