Kentucky Avenue...

Lockdown has definitely made me more lachrymose: ready, at any moment, to enjoy a few cathartic tears. The Guardian is running a countdown of the hundred best singles of all time. We’re down to number 2: Ghost Town, by the Specials. If number one, announced tomorrow, isn’t Like a Rolling Stone, I’ll be vexed. In the meantime I’m compiling my own list: songs which I’m finding particularly poignant in these difficult times. Today’s offering is Kentucky Avenue, by Tom Waits, a wonderfull evocation of an American childhood. From start to finish the song tugs unashamedly at the heart-strings, and I fall for it every time. By the time he sings “I'll take the spokes from your wheelchair…” I’m reaching for a tissue.

Licensed today: main street in Snaith, a typical East Yorkshire village (unless it's a town)...