Some artists think big. Sufjan Stevens thinks long — whether it's the 20-word song titles or the orchestral suite about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. This EP features two monster opuses: the Simon and Garfunkel-quoting "All Delighted People," and "Djohariah," 17 minutes of Aquarian gospel rock that turns into a folk meditation on faith and doubt. Stevens is best balancing his composer side with his singer-songwriter side on songs like "Arnika," which packs all that avant-Andrew Lloyd Webber ambition into soft, simple benedictions for bedroom-size cathedrals.

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.