Moondance

Van Morrison's original is a Celtic-inflected, joyfully rambling thing, all saxophone and flute weaving around each other like streams. Bublé's version takes that spirit and passes it through a more polished orchestral lens, but the essential lightness survives the translation. The rhythm has a gentle lilt, somewhere between swing and waltz, that makes the body want to move without quite knowing which step to take — an indecision that feels festive rather than frustrating. His voice here is particularly warm and unguarded, sitting in the lower-middle of his range where it gains its most comfortable color. The song is nominally about moonlight and dancing, but what it really describes is the particular enchantment of an ordinary evening that turns extraordinary through the presence of another person. It is a song about paying attention, about noticing. The horn section glows rather than blares, the piano comps with a light touch, and the whole arrangement breathes easily, never pushing. It belongs to the tradition of the romantic standard while retaining a folk-song intimacy that keeps it from feeling overwrought. You reach for this on an actual autumn evening, when the light is doing something interesting outside the window, when you want music that matches the feeling of being simply, contentedly present.