Van Morrison - Album by Album discussion - PART THREE

I've never even seen the vinyl for this, let alone hear it. Would you mind giving me a breakdown of how the sides are divvied up?

 

Ever wondered Van's feelings on the iPod? Well, now you know, courtesy of a recent interview posted in the "Members Only" section of his website:

Q. Do you listen to much new stuff? Maybe on your i-pod?

VAN: I don’t have an i-pod. I’ve been listening to music all my life. Why would I need an i-pod? It’s difficult for me to ever hear anything new. Where would I hear it? I wouldn’t know where to begin. Most of the stuff on the radio is just crap pop music which I don’t want to listen to anyway. Maybe if I’m travelling I might try to tune in to a station where I might hear some blues, some swing, something I can relate to. I like what I like, do you know what I mean? I like what I like. And if there’s anything out there that’s as good as the real stuff, let me know.




Does this mean Van hasn't downloaded In Rainbows or the last Clientele album yet?

 

oh he'd love the ipod when traveling...he can have a huge body of material to listen to, why leave it up to radio stations in the market.....oh him and his wireless knobs....some people can't change.

 

hello....seems we're pretty unanimous.

 

I don't think our Van grasps that. He's really gonna feel the silence if he tries to find a radio station playing swing music 24-7.

 

Sure Tom,

Here it is EXACTLY as it appears on my German? (Biem~Stemra) Polydor 849 026-1 double album:


side one 1. Professional Jealousy
2. I'm Not Felling It Anymore
3. Ordinary life
4. Some Piece of Mind
5. So Complicated

side two 6. I Can't Stop Loving You
7. Why Must I Always Explain?
8. Village idiot
9. See Me Through Part II (Just a Closer Walk With Thee)
10. Take Me Back


Then a picture of Hyndford Street (is the street sign smudged on CD?)


side three 11. By His Grace
12. All Saint's Day
13. Hymns To The Silence
14. On Hyndford Street
15. Be Thou My Vision

side four 16. Carry The Torch
17. Green Mansions
18. Pagan Streams
19. Quality Street
20. It Must Be You
21. I Need Your Kind of Loving


It is a gatefold album with another picture of Hyndford Street on the left inside and the words to On Hyndford Street on the right side...

Each inner sleeve has the lyrics and musician credits for those sides.

hope this helps,

 

so true.

 

So who is going to be the first to compile a one-disc version of Hymns?

Or, in our man curbach's case, the Special EP Edition.

And thank you to Mr.Bill for the above info.

 

I would prefer a few more upbeat options, but of the two discs, this is more or less how I would do it (I actually think I trimmed it down for a car disc)

1 Professional Jealousy
2 I'm Not Feeling It Anymore
3 It Must Be You
4 Some Piece of Mind
5 So Complicated
6 All Saint's Day
7 I can't stop loving you


8 By His Grace
9 Why must I always Explain
10 Green Mansions
11 Village Idiot
12 Quality Street
13 Be Thou My Vision
14 See Me Through Part II (Just a Closer Walk With Thee)

 

This may seem glib, but its true. My one disc Hymns to the Silence would be:

All Saint's Day
Hymns To The Silence
On Hyndford Street
Be Thou My Vision
Carrying a Torch
Green Mansions
Pagan Streams
Quality Street
It Must Be You
I Need Your Kind of Loving

There is really nothing you could add from Disc 1 that wouldn't subtract from the perfection of Disc 2.

 

Different strokes for different folks, eh? You cut the album down to 14 tracks (still too much mediocrity) and you manage to omit the only three songs on this album I would consider essential Van.

Which brings me to disc 2. Yes, it's a considerable improvement over disc 1, but listening to it last night had me wondering why I used to hold this album in such high esteem. It gets off to a bit of a slow start until we reach the majestic title track (essential song number 1). I always enjoy Van's spoken word pieces and "On Hyndford Street" and "Pagan Streams" are no exception, although I would rank them well behind "Coney Island" and do we really need two of them on one album? "Be Thou My Vision" is perhaps a bit heavy on the gospel for my taste, but it is a very good performance.

