VAN MORRISON Album by Album Discussion: Part 2 (Wavelength 1978 - Enlightenment 1990)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Clarkophile, Nov 26, 2007.

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  1. Sneaky Pete

    Sneaky Pete Flat the 5 and That’s No Jive

    Location:
    NYC USA
    I should just write see above. I too find this a perfect album. Side two is Van at his most mystical and magical. I wore out at least two vinyl copies of this one, and it was one of the first CDs I ever bought.

    I see both sexual romantic love and spirituality here, the flesh and the spirit, the yin and the yang. Van takes us through the drama, and the dharma. The choice of players and instruments is just perfect. The fiddle is brilliant throughout. This is the beginning of the fruitful relationship with James Brown Band alum, Pee Wee Ellis and trumpeter Mark Isham. The band plays with great skill, passion, and feeling. They are an organic whole and there is a feeling of improvisation and spontaneous live performance.

    What Van does with It's All In the Game is extraordinary, he owns it and transforms it. The whole performance of side two is brave and risky. Van does not hold back or play it safe. He went looking for something he never ever heard and created a timeless work, that is unmistakably his. I prefer my mysticism when it is seasoned with a touch of R&B, this one has just the right mix. :righton: :righton: :righton:
     
  2. smilin ed

    smilin ed Senior Member

    Location:
    Durham
    Possibly my favourite Van album - and, yes, especially side two.
     
  3. Clarkophile

    Clarkophile Through the Morning, Through the Night Thread Starter

    Location:
    Oakville, ON
    :edthumbs:

    :laugh: :thumbsup:
     
  4. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    I agree.

    I will be attempting to go undercover in the Van "Witness" Protection Program, however, as I try to innocuously state my thoughts and feelings about side two as impersonally and dispassionately as I can.
     
  5. DJ WILBUR

    DJ WILBUR The Cappuccino Kid

    you are spot on about It's All In The Game, probably the one song I've heard him do live, more than any other. its probably the song he wished he'd written....

    thanks for your thoughts.
     
  6. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    Full Force Gale comes on like a legshaking' marching band swinging tune anchored with a sense of purpose and steadfast dedication. A declaration. "And no matter where I roam, I will find my way back home...I will always return, to the Lord." And this upbeat sensibility and enthusiasm is nicely balanced by uncertainty - the realization and acknowledgement of human weakness, "I was headed for a fall, I looked up and saw the writing on the wall."

    Steepin' Out Queen is a deceiving finger-clicker. There is a lightness and giddiness that the horns express which is juxtaposed by the heavier melancholic delivery of the vocal melody in the verses. The breakdown at the end sounds natural and inviting, sung by sweet, angelic voices, "Come in the garden and just look at the flowers, We can just sit and talk for hours and hours." The lyric and melody is about action and movement, though, and what comes throught most to me is Van's exhortation, "you gotta, you gotta, you gotta look out and say, it's just a windfall away!"

    Bright Side of The Road is a jiggy jaunty r&b gone folk gone earthy gospel - a toe-tappin' shoulder struttin' heel hoppin' promenade. "And time seems to go by so fast, in the Twinkling of an eye." Indeed. "It's into this life we're born, and sometimes I don't know why." Indeed. The orchestration, and its execution, is pure Heaven - the banjo/fiddle/piano/harmonica jangling, weaving, caressing, and pumping (caressing and pumping :p Lord have Mercy) with the bass and drums. The harmonica solo sounds like it could have actually been written out, notated, it sounds so spot on perfect. And aint it the truth, ah, that "We'll be lovers once again...on the bright side of the road."

    Troubadors could have one of the most beautifully and effectively orchestrated arrangements of all Van's "proper" songs. It has this glory and aura about it. Cinematic scope. A portrait/landscape painting. But in motion. It has those heavenly choral voices too, adding another layer of "mystery and imagination...tell my mind just one tale of mystery, mystery, and imagination" ;) . "Do you hear that sound?" Oh yes. Oh yeah. "It's the troubadors comin' to town." Or something close enough to it. "I'm talkin' 'bout the real soul, people, the real soul" :p Turning into another VF testimonial.

    You Make Me Feel So Free is all about the lyric and melody, imo. Van throwing lines out like he was inspired, having fun, when the mind and spirit are one, with a sense of humor, and wonder.
     
  7. tfarney

    tfarney Active Member

    Location:
    Charlotte,NC
    The uncommon Common One?

