My Top 1000 Songs #658: Sigh's Smell Of Farewell

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.] 

"Sigh's Smell Of Farewell," off the Cocteau Twins' 1986 EP Love's Easy Tears, is almost astonishing in its beauty, the ethereal lullaby music and Elizabeth Fraser's non-lyric trills enveloping you like a warm cloud of silk. The darker goth edge of the band's early work is largely behind them, but they're not yet in the place of slicker dream pop of their later albums, an out-of-time weigh station where you can just lean back in the darkness and let it simply wash over you. It feels like opera music for those of us who can't stand opera music. I used to include the song on my insomnia mix-tapes, but I found it was one of the tracks where, however sedate it may sound, I'd invariably find myself sitting up and taking notice, so I had to cut it loose.