This is, along with being a lovely duet by Damien Rice and Ray LaMontagne, obviously a pissing match (or, if you prefer, a sword fight) between two pretty sizable male egos. Hard to say who wins. Rice has the more subtle voice (and is a superior songwriter, though obviously that’s not at issue here), but LaMontagne is a much more generous performer.
I’d also point out that I think you can read a lot about the competing male archetypes here in the texts of their beards. Rice’s wispy red fringe belongs to the tortured romantic poet, LaMontagne’s bushy growth to the mountain-top shepherd-bard.
And yes, I’m pretty sure I want to have sex with both of them, or at the very least would be willing to have sex with them if they serenaded me with their yearning love dirges.
