Do you have a “sorry” stuck in your throat? Most of us do. Tracy Chapman was wiser than her years when she wrote Baby Can I Hold You Tonight. The third single from her self-titled debut album released in 1988 offers one of the most heartfelt unsaid apologies set to music.

Sorry/ Is all that you can’t say/ Years gone by and still/ Words don’t come easily/ Like sorry, like sorry..../ But you can say baby/ Baby can I hold you tonight/ Maybe if I told you the right words/ At the right time/ You’d be mine....

Tracy fans mostly talk about Fast Car or Talkin’ ’bout A Revolution, but Baby Can I Hold You Tonight is that song you listen to on a loop on nights that seem too long.

A few simple, poignant words, an acoustic guitar and Tracy’s contralto — like a hot cup of dark chocolate. That’s all it takes for a song to remind you of someone you’ve never stopped loving.

It’s also a song with some memorable covers. Neil Diamond is outstanding, but Boyzone, Ronan Keating, George Michael, Rob Thomas and many others have given the song their individual flavour. It also ran into a controversy in 2018, when Nicki Minaj sampled the song without permission and Tracy slapped her a copyright suit. After a long-drawn fight, Nicki had to pay Tracy $450,000 in 2021.

Covers apart, the song also had a magical reinvention. In 2000, Tracy teamed up with legendary opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, at his hometown Modena in Italy, for a cross-cultural, genre-defying duet. Tracy’s contralto and Pavarotti’s tenor together create what one can only call a dappled sunlight effect. Close your eyes and see the music.