Music for Mornings

Wake up! A new day has begun, so crank up your sleepy bones with soaring harmonies and rock-solid backbeat of U2's "Beautiful Day" and ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky". Both of them pack enough momentum to put a fair wind at your back. Throw in a little Lovin' Spoonful and you'll be halfway through your full English before you know it.

If you're the type who likes to take their first bleary-eyed steps into the new day with the minimum of kerfuffle, then this mid-section of our Music for Mornings playlist is the place for you, with its surfeit of gentle, acoustic strumming and finger-picking: Nick Drake's "From the Morning" is bliss on toast.

Here in the sidelong section of our morning mix we've concealed a few dawn surprises, like Katrina & the Waves' breezy classic "Walking on Sunshine" and by contrast Jesus and Mary Chain's "Happy When It Rains".

The hardest part of any weekday is the morning, a time mercilessly dropped on us like a ton of bricks — the rude nudge of an alarm clock, the prying open of the eye lids, the scrambling to get to the office. Trust us, we feel your pain, which is why we put together a playlist with one goal in mind: making the hard part a little easier. Consider this the audio version of the perfect, steaming cuppa.