“Teardrop” by Massive Attack featuring Elizabeth Fraser

"Teardrop" drifted out of Massive Attack's Mezzanine as its second single in 1998, and the voice on it belongs to Elizabeth Fraser, the former Cocteau Twins singer who also wrote the words. The album's heavy gloom gives way here to something fragile: a plucked harpsichord figure, a slow pulse of a beat, and Fraser floating over the top somewhere between lullaby and lament. The group reportedly had Madonna lined up first and passed on her to get Fraser, which sounds crazy until you hear the thing.

Neil Davidge produced it with the band, and Mark "Spike" Stent mixed it. It became their only top-10 hit at home, reaching number 10 in the UK, and Walter Stern's video of a foetus singing in the womb was as haunting as the song. Years later it became the opening theme for House.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.