portrait of this blog's author - by Stephen Blackman 2008

Tuesday, June 05, 2018


  • Moondance
  • Van Morrison
  • Moondance





















Two of the greatest songs of all time from an extraordinary period of outpouring of talent from Van here from the initially commercially unsuccessful Astral Weeks on to Moondance from which these two extraordinary songs come, along to St Dominics, The Street Choir to Tupelo Honey and some might argue to today [but with some odd wavering along the way? I got lost around Hard Nose and left him for a while] . . . . . certainly 60's-70's Morrison was just astonishing. 'Into The Mystic' is probably in my top ten of the greatest songs ever written, delivered and sung


Morrison remarked on the song and how its use of homophones lent it alternate meanings:
"'Into the Mystic' is another one like 'Madame Joy' and 'Brown Eyed Girl'. Originally I wrote it as 'Into the Misty'. But later I thought that it had something of an ethereal feeling to it so I called it 'Into the Mystic'. That song is kind of funny because when it came time to send the lyrics in WB Music, I couldn't figure out what to send them. Because really the song has two sets of lyrics. For example, there's 'I was born before the wind' and 'I was borne before the wind', and also 'Also younger than the son, Ere the bonny boat was one' and 'All so younger than the son, Ere the bonny boat was won' ... I guess the song is just about being part of the universe." Hinton, Celtic Crossroads p108


  • Into The Mystic
  • Van Morrison
  • Moondance

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