Album: Astral Weeks
"In another time, in another place". More than any other album I've written about on this blog, Astral Weeks strikes me as the most timeless and adrift from musical trends. This is as much poetry as it is music. Impermanent, fleeting, dream-like, full of yearning for home (his native Belfast), this is about as spiritual as pop music gets. Listening to some of Van Morrison's early music, such as Mystic Eyes (Them) and He Ain't Give You None (his first solo album), you get an idea of the direction in which he was heading but no sense that he would make something as grand and as fully realised as Astral Weeks. One obvious explanation for the new sound was the change of label to Warner Bros, whose producer Lewis Merenstein was able to call on the talents of various jazz musicians, including guitarist Jay Berliner (who had worked with Charles Mingus), bass player Richard Davis and drummer Connie Kaye. Morrison had come up with the songs and arrangements while penniless in Boston (in a familiar tale from that era, his previous label had screwed him over despite the huge success of Brown Eyed Girl). He had performed some of the songs live with a trio, but for the album, which was recorded like a jazz session, the musicians added their own mark to the arrangements. The results are breathtaking.
The songs are split into two sets, In The Beginning (side 1) and Afterwards (side 2). The title track is full of autobiographical details from his childhood and points to one of his musical inspirations ("Huddie Ledbetter", or Lead Belly). Beside You is even more mysterious, as though the narrator is a ghostly presence guiding a young Van Morrison as he yearns to escape from the shores of his native island. The song also contains the first example of Morrison's brilliant scat-singing on the album ("you breathe in, you breathe out..", "and the love that loves to love..."). Sweet Thing is one of the album's high points, the music is so sublime and warrants attentive listening, and the lyrics seem to be describing that first burst of young love. Cyprus Avenue is named after a tree-lined street of rich homes in Belfast and describes the feeling of falling in love with a girl that seems unattainable ("conquered in a car seat"). The Way Young Lovers Do changes the tone of the album suddenly, as if to mark the fact that we're now moving from songs of innocence to songs of experience. Madame George is the best example of this, a mosaic of memories (again from Cyprus Avenue) that centre around a mysterious character (transvestite?) who the young protagonist is transfixed by and feels empathy for, but at the same time is glad he can escape the scene and move on with life. Next up is Ballerina, one of my favourite songs on the album and one that Morrison wrote two years before the album's release, another love song dedicated to a woman he desires. Ending the song cycle is Slim Slow Slider, which gives the sense of a woman escaping from his grasp (descent into drug abuse or simply lost to another lover, I'm not sure), ending the album on a note of helplessness. This is about as perfect as an album gets, and nothing like it exists in Van Morrison's catalogue or elsewhere.
Artist: Van Morrison
Born: Belfast
Released: November 1968
Genre: Psychedelic Jazz
Influenced: Nick Drake, Elvis Costello, U2, Bruce Springsteen
"In another time, in another place". More than any other album I've written about on this blog, Astral Weeks strikes me as the most timeless and adrift from musical trends. This is as much poetry as it is music. Impermanent, fleeting, dream-like, full of yearning for home (his native Belfast), this is about as spiritual as pop music gets. Listening to some of Van Morrison's early music, such as Mystic Eyes (Them) and He Ain't Give You None (his first solo album), you get an idea of the direction in which he was heading but no sense that he would make something as grand and as fully realised as Astral Weeks. One obvious explanation for the new sound was the change of label to Warner Bros, whose producer Lewis Merenstein was able to call on the talents of various jazz musicians, including guitarist Jay Berliner (who had worked with Charles Mingus), bass player Richard Davis and drummer Connie Kaye. Morrison had come up with the songs and arrangements while penniless in Boston (in a familiar tale from that era, his previous label had screwed him over despite the huge success of Brown Eyed Girl). He had performed some of the songs live with a trio, but for the album, which was recorded like a jazz session, the musicians added their own mark to the arrangements. The results are breathtaking.
The songs are split into two sets, In The Beginning (side 1) and Afterwards (side 2). The title track is full of autobiographical details from his childhood and points to one of his musical inspirations ("Huddie Ledbetter", or Lead Belly). Beside You is even more mysterious, as though the narrator is a ghostly presence guiding a young Van Morrison as he yearns to escape from the shores of his native island. The song also contains the first example of Morrison's brilliant scat-singing on the album ("you breathe in, you breathe out..", "and the love that loves to love..."). Sweet Thing is one of the album's high points, the music is so sublime and warrants attentive listening, and the lyrics seem to be describing that first burst of young love. Cyprus Avenue is named after a tree-lined street of rich homes in Belfast and describes the feeling of falling in love with a girl that seems unattainable ("conquered in a car seat"). The Way Young Lovers Do changes the tone of the album suddenly, as if to mark the fact that we're now moving from songs of innocence to songs of experience. Madame George is the best example of this, a mosaic of memories (again from Cyprus Avenue) that centre around a mysterious character (transvestite?) who the young protagonist is transfixed by and feels empathy for, but at the same time is glad he can escape the scene and move on with life. Next up is Ballerina, one of my favourite songs on the album and one that Morrison wrote two years before the album's release, another love song dedicated to a woman he desires. Ending the song cycle is Slim Slow Slider, which gives the sense of a woman escaping from his grasp (descent into drug abuse or simply lost to another lover, I'm not sure), ending the album on a note of helplessness. This is about as perfect as an album gets, and nothing like it exists in Van Morrison's catalogue or elsewhere.
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