“Waterfall” by The Stone Roses

Of all the bright, spangled things on the Stone Roses' 1989 debut, The Stone Roses, "Waterfall" may glitter hardest: an Ian Brown and John Squire song that John Leckie produced, with Paul Schroeder engineering. Squire's guitar ripples and glints like sunlight on moving water, Gary Mounfield's bass keeps up a lazy, rolling pulse, and Reni, who also sings backing vocals, drums with a feather-light swing under Brown's cool, drifting vocal. It's Madchester at its dreamiest.

Silvertone waited until 1991 to put it out on its own, as the fourth single from the album and the band's ninth overall, and it made number 27 on the UK chart. The faithful have held on to it: when Guardian readers voted on their favourite Stone Roses songs in 2013, it came in fifth.

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