This song. Holy lordy, this song. It somehow seems to have gotten better in the years since its release. If you’ve never heard it, you’re in for a treat.

This is the kind of song you listen to; the kind of song you don’t just half-notice in the background at Sears. You catch one of those great bits of lyric and your mind somehow naturally tells you to pay attention, because this is really, really good stuff.

You can buy pretty much everything Sam Beam, the guy behind Iron & Wine, has released here.

And the kicker of it all? It’s not even his best song.

Earlier this year, Mr. Beam paired up with Ben Bridwell to release a covers album called Sing into My Mouth, which you can check out here, and they recently appeared on The Late Show to perform a song from that album:

RIYL: Elliot Smith, good music, William Fitzsimmons, really good poetry that just happens to be sang with music behind it