Then there is the album's true highpoint "Carrying A Torch". I am gratified to see that others of you like this one, too. I thought I might be alone. I will gladly put up with an entire album of Van grumpiness and Van-by-numbers to get just one song as moving as this (essential song number 2). My ex-wife used to think my love of this song signaled unresolved feelings for an ex-girlfriend. Nope, just caught up in the perfectly glorious Van-ness of it all.

"Green Mansions" and "Quality Street" are fine filler tracks, but the last thing this sprawling double disc needs is more filler. "It Must Be You" is just more chick-flick soundtrack fodder--blah. And then the album closes with essential track number 3. "I Need Your Kind Of Loving" recalls Astral Weeks and Veeden Fleece and leaves a very good taste in my mouth when the album finishes, although I think "Closer Walk" would've made a better closer.

So here's my ep (actually, since several of these songs run long this would probably make a nice mid-70's length lp).

"Hymns To The Silence"
"Carrying A Torch"
"On Hyndford Street"
"Be Thou My Vision"
"I Need Your Kind Of Loving"
"Take Me Back"
"Closer Walk" (possibly expendable, too, but I think it makes a nice closer)

And unless I am forgetting something or I discover something in relistening to the later albums as we go, "Hymns", "Torch" and "Your Kind Of Loving" are the last three essential tracks Van has released

 

BTW, I seem to recall seeing a video for "Carrying A Torch" way back when. Someone feel like scouring youtube for that? (Assuming a) my memory is correct, and b) the Van police have not had it removed.)

 

All that stuff is real, real gone. I routinely check YouTube whenever we move on to a new album for relevant vids, but they were all taken down around the same time as that incredible Van Morrison reference site was hauled away in the PoliceVan.

A terrible shame.
Need another cliche for your lyrics, Van? How about cutting off your nose to spite your face?

 

Okay, here's my trimmed down version. I haven't tried this for sequencing but I may give it a shot:

1. By His Grace
2. All Saints Day
3. Green Mansions
4. So Complicated
5. Quality Street
6. Hymns to the Silence
7. On Hyndford Street
8. Village Idiot
9. I'm Not Feeling It Anymore
10. Carrying a Torch
11. I Need Your Kind of Loving

 

It timed out before I had a chance to post the "outtakes," if you will:

Professional Jealousy
Ordinary life
Some Piece of Mind
I Can't Stop Loving You
Why Must I Always Explain?
See Me Through Part II (Just a Closer Walk With Thee)
Take Me Back
Be Thou My Vision
Pagan Streams
It Must Be You

 

I could tell from previous posts that I differed on some things, but I don’t see any track from either disc as essential, but I much of the two discs are decent songs.

The title track is nice, it’s unnecessarily too long – way too long. As a fan of Van though, it’s nice to put this one in for a change though and hear some good ballads… a little jazz and even gospel, among other typical styles.

 

While I'm not necessarily averse to chick-flick fodder (cf. "Have I Told You Lately"), "It Must Be You" song has "workmanlike" written all over it.
Inexplicably, it also conjures of images of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

 

Hhhhm, for me it's Renee Zellwiger and Colin Firth

 

And who could forget the time-filling montage in Pretty Woman featuring [what else] "Brown Eyed Girl"?

 

I just listened to Disc 2 last night again and I remembered what I didn't like about the second disc.I liked "On Hyndford Street" the first time I had heard that song when it was called "the Days Before Rock and Roll"!I loved the daring nature of "Days" and I think Van fell flat with "Hyndford".Musically,the two songs are different but in terms of intent (they are both rap/poetry/mediations)they are very similar.I had been buying these Van albums when they came out and what irked me is that he did something like "Days" so soon after Enlightenment!It was only one year between albums and it seemed very "samey" to me.Even still, I wouldn't excise anything from either disc.Relistening to the second disc gave me a renewed appreciation of the song flow .I didn't need to listen to the first disc again as that is embedded in my head!