    Tim
     
  8. DJ WILBUR

    DJ WILBUR The Cappuccino Kid

    in his mystic church
     
  9. curbach

    curbach Some guy on the internet

    Location:
    The ATX
    So I did a little listening last night. I still maintain that the 25 minute run from "Angelou" through "You Know What They're Writing About" (aka side 2) is the best 25 minutes in Van's catalog (and perhaps anyone's). A just plain stunning, jaw-dropping, tour de force vocal performance and the band is right there with him. "And The Healing Has Begun" in particular is the one Van song I would choose if I could choose only one. There is quite simply no better song to play when recovering from a broken relationship, but it works well anytime. And the last little whisper that closes "You Know. . ." sends chills.

    Side 1 I'm not as keen on. While I was digging it last night, when I'm not in the right mood "Bright Side Of The Road" can sound a bit hokey to me. I have always been bothered by "Stepping Out Queen". I think Van is investing way too much emotion in singing about someone putting on makeup--it almost sounds comical, like a parody. "You Make Me Feel So Free" is slight, but enjoyable--nice horn charts by Pee Wee. "Rolling Hills" is just slight. Only "Full Force Gale" and "Troubadours" are fully worthy of side 2.

    The unremastered Warners cd sounds ok to me, not great. It's a little bright and thin. I get the impression the album was not as well recorded as Wavelength, but of course it could be a tape source/mastering issue.
     
  10. Clarkophile

    Clarkophile Through the Morning, Through the Night Thread Starter

    Location:
    Oakville, ON
    Whenever I hear "Rolling Hills" I think of the back cover of Common One.
    I can just see him doing a jig with his Bible...
     
  11. Randy W

    Randy W Original Member

    Side 2 is pure Van magic. :love:

    David Hayes on bass makes a stellar appearance as he does on so many of Van's albums (Poetic Champions Compose and No Guru are stand outs). Van's the star, of course, but David's bass lines are some of the most melodic in rock!
     
  12. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    I like that one too. To me, he sounds like a drunken werewolf when he sings it - it's great!:righton: "With my pen, I'll write my song, among the rolling hills - ditdudododah..." :p
     
  13. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    As a friend and lover of Astral Weeks and Veedon Fleece - every beautiful and too short a second of them :) - and likewise Van epics such as Listen To the Lion, Almost Independence Day, St. Dominic's Preview, You're My Woman (and even Autumn Song), :) , side two/part two of this album/cd, as often as not, just doesn't work for me as there are times I end up shaking my head from side to side when I listen, thinking "no, no, no" (I understand that it seems many people are actually nodding their heads and saying "yes, yes, yes"), :), but for me to consider side two some of his best work is just too much to ask of me, :), but I'm glad there are people here who enjoy it.

    Anyway, as often as not, I find side two to be like a little too odd and strange a dream to me, with some magical moments (the acoustic guitar/violin intro and Van's vocalising outro in Angelou, the sweeping, rushing, rolling, continuous violin throughout Healing, the sense of control and release Van commands during It's All In The Game/You Know What They're Writing About) but also other moments that make me think of terrible words that should never ever be thought of with regards to the man's genius. Words like self-indulgent and melodramatic pop into my head, and I feel like they aren't just relegated to this "review" :) - and I understand if William must "give me the finger" now. ;) . Rather than as an interior dialogue, I hear the songs/performances more as an interior monologue, and I interpret them as often as not, as too unwieldy, awkward, and meandering. Like a dream, it has its stops and starts, and it's fits and rests, which give it nuance, and the feel of improvisation, imo, but to me, as often as not, and more than anything else, it's the spoken word mid-song-breakdown parts that I can't get into. As often as not, Sometimes, it comes across to me as part of a routine, of Van Morrison "doing" Van Morrison, or worse, doing a bizarre Disco-era Mick Jagger/Rod Stewart/Barry White thing. I have a hard time buying some of it. There's just too much of this extemporaneous ad-lib sounding lyrics/performances for my taste.

    I really dig When The Healing Has Begun, until one of the inevitable talking bit come-on parts intrudes and makes it all sound too much of an act, too much of a performance, and that's what I think and how I feel, as often as not, regards to the parts of this whole. I can neither take it all seriously enough, nor simply just plain enjoy it.

    Van gives his singing and vocalizing Herculean treatment throughout the side, and his intoning of "Angelou" sounds to me to be about pain, loss, regret - a memory and experience of something good that is now gone, but not forgotten. The repetition of that one word, in conjunction with the one line, "In the month of May, in the city of Paris" is effective because of all the emotion he expresses in it, imo. I really like the "Will you be my baby?" bit as well.
     
