Sway - Hisss by Julian Lennon, Mallika Sherawat

Few songs from 2010 have held their ground as well as Sway - Hisss, a track that keeps finding new audiences. The music, composed by Julian Lennon, carries the song forward with a confidence that matches the performance.

Julian Lennon, Mallika Sherawat's vocal here has a quality that is difficult to describe but impossible to miss — it simply feels true. Mallika Sherawat, Irrfan Khan, Jeff Doucette, Divya Dutta gave the film its soul, and Sway - Hisss is the song that most directly channels that feeling into music.

By the end of 2010, Sway - Hisss had moved well beyond its original audience and into everyday playlists. It fits the playlist for almost any occasion, which is rare — most songs have a narrow emotional window. This one does not.

Running to 3:32, the song is exactly as long as it needs to be, which is the hardest length for a songwriter to find. Sway - Hisss endures because it was built on feeling rather than formula — and that is the one thing streaming numbers cannot manufacture.