But if I had to choose ... it'd be this one. Mike's voice (and just his melody lines generally) in this tune is just so...freaking haunting and great. This is a particularly great rendition.

I do like Michael Stipes voice and timing, too. Plus he's a good Democrat. Always a plus.

...I wasn't the biggest Cars fan, but I was amazed by that song. Back then, we still had DJs (remember them?) at radio stations, and I recall that one of them made the comment "you can really tell the Cars have been listening to Roxy Music!". As a kid, I didn't know much about Roxy Music (as a GenXer, they were a little before my time), but I started checking out their back catalog. Avalon is now one of my favorite records.

One bit of trivia: the music video was directed by Timothy Hutton. Ocasek met Paulina Porizkova on the set; they married in 1989. The video has several unnerving scenes where Porizkova acts out some pretty extreme negative psychological states, preceded by scenes where her character argues with Ocasek. To make the conflict more realistic, Hutton would hide Ocasek's cigarettes, as he found that Ocasek, a heavy smoker, would get "really crazy" when he was in nicotine withdrawal. The same approach was used by director Terry Gilliam on the set of 12 Monkeys. Gilliam would often hide Brad Pitt's smokes, particularly when they were shooting the hospital scenes.