One Day Like This

Elbow had spent years as a cult Manchester band before The Seldom Seen Kid won the Mercury Prize in 2008, and One Day Like This became the song that carried them to a far wider audience. Its central line had sat in Guy Garvey's diary for several years before the band built a song around it, and the closing refrain about one day a year being enough has become a national anthem for celebrations. Couples choose it for the slow build of strings towards that huge refrain, which makes a first dance feel like an event, and because guests will sing the ending regardless of permission. Elbow played it at the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics.