I’ve always been a sucker for a melancholy song about grief and loss, and this one’s a real heartbreaker. The music, the lyrics, the vocals, the video… all of it.

Blue is by a collaboration between an Australian artist called Tanya Batt, who performs as ‘Batts’, and my favourite singer Sharon Van Etten, who sings the second verse.

It turns out that Batts is originally an Essex girl, having grown up there until her parents moved to Oz when she was 13.

Her debut album was another collaboration, not with another artist but with NASA, using samples collected from the US space agency’s Voyager Mission.

Her new single Blue finds her singing with her songwriting idol (and mine). They met when Batts supported Van Etten on an Australian tour in 2019.

“When I actually got to hear her sing, I was taken to another time, another place that she coloured for me; helping me step out of myself and feel another soul’s journey,” says Van Etten, whose own music does jut that.

“She asked me to be a part of this beautiful song and there was no way I was going to say no. To be able to write in real time a response to what she was feeling from the other side of the world felt important and her delivery made it even more so.”

This song has an unusual genesis. “I started writing Blue when I was staying with my mother-in-law and watching a lot of Antiques Roadshow,” says Batts.

“I picked up my guitar to try and write a song that would feel like, if Shaz or I played it solo, it would feel authentically either of ours.

“I was in the depths of grief at the time and when Blue started to write itself, it clearly reflected how I was feeling.

“Sharon sent her verse over and the first time I listened, it was such a moment. She just got it: her lyrics were perfectly in keeping with it all.

“She absolutely completed it. It holds a very special place in my heart.”