Into Dust

Hope Sandoval sings like someone who has just woken from a long nap and hasn’t decided yet whether to tell you what she dreamed about. “Into Dust” is her and a nylon-string guitar and a cello that enters on the second verse and never quite leaves — a song so hushed that raising the volume doesn’t fix anything, because the quietness is the song.

It is one of the most-licensed indie songs of its era for a specific reason: it gives a scene the texture of grief without anyone having to explain what was lost. Play it with the windows cracked and the road going dark and it will do the same thing for you.