Irish poet, Patrick Kavanagh, put his finger on it when he wrote in his 1950’s poem Advent, ‘We have tested and tasted too much lover, through a chink too wide comes in no wonder’. Experience too much of something, and you become immune to its splendour. So, it should come as no surprise that it’s a Manchester band, rather than some Californian sun-drenched slackers, that majestically captures the spirit of waking to a beautiful day.

There are songs, few and far between, that immediately befriend and impress you. Within the first minute of On a day like this by Elbow it’s apparent that it’s going to be one of those. Nuanced and swelling, from the strings through to the well-judged lyrics of singer Guy Garvey, this is quite simply gorgeous. Which is just as well, because, as a rule, I’m obsessively against rock bands – of any ilk – using string sections. At best they usually just padd out a song, and are a lazy shortcut for the band to stress their importance and profundity to the listener. At worst they conjure up images of panoramic videos. Once you’ve listened to this song once, though, it’s hard to imagine how they could effectively have done it any other way. Perhaps it’s because Garvey’s voice goes so well with the violins, straining in and out of the lines in tandem with the strokes of the strings.

And stroke is the key word for this song, from the movement of the violinists to the lyrically broad brush strokes which create an overall picture by the song’s end. Atmospheric without wandering into Prog-Rock excesses, this is a brilliantly judged marriage between indie-rock simplicity and elegant ambitious song-writing.

The song opens with an introduction which establishes the main melody – no doubt a musicologist would be muttering ‘opening movement’ at this point. Gentle to start, a melodic expression of what it’s like to open one’s eyes, building into a lush and unabashed melody. Then, the indie element creeps in as Garvey switches the emphasis onto the lyrics. The opening line, sung with a gentle mancunian drawl, “Drinking in the morning sun” is beautifully ambiguous. Are we looking at the morning sun through the eyes of a Patrick Kavanagh, or a Liam Gallagher – or a combination of the two (Kavanagh like all penitents was more than capable of indulgence – one night,after a ‘couple’ of pints, he found himself floating in Dublin’s Grand Canal, unsure of whether he’d been pushed by some companions jealous of his genius, or had drunkenly stumbled). The verse continues, pointing us to the latter conclusion:

“Blinking in the morning sun
Shaking off a heavy one
Yeah, heavy like a loaded gun
What made me behave that way
Using words I never say
I can only think it must be love
but anyway, it’s looking like a beautiful day

Let’s turn back to the orchestra, momentarily. Usually, at the risk of repetition, an Orchestra gets dragged in to satisfy the pretensions of some tossers who think themselves above your average songwriter. It’s a production choice, and a bad one at that, which goes some way to explaining the burst of popularity that MTV’s ‘unplugged’ enjoyed at the start of the ’90s. Throughout on a day like this, though, the entire band demonstrate that they have the ears to match their undoubted ability – making the right choices. The orchestration is right. The understated but essential rythm section of Pete Turner and Richard Jupp acting like conductors to channel the song. Garvey, lyrically also makes the right choices – allowing himself to be open to joy (no minor feat for an Englishman), without having to shade it excessively with poetic caveats. The crescendo of the song is perfect

“So throw those curtains wide
A day like this a year would see me right”

Listen to the rest of their superb new album, The seldom seen kid, and it brings home to you exactly how deliberate On a day like this actually is. Songs like An audience with the Pope and Some Riot show that they’re no strangers to lyrical and melodic complexity (not to mention melancholy).

So, when you feel giddy and uplifted at the end of this particular tune, you’ve arrived exactly where these craftsmen intended to bring you. Thank god for the Manchester rain…