Quick Lists Vol XX: Your Top 5 Van Morrison Songs

[Tequila Cowboy]

By request, your top 5 songs from Van the Man:

1. When The Leaves Come Falling Down
2. Into The Mystic
3. Caravan
4. Wild Night
5. Bright Side of the Road

[beantownbubba]

By coincidence, I'm listening to Astral Weeks as we speak. I've been thinking lately that Van may be the first member of the true top of the heap rock pantheon to fade out of the general consciousness. There's no way to measure that, it's just my sense based on random radio play, classic rock artists promoted (or not) at the local emporium and talking to younger folk. If true, that would be a real shame. Anyway, my 5, whoops, 6, inpo:

Cypress Avenue (as stand in for pretty much that entire album)
Wavelength
Brown Eyed Girl
Jackie Wilson Said
Moondance (as stand in for pretty much that entire album)
Tupelo Honey

[sactochris]

Saint Dominic's Preview
And It Stoned Me
Astral weeks
T.B. Sheets
Here Comes The Knight

[Tequila Cowboy]

there has to be more love for Van the Man doesn't there?

[Clams]

somehow missed this thread

1. Tupelo Honey
2-5. The entire Moondance record

[beantownbubba]

there has to be more love for Van the Man doesn't there?

Yeah, i was starting to worry that my musings above were being proven correct, but i'm hoping it was just kind of a weekend lull or something.

[Slipkid42]

And It Stoned Me
Into The Mystic
Tupelo Honey
Domino
Caravan

w/The Chieftans
Star of the County Down
Raglan Road

[4sooner]

Great call on this one.

Into The Mystic
Lonely Avenue
Kingdom Hall
Brown Eyed Girl
Gloria

[Clams]

Maybe this belongs in the blasphemy thread.... I like Van, but I've always found it hard to get into his catalogue beyond Moondance, which (like everyone else) I love. I've got Tupelo Honey and Astral Weeks and I've never really liked either of them as records, apart from a few great songs. You always see Astral Weeks atop all-time best-of lists but I've never understood (a) why it's so highly regarded or (b) how anyone could even rank it ahead of Moondance.

[beantownbubba]

Maybe this belongs in the blasphemy thread....

Got it in one, Clamsie.

Not so much Moondance v. Astral Weeks, (fwiw, to me they're pretty equivalent) but not getting into Van beyond Moondance. My soapbox is out for repairs so the pontificating will have to wait.

[Tequila Cowboy]

Maybe this belongs in the blasphemy thread....

Got it in one, Clamsie.

Not so much Moondance v. Astral Weeks, (fwiw, to me they're pretty equivalent) but not getting into Van beyond Moondance. My soapbox is out for repairs so the pontificating will have to wait.

The dude has around thirty five albums and most are damned good. My favorite is Astral Weeks but I'll tell ya his 1999 album, Back on Top is not too far behind. Dig deeper mollusk man.

[Iowan]

Sweet Thing
Into the Mystic
Tupelo Honey
Warm Love
Come Running

[Kudzu Guillotine]

there has to be more love for Van the Man doesn't there?

I'm a fan and have some of his records but am not familiar enough with the majority of his music to participate in the thread.

[beantownbubba]

Maybe this belongs in the blasphemy thread.... I like Van, but I've always found it hard to get into his catalogue beyond Moondance, which (like everyone else) I love. I've got Tupelo Honey and Astral Weeks and I've never really liked either of them as records, apart from a few great songs. You always see Astral Weeks atop all-time best-of lists but I've never understood (a) why it's so highly regarded or (b) how anyone could even rank it ahead of Moondance.

A lot of how we react to things depends on the expectations we bring. If u approach Astral Weeks as a "rock album" you'll probably be disappointed. It's a "rock album" in the same way as, say, Rubber Soul is, i.e. because it was made by a rock star, not because it sounds like a rock album or follows the conventions of rock albums.

Astral Weeks swings a lot more than it rocks, which is pretty fundamental when you're talking about rock n roll. Its musical influences are much more out of jazz than rock. Greil Marcus says Richard Davis's bass playing on AW is the best ever in rock. Be that as it may, Richard Davis is a jazz bassist (and a professor of jazz at U Wisconsin) who among other things, played bass on Scotto's favorite jazz album, Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch, not an album often mentioned in the same breath as, say, Sticky Fingers or ZOSO. The drummer on the album is Connie Kay, most famous for his work w/ the Modern Jazz Quartet.

Lyrically, AW is as far from "typical" rock as it is musically. There's not much here about boy meets girl, etc. It's very personal, almost mystical, exploratory (in the philisophical existential sense, not so much the experimental sense of metal machine music and the other albums in that other thread). "Ballerina" may not be inspired by Degas' paintings, but it comes a lot more from that place than, say, andy warhol or a victoria's secret commercial.

Try listening to Astral Weeks as if someone told you that you have to hear this great new music that sounds like a pop version of john coltrane, or an R&B version of Nick Drake. Maybe it'll help, it probably won't hurt.

PS - I just looked at the Wikipedia entry for the album. There's way TMI but also lots worth reading, especially the comments of folks like Marcus, Lester Bangs and Elvis Costello.

[Iowan]

Clams: smoke a joint and listen to AW with headphones on. Then you'll get it.

I kind of reserve Astral Weeks for studying for finals. Such a calming, soothing album that helps me focus. Although as I write this, I'm listening to THS's Boys and Girls in America. Probably because of writing about them for AOTW.

[dime in the gutter]

tb sheets is the tits.

[Smitty]

I'm in Kudzu's boat, not really a big enough fan to comment. I love Moondance and Astral Weeks, but I'm pretty ignorant of the rest of his catalog except for Pay The Devil, his country covers record from a few years ago, and I listen to it more than MD or AW.

[scotto]

By coincidence, I'm listening to Astral Weeks as we speak. I've been thinking lately that Van may be the first member of the true top of the heap rock pantheon to fade out of the general consciousness. There's no way to measure that, it's just my sense based on random radio play, classic rock artists promoted (or not) at the local emporium and talking to younger folk. If true, that would be a real shame. Anyway, my 5, whoops, 6, inpo:

Cypress Avenue (as stand in for pretty much that entire album)
Wavelength
Brown Eyed Girl
Jackie Wilson Said
Moondance (as stand in for pretty much that entire album)
Tupelo Honey

Effin' nailed it, Bean.
Astral Weeks is a brilliant album. And I'm glad to see some love for "Wavelength."
However, I've witnessed too many incidents of drunken Woo! girls and backhatters rasping out their sloppy sing-along to "Brown Eyed Girl" on the bar's jukebox for me to love the song as much as I used to. Pity, 'cause it's a great tune.

[beantownbubba]

Coincidentally, a dj on the "independent" station around here was talking yesterday about Van, saying that it was his sense that his station played more Van than any station in the area and perhaps in the country, and they don't play all that much. It seemed to this dj that Morrison is fading out of the public's music consciousness, which the dj found to be as surprising and regrettable as i do.

[Kudzu Guillotine]

Love Wavelength. That was the first Van I ever bought on CD. The title track reminds me of the heyday of one of our local stations, WQDR, when album rock radio was in it's prime. They went country in 1984 and local commercial radio hasn't been the same since. Thankfully the Triangle area of NC has no shortage of great college stations "left of the dial".

[drtpants]

1. Sweet Thing
2. These Dreams of You
3. (Straight to Your Heart) Like a Cannonball
4. Call Me Up In Dreamland
5. Jackie Wilson Said

[drtpants]

bonus:

favie Bang Masters: Send Your Mind
Joe Harper Saturday Morning