 

Van told us, "Enlightenment, don't know what it is...it says it's non attachment, non attachment, non attachment..."

Now God knows Van is attached. A guru-like detachment from emotion just doesn't fit. And on Enlightenment, I thought he was reconciled with it, because even though he told us he was still suffering, he did it in such a peaceful, spiritual context; he even followed up this song of doubt with "So Quiet In Here," a prayer in song if there ever was one. So I figured Van had reached a point in his journey where he realized it would always be a journey, that there was, in the end, no end, no enlightenment that concluded the search. And I figured that this was a good thing because the search was his passion and his glory.

Has anybody wonder about Van's muse? I haven't. Not for a long, long time. Van Morrison was the incredible creative force that he was because God himself was his muse -- God in childhood memory, God in sex, God in Jesus. God in nature. God in contemplation. Mother, Son and Holy Ghost. So I figured Van had finally figured out that he wasn't going to figure it out, that it was about the ride.

I figured wrong, and I knew it as soon as I listened to Hymns to the Silence. "I'm Not Feeling It Anymore," indeed. He wasn't feeling it, but he wasn't talking about the rhythm or the music or the mojo. There is plenty of that on Hymns; even on the first disc. What's missing, painfully, is the spirit. He makes a few more heroic attempts to recapture it on side 2, but never quite connects. And then that is it; the end of the spiritual phase, if you can call everything post-Them a phase. After Hymns to the Silence, I'm not hearin' it anymore. The Angelou's, Listen To The Lions, The Days Before Rock n Rolls and Summertime in Englands, etc, etc, are gone. And they don't come back. That doesn't mean the music turned bad. I'm very fond of Back on Top and Down The Road, and Magic Time and Pay The Devil. Every one of them would be a career-defining album for most artists, but they're all pretty conventional. The quest is over. It gasped its last, rather weak breaths on disc 2 of Hymns to the Silence.

When Van said "enlightenment, don't know what it is," it wasn't, as I first thought, that he'd figured out that God was not a destination, it was that he was about to stop seeking Him.

Of course I don't know the man personally and what I've just presumed is, well, presumptuous. But there it is.

Tim

 

As good an explanation for my take-it-or-leave-it feelings about all the post-Hymns albums as anyone is likely to come up with. I've never given it that much thought myself. I just know that I'm not feeling it anymore. The dream is over

 

Oh, there are a handful of post-Hymns albums that I have only take-it feelings about, but the inspired transcendence that was there in Astral Weeks, Veedon Fleece, Into The Music, etc. is gone. They are merely really, really good R&B albums. I'd go so far as to say that quite a bit of Van's later work is up there with Ray Charles, Al Green, Marvin Gaye, etc. It just isn't up there with Van's earlier work.

Tim

 

Oh ye of little faith.

To be quite honest with everyone, I went off Van after Too Long in Exile. I didn't pick up A Night in San Francisco (too expensive) or any of the following albums until I was re-Vanitized by Back on Top in '99. So I have some appreciation for Tim's post and the general perception that he lost the plot after Hymns.
However, this thread has pushed me into tracking down every single title because Van has become even more important to me than he previously was. I want to track the ups and downs as they come, just as Macca-demia nuts track every burp and toot of their fearless leader.

I guess I'm saying I'm in it for the long haul with Van.

 

I'm right there with you, Tom. I bought A Night In San Francisco (and, regretably, Too Long and Days Like This...), but Van really got my attention again with Back On Top, and with that, he got out of the slump. Did he get back to the spiritual vision that had driven his work to such heights for decades? No. That has never returned. But he has made some drop-dead fabulous R&B records in the 2000s. Like I said before, I'd put Back On Top, Down The Road and What's Wrong With This Picture, up against the classic R&B albums of the 60s, and that's some mighty fine company. If a young artist came along and made an album as good as any of the above, he'd be hailed as the second coming of soul.

My post was not meant to dismiss Van's later work. It was meant to mark the end of an era. One that I sorely miss.

Tim