By This River

By This River was recorded at Conny Plank's studio in Cologne with Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius of Cluster, the German duo Eno had been working with that year. There are no drums: Roedelius plays grand and electric piano, Moebius a bass line on Fender piano, and Eno sings and plays a Yamaha CS-80. Roedelius thought Eno was inspired by the landscape of northern Germany and called it certainly a very beautiful song; in a later interview he said he wrote the basic music and Eno the melody and words. Treble called it perhaps the prettiest song Eno ever wrote.

Nanni Moretti used it in The Son's Room, which won the Palme d'Or in 2001, and Martin Gore of Depeche Mode sang it on his 2003 solo tour. Eno, who almost never performs, sang it with his brother Roger in Athens in 2021 and every night of the 2023 Ships concerts. Roedelius still sings it, dedicated to Eno. The upload in the hypersongs web is the 2004 remaster.