“Vox” by Sarah McLachlan

"Vox" is where it all started for Sarah McLachlan: the Canadian singer-songwriter's first single, lifted from her album Touch and released at home in 1988. She wrote the words and music herself, sang it, and played the 12-string guitar and piano, with Greg Reely producing, engineering and mixing. Stephen Nikleva's electric guitar, David Kershaw's bass, Darren Phillips' keyboards and Naomi McLeod's backing voice gather around her, and the whole thing hangs in the air like mist over a lake.

When Arista issued Touch in 1989 the song got a fresh mix, plus extended remixes. There were two videos, too: a Canadian one awash in falling water and flowers, and a stark black-and-white American one with McLachlan in a long black dress, strumming in the desert. At home it only scraped to number 90 on the RPM singles chart.

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