I’ve been adding to my iTunes music library in the evenings, sliding the CDs into my PowerBook’s front slot and watching as they get sucked inside with a satisfying, no-nonsense ka-chunk. Importing music by the gigabyte: for some reason the sight of all those acres of as-yet-uncluttered disk on a new computer seems to cry out with loneliness, keening for more MP3s to keep it company…

I’ll have to clean house when I need the diskspace, but for now, there’s room. So in they come, track cascading after track. All of Van Morrison, of course: for reference. Bobby “Blue” Bland; David Grisman; Kate & Anna McGarrigle. Things I haven’t listened to in ages. Leavened with a select few other indispensible gems. Now people sing to me while I work; music fills my head…

You know how certain songs can send shivers through you, pierce you to the core? There might be a short intro, a chorus. You’re lulled, your guard slips a bit. And just then something shifts within the music, and the melody sneaks up and dispatches you, sweeps you away somewhere.

Ella Fitzgerald singing “Someone To Watch Over Me” does that to me. The 1950 version from Pure Ella, to be precise. Nothing fancy: just pianist Ellis Larkins backing her. A classic ballad pared down to it’s bare essentials.

Listen to it for yourself when you’ve got a quiet moment. Listen closely. Close your eyes and let that voice wash over you.

And just past the one minute mark you’ll feel it too — that heartbeat pause, the slight shift in tempo, the music slowing down. And then Ella starts in softly on the next lyric line, her voice rising gently, purely, soaring: “There’s a somebody I’m longing to see…”

Time stops. Your heart is transfixed.

Go on: try it. I’ll meet you there.