  14. Baron Von Talbot

    Baron Von Talbot Well-Known Member

    Hats off to that review, there was always something i couldn't really put my fingers on, that made me shy away from really loving this 100 %, even Wavelength with all it's up's and down's strikes me as the more honest + better record. I found some tiny parts were a guitar was not 100 % in tune or a piano didn't sound exactly the way it should, but that happens with Monitor Speakers and usually don't take much away form the overall enjoyment of a record; but there is something that makes me vex in a lot of Van Morrisons later work - still most of Into The Music feels right and is well executed, i just think he takes things too easy from then on. Stuck behind a formula musically, the arrangements come courtesy of Mark Isham and Pee Wee Ellis by now and he performs that irish Soul Crooner in search of spirituality just a tad bit too often..
     
  15. Randy W

    Randy W Original Member

    I think Van gets into "a special place" on some of Side 2, and it can be a bit too much for some folks (kinda like Astral Weeks in this regard). Relax and give it a chance if you can.

    :cheers:
     
  16. DJ WILBUR

    DJ WILBUR The Cappuccino Kid

    or some :-popcorn: for our friends of Bill W.
     
  17. DJ WILBUR

    DJ WILBUR The Cappuccino Kid

    Dee, just rereading your posts, some really on target analysis for me. Gives this one new meaning for me. thanks.
     
  18. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    Thanks, Baron. :)
     
  19. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    Cool. I think it is beautiful how Van presents that name, expressing it differently almost each time he vocalises it. I think it's about joy, too, but the way he says "o my angelou" is kind of heartbreaking also. I think it's interesting how he is able to present a person, place, and time, with just that one word (Angelou) and its following line - In the month of May/In the city of Paris. I mean, that's basically a whole verse and pre-chorus, in that song, composed of just that, and as a listener I find I like to have a little more information than just that :D , but, it is Van Morrison! I also like how that electric guitar enters the left channel after the acoustic guitar/violin intro, and as I mentioned before, I think his wordless singing at the very end of that song is very touching, imo.
     
  20. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    Meet me on over at the Vault! Wolfgang is there too. Listening to Van's 11/18/79 concert. Van and Co. perform 4 songs from Into the Music.
     
  21. tfarney

    tfarney Active Member

    Location:
    Charlotte,NC
    I ran into a copy of Common One at my local used CD store last weekend. I didn't have it and knew it was coming up here, so I bought it. I've listened to the thing every day for a week!

    Tim
     
  22. Clarkophile

    Clarkophile Through the Morning, Through the Night Thread Starter

    Location:
    Oakville, ON
    Hey, very cool. Thanks for telling us that.:righton:
     
  23. MikeP5877

    MikeP5877 V/VIII/MCMLXXVII

    Location:
    OH
    Ok, I finally listened to "Into the Music" for the first time in years.... on vinyl no less. Side 2 has to be one of my favorite album sides of all time. He could have filled up Side 1 with 20 minutes of chanting "excuse me do you know the way to Kansas City" and I'd still give the album 5 stars. :thumbsup:

    That said, I find the spoken-word section of "And The Healing Has Begun" a bit cringeworthy. Hearing him croak "open up and let me ease in my backstreet jellyroll" while these romantic guitars and violins are playing in the background is just too much.... maybe better suited to a hard stompin' blues song but it's pretty laughable in this setting. Kinda kills the mood, if you know what I mean :shh:
     
  24. pdenny

    pdenny 22-Year SHTV Participation Trophy Recipient

    Location:
    Hawthorne CA
    I have felt this way since 1979 adding only that for me it IS the greatest side ever. :thumbsup: Nothing else comes close to moving me as much or involving my attention throughout. It also has sentimental attachments for my wife and me, so that's that. :love:

    Just the opposite for me. I find Van's performance here to be one of the most passionate and eloquent equations of music and romance (or sex if one thinks that's what he's after here :laugh:) I've ever heard. It's one of the most naked and real performances of any kind in all of rock, imo.
     
  25. MikeP5877

    MikeP5877 V/VIII/MCMLXXVII

    Location:
    OH
    How else does one interpret "open up a little bit and let me ease on in this backstreet jellyroll..."

    Is he feeding her a jelly donut he bought at an out-of-the-way bakery? :D
     
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