“Willie’s songs have been my companions for most of my life,” Beck said. “I’ve been lucky to get to hang out and sing with him on several occasions over the years. There’s no one like him in music and it’s the greatest honor to have him record this song.”

Lost Cause” is one of the saddest, prettiest, altogether greatest songs of all time. The centerpiece of Beck’s majestically depressed 2002 opus Sea Change never fails to astonish me, and few recordings in this world sound more like a cloudy fall day.