Yes, Morrison is an epically flawed human and by many of the postmodern societal standards we live by today should likely be somewhat culturally left behind due to his lack of perspective. The music he has released in recent years has been, in my opinion, predictable, unimaginative, and phoned in. Today however, Van is most often thought of as a crotchety old man who yells at his band, is predictably terrible live, and, most recently, writes songs that rail against Covid lockdown measures and “government overreach” surrounding the deadly pandemic. “You're the queen of the slipstream with eyes that shine / You have crossed many waters to be here / You have drank of the fountain of innocence / And experienced the long cold wintry years / There's a dream where the contents are visible / Where the poetic champions compose / Will you breathe not a word of this secrecy? / Will you still be my special rose?”įor decades, Van Morrison’s artistry has held a place of honor and admiration in the music industry, and over the course of his long career he has produced numerous chart-topping hits. His lyrics and motifs-all very humanly oxymoronic-tell their stories using specificity and metaphor, utter joy and complete sadness, the indulgently complex and elegantly simple. Rain-wet gardens, shamelessness, desire for solitude, slow-moving lovers, poetic hearts that spontaneously break into song, traveling courageous on the journey to freedom and enlightenment-paradise. The music is ridden with all the tropes that frequent my own life (perhaps even in direct result). And I will never, ever, ever, ever grow so old again!” And while I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Van’s music is the source of my at times inexplicable musical calling, it sure helped. My mother always says now that the song of his that, in her view, best represents my own soul is Sweet Thing, the stream-of-consciousness epic featured on Morrison’s acclaimed album Astral Weeks, in which he says “Ohhh I will walk and talk in gardens all wet, all misty wet with rain. Fortunately for all concerned, the hyper affection-in-all-forms-seeking preteen I was to become felt quite differently about songs recorded in 1989 featuring gratuitous string pads and titles like Have I Told You Lately (a cover, but still. I remember sitting in the backseat of our Volvo, my feet gently kicking the back of the driver’s seat my mother sat in, fervently begging her to “Please, please, PLEASE Mama put on anything but the boring man with the guitars and all the bad singing!” For years we would drive to summer camps, fiddle lessons, children’s parks, and grocery stores, and all the while I kicked her chair and we listened to Veedon Fleece and that was how it went. I was very blessed, and I am very grateful. The music I heard almost every day, and the music I hated, passionately, for the entirety of my first sentient decade the confronting and colorful bohemian adventure that was my childhood. I find this joining of what are, in English, two entirely separate thoughts, useful when trying to cope with and understand the way I approach and relate to my own creativity as well as in describing my relationship to the music of Van Morrison. The Italian language has a word, sentire, which inhabits two meanings: to hear, and to feel. He certainly isn’t the kind of compelling speaker who lends due patience and reverence to any specific, charming vaguenesses of our lives. Pretentious title, random Celtic soul singer from the 80s no one talks about anymore-“Who on earth does this girl think she is?” And to that I will counter: Who, really, does Van Morrison think he is? He certainly isn’t the kind of sophisticated and poetic person who pours buckets of green over blank cream-canvas kinds of days.

Evolving Musings on the Repetitive Poetry of a Flawed Prophet

Remind me of you van morrison