Van Morrison is not, nor has he ever been, some mere singer. He’s a man on a spiritual mission, in search of transcendence, like W.B. Yeats and all the great Irish poets who came before him. He’s produced dozens of great “pop” songs—he has a knack for writing hummable and catchy melodies—but he is at his best when he is trying, through sheer primal vocalization, to break through the barrier that separates us from the Godhead.
Two albums in particular stand out; 1968’s Astral Weeks and 1972’s Saint Dominic’s Preview. Both feature songs that find Morrison seeking, through repetition, stutters, grunts, growls, exclamations, and shouts to reach the whole damn way up, through the stars and the galaxies, to infinity. On the latter in particular, “Listen to the Lion” and “Almost Independence Day” come as close to reaching Nirvana through the use of the vocal chords as you’re ever likely to hear in the Western World.
1972’s Saint Dominic’s Preview is so great that, although two of its seven songs are so-so at best, anyone with ears is beholden to give it an A+. About those two songs: “Gypsy” is a horn-driven number along the lines of “Domino,” a song I’ve never liked. It swings in a folk-jazz kinda way, and Morrison’s in good voice as always, but the fast-paced sections annoy. Similarly, follow-up “I Will Be There” is a jazz blues that proves Morrison knows his ways around both genres. He sings up a storm, and the sax break is great, but placed next to “Listen to the Lion” it just doesn’t cut the mustard. The competition’s too stiff.
As for “Redwood Tree” it’s not earth shattering either, but it’s so chock full of good vibes I find it impossible to resist. You’ve got to love a guy who sings to trees but somehow manages not to come off as a hopeless hippie tree-hugger, but Morrison makes it sound effortless. And soul/R&B opener “Jackie Wilson Said (I’m in Heaven When You Smile”) isn’t a song, it’s a party, with Morrison commanding us to “let it all hang out” as the horns blare and he imitates a bell and you can almost see this one as a beautiful girl cutting down Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, smoking a cigarette, hips swiveling. Morrison does some scat singing, the horns keep things percolating, and if the joyous noise that is “Jackie Wilson” doesn’t move you in a purely physical way you really should have someone check your pulse, because you just might be dead.
The title track has a vaguely gospel feel, Morrison pronounces “regretting” “regrettion,” and the piano and organ reinforce the feeling you’re in one funky church. The horns come in and out, as does a really nice steel guitar, and the song reaches its apotheosis as Morrison repeats, “And we gaze out on/We gaze out on/We gaze out on/Saint Dominic’s Preview.” This number has soul galore as Morrison free associates and some backing vocalists come in, and if it doesn’t quite have the feel-good punch of “Jackie Wilson” it’s a powerful and lovely example of song craft nonetheless.
“Listen to the Lion” is only one of the greatest rock songs ever; it opens with some moving acoustic guitars, and Morrison repeating, “All my love come tumblin’ down” before he gets to his point; to wit, that you have to listen to, and unleash, the lion inside you. The song moves at a stately pace, the piano is lovely, and Morrison continues to seize on phrases and repeat them, drawing out the words, and then crying them out in a spontaneous overflow of ecstatic emotion. “I shall search my very soul,” he repeats over and over, because that lion has to come out, has to, and he isn’t shy about it. He continues to repeat phrases against a backdrop of piano, guitars, and minimal drums, until he finally lets loose and begins to utter guttural phrases, hum, and scat sing until some backing vocalists come in repeating, “Listen to the Lion.” And Morrison is in his own world now, making incoherent noises and growling and in general putting on the vocal performance of a lifetime. “Oof!” he sings over and over, before returning to scat singing, and then repeats, “And we sailed and we sailed and we sailed and we sailed… all the way to Caledonia. All the way from Denmark.” And he’s whispering by this point about a “brand new start” when the guitars come in to shut the song down. It’s a bravura performance by a man who wasn’t interested in the words so much as the almost religious fervor their sound invoked, and he is set on casting a hypnotic spell that will help us all find the lion within us.
“Almost Independence Day” opens with Van the Man humming along with some beautiful acoustic guitars, after which they hit an almost Pink Floyd-ish note and a horn blares while Morrison again seeks to reach the Final Truth through his trance-like vocalizations, which emphasize repetition upon repetition, as when he sings, “I can hear the fireworks” over and over again as a Moog synthesizer sets the mood behind him. The guitars make this song, giving a spiritual power to Morrison’s magical invocation of “and the cool cool night,” which he repeats, stretches out, and plays with before adding, “Across the harbor.” He can hear the “people shouting out/Up and down the line” and “it’s, and it’s, and it’s, almost Independence Day.” He finally goes “shhh,” giving the band the cue to hush while the double-bassist show his stuff, then he continues to whisper until he tosses off one final lovely series of nonsense syllables.
The only other musician I can think of who sought to transcend the quotidian to reach the purely spiritual with such fervor and persistence is the saxophonist John Coltrane, who likewise dedicated himself through musical conjuring to break through the wall of Maya that separates us from eternal release, from seeing that all is nothing and that we are bliss. Like the poet William Blake, they understood that, “If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” I have nothing against a band that doesn’t set itself so unreachable a goal. I mean, give me the Dictators any day. But on “Listen to the Lion” I feel something shift inside me, and I feel like roaring, and making inchoate sounds, because I am suddenly that lion, and when finally he emerges I feel sainted, and strong, and free, free at last.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A+
