Ten songs that drive away darkness

"Allah," the first of Youssou N'Dour's Egypt song cycle, in which he expounds on his Mouride Sufi beliefs and makes you fall in love with God.

"People Get Ready," by Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions. Because we sing in Baltimore it every winter solstice for the National Homeless Persons' Memorial Day candlelight vigil, and because Mayfield's guitar is like a bell, welcoming us all home.

"Sweep Down Early," by the Innocence Mission, like staring out of an airplane window as the ground falls steeply away.

"Fanfare No. 4 a due, " by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Von Biber. Billowing clouds and deep blue sky shot through with sunlight.

"Coyote," by Caleb Stine. Because "the great Dizzy Issie's" might be called The Dizz now, but many are the things that are still great about this country, and this song is among them.

Sam Amidon's take on "Pretty Saro," which conjures up every bittersweet memory of everyone you've loved and had to say goodbye to.

The Evening Birds singing "Mbube." The low trees with flat tops stand stark against the sky over the veldt, children in blue school uniforms smile, the morning air smells of woodsmoke, and Solomon Linda, in a smoky club in apartheid-era South Africa, suddenly points his finger and reminds his audience in a shout, "You are the lion! You are the lion!"

"The Stars Their Match," by Tim Eriksen. Cracking ice and wind through bare branches. A silhouette on the ridgeline. A clearing of the throat.

"Brandenburg Gate Revisited," by Dave Brubeck. Echoes of the Cold War, the mingled smells of dark coffee and cigarettes and pastries and diesel fumes and rain. My father, in Kierling, trudging up the hill in the snow, icicles forming on his Russian fur hat and his mustache, his haunted eyes.

"Now that the sun hath veiled his light (an evening hymn on a ground)," by Henry Purcell, as sung by Carolyn Sampson. Then to thy rest, O my soul / And singing, praise the mercy that prolongs thy days, and then the song climaxes in sixteen quietly glorious hallelujahs, a melismatic cascade that peals like laughter, like meeting an old friend in the center of the city on a snowy day, like your first kiss.