Mumford & Sons' debut was a surprising breakout record: A bunch of Pogues-loving Brits dressed like they just galloped in from the set of Little House on the Prairie suddenly became the next Coldplay. But maybe we shouldn't have been surprised; where most folk music goes for intimacy, M&S go for arena grandeur. They've jokingly described their forthcoming LP, Babel, as "Black Sabbath meets Nick Drake," and this single shades in that direction with its hammer-down forlornness and road-weary lyrics about living through "days of dust." But then the Mummies serve up some bread and butter on the chorus, a Bono-big pledge of fidelity perfect for misty-eyed singalongs.

Listen to "I Will Wait":

“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.