“Only You” by Yaz

"Only You" was the first single from Yaz, the duo Vince Clarke started with Alison Moyet (Yazoo back home in Britain), and it arrived in March 1982 ahead of their debut album Upstairs at Eric's. Clarke had written it while he was still in Depeche Mode, but it took Moyet's voice to bring it to life: big, bruised and bluesy against his cool, careful synthesizers.

Eric Radcliffe produced it with the pair, Daniel Miller added production and John Fryer engineered, and the contrast is the whole point, a machine lullaby sung by somebody who sounds like she means every word. Britain sent it to number two, it went top 10 in Ireland and Australia, and when America got it as the band's second single that November it climbed to 67 on the Hot 100. A remix put it back in the British top 40 in 1999.

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