132. Van Morrison - Astral Weeks (November 1968)

1. Astral Weeks

2. Beside You

3. Sweet Thing*

4. Cyprus Avenue

5. The Way Young Lovers Do*

6. Madame George*

7. Ballerina

8. Slim Slow Slider

B+

I don't think I've ever been so disappointed as I was the first time I listened to Astral Weeks. I was of course familiar with Morrison's singles (my dad was fond of playing his greatest hits), and kind of filed him away as a pretty good singer with a few fun songs. Then I heard "Sweet Thing", which captivated me. So of course I bought the album, put it on, and I think my reaction could best be summed up by the phrase "What the fuck is this shit?". 

Of course, this was over fifteen years ago. I've grown and changed a lot since then. But I'm still a cold-hearted cynic, and I still don't think this album is as amazing as people make out. 

Coming back to this album, the first time I listened to it for this post I couldn't get past Morrison's occasionally ear-splitting vocal delivery, and the sameness of the music. But there's a reason I always listen to these albums more than once, and getting up this morning and listening to Astral Weeks first thing with my cup of tea, I found it to be pretty good. Not "life changing", which a lot of people seem to consider it, but solid and occasionally brilliant. Though to be fair, this album came out almost sixty years ago. What Morrison is doing here has since been done as well or better by many, many musicians, and you can't really expect it to pack the punch it initially did. Unless I guess you've never heard a jazz, folk, or arty alternative rock album before, in which case I can certainly see why you'd go gaga over it.

Anyway, musically this album is pretty impressive. The style is a mix of folk, jazz and R&B, very loose and mostly improvised. Apparently Morrison played his musicians the songs once or twice on guitar, then locked himself away in a recording booth after telling them to play more or less what they wanted. This means that the music lacks the sheer studied complexity of a lot of jazz, but it also has a wonderfully spontaneous, loose quality. Unfortunately the jam session nature of the recording process also means that a lot of the songs sound more or less the same. Some people seem to enjoy this, viewing the album as one long song. I kind of got frustrated with waiting for choruses that never came, although the idea of building interest through tension and the layering of instruments rather than complex song structures is a clever one. There's also some excellent use of a string section, which apparently Morrison was deeply annoyed by the addition of, but which I think is vital for expanding the album's sonic palette.

The lyrics are another thing you'll probably either love or hate. A lot of people seem to throw around the term "Stream of Consciousness" when talking about Astral Weeks, but that's only partly true. The lyrics are more free form and impressionistic than anything. This is hardly Virginia Woolf's The Waves. And, truth be told, most of the songs are kind of vague and irritating. There's only so many times a guy can talk about rain before it gets annoying. Then again, Morrison was in his early twenties (and younger) when he wrote these songs. For someone of the age he was, the lyrics are quite mature and complex. Most of the songs are about love, about the distance between people, and about standing on the cusp of adulthood. And they're all fine. Just not mind blowing or anything.

There are, however, three songs that really stand out. "Sweet Thing", of course, is a beautiful love song, as well as one of the most structured songs here. "The Way Young Lovers Do" I quite like because, while still vague and abstract, it's the most conventionally "Van Morrison" song here, and features a actual, catchy chorus and a pretty great horn section. The real surprise for me, though, was "Madame George". This is the song on the album where impressionism meets story telling, a moving portrait of an Irish drag queen and the sad, strange minutiae of their life. It's a pretty, sad, odd little song, and I was very pleased to encounter it. 

I feel bad for talking down an album so beloved by so many people, but at the same time everything I've read indicates that Van Morrison himself doesn't particularly care for Astral Weeks, and can't understand why everyone likes it so much. After a bit of effort on my part, I can understand why everyone likes it so much. It's just not the sort of thing I'm ever likely to be floored by.