Both would agree that Astral Weeks is one of the best minute pieces of music ever created. A landmark in the fusion of rock and jazz. A masterpiece. If you only know Van Morrison from Astral Weeks , the juxtaposition might be startling. On the cover of Astral Weeks , Van resembles a wood nymph in the midst of an intense religious experience; on the cover of No Guru , he looks like a no-nonsense English professor at an exclusive East Coast liberal arts college, or a no-nonsense TV detective portrayed by no-nonsense character actor Bill Camp.
Over the next decade, he retreated from the mainstream and into a mystical haze of jazzy, gauzy, impossibly smooth-sounding, and spiritually minded adult-contemporary records so devoid of grit that they make Sting sound like Straight Outta Compton. Hell, he had forsaken that music, right when the rest of the world caught up with it.
For as much credit as Bob Dylan and Neil Young get for their anticommercial contrarianism, nobody is more perverse than Van Morrison. Ron Hubbard. That Celtic Roxy Music L.
He was the man who fell to Earth, fighting in vain to get back to paradise and yet stuck, with increasing frustration, earthbound. It also harks back musically, with its breathtakingly beautiful piano playing courtesy of longtime sideman Jef Labes.
It evokes his contributions to Veedon Fleece , which rivals even Astral Weeks in the annals of Van Morrison expressing sweetly excruciating melancholy. The fourth track is not a similarly divine summit with the almighty. Copycats ripped off my words Copycats ripped off my songs Copycats ripped off my melody. Many Van Morrison devotees have tried and failed to wrap their heads around the confounding duality of an artist who can address the most profound mysteries of eternity in one breath, and exhibit the least admirable human traits jealousy, narcissism, hubris, oversharing in the next.
To suggest that Morrison does this knowingly is probably giving him too much credit — he repeats this self-defeating pattern over and over as his career unfolds, without any apparent insight into his own flaws, a fatal symptom of insufficient self-awareness. In fact, it does the opposite. And how does that stretch feel? I do not for one moment believe him.
He is under no obligation to share any of that with journalists, of course — his music undoubtedly speaks for itself. Are you a journalist, what are ya? I dutifully reel off the various components of my career. Playing gigs is very practical. For a moment I consider telling him to grow up.
But I am chastened by the presence of his managers. Instead I look him in the eye and tell him that I am not trying to psychoanalyse him, that his music has simply meant more to me than any other throughout my life. There is something that moves across his face but I could not name it. As I do I look at the notepad. In the top left hand corner he has drawn an angry rectangle. About Us. B2B Publishing. Business Visionaries. Hot Property. Times Events. Times Store.
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