Moondance

Morrison's autumn standard is a jazz record wearing a rock singer's clothes, built on a walking upright bass, brushed drums, and a flute-and-sax arrangement that swings in a light, unhurried way closer to Mose Allison than anything on the radio in 1970. The chord movement is minor-key and slinky, and the band — recorded in Woodstock with players who could actually play changes — never oversells it. The lyric is an invitation to go outside at night in October, with the stars up above and the leaves on the ground, and its imagery is more sensual than romantic: fantabulous, a marvelous night, the warmth of the fire that's inside. Morrison's vocal is the performance, sliding between crooner smoothness and sudden barked emphases, stretching syllables and then swallowing them, treating his voice as a horn. It became his most-covered song and a wedding-band staple, which has slightly obscured how strange and specific it is — a white Belfast singer writing American jazz-pop from a house in the Catskills. Play it on the first genuinely cold evening of the year, or when you want a song that makes an ordinary night feel like an occasion someone planned for you.