Autumn Sweater

Yo La Tengo built “Autumn Sweater” around a Farfisa organ, a quiet drum machine, and Ira Kaplan singing in a voice that sounds like a man talking himself through a small, tentative moment of courage. It is the gentlest song on one of the great indie records of the 1990s and one of the most understated cinematic songs ever recorded.

The arrangement never tips past a whisper, which is its whole power. The song stays at a specific emotional temperature — autumnal, introverted, private — for five full minutes, and by the end you have taken a short walk you didn’t know you were on. Ordinary day, scored from the inside out.