If I ventured in the slipstream
Between the viaducts of your dream
Where immobile steel rims crack
And the ditch in the back roads stop
Could you find me?
Would you kiss-a my eyes?
To lay me down
In silence easy
To be born again
To be born againfrom the song “Astral Weeks” by Van Morrison
I have been listening to Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks” record for about 30 years now. Sometime back in the ’70s, I was at a record store in St. Louis called Vintage Vinyl with Ron Wyly. I was buying a copy of “Moondance” and Ron told me that I needed to listen to “Astral Weeks”. I wasn’t thoroughly convinced so, later he made me a cassette copy.
I would listen to it from time to time and it was one of those records that grew on me.
You could fill a box car with stuff that people have written about “Astral Weeks”. In 40 years it has sold 500,000 copies. I think that everybody that bought a copy has written an article about it.
I can’t tell you exactly why I think that this record is so great. I mean, I could probably break it down song by song, lyric by lyric, chord by chord and come up with a technical analysis but, I don’t want to. I would be afraid that it would ruin it for me. You know, like people in those native tribes in South America that feel if you take their photo, you steal some of their soul.
I put “Astral Weeks” on this morning and it sounded refreshing. It is still mysterious.
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Tags: Astral Weeks, Van Morrison
Martin Moon wrote,
Ron Wyly, the HHS math teacher! What a wonderful influence he was in my life. Sounds like he touched your life in a positive way as well. He introduced me the richness of “off the beaten path” music! He used to let me borrow a couple records every week. I was amazed the size and breadth of his record collection.
Link | September 2nd, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Pat wrote,
Do you mean the natives whose tribesmen wear penis gourds?
A movie called the “Royal Tennebaums” uses Van the Man to take them out of the last scene. It has become a trend to use Morrison brilliance to pep up some of the flicks.
Sally Kerbow was my first teen sweet heart, and our song was Brown Eyed Girl. And boy “where did we go?”
She came to me years later to try again, and I was still ate up. Never got past all the different colors of eyes and other things on girls, you know. and Sally had a strawberry birthmark on her leg, that today I would happily inspect, but then I was terrified…
Oh, go on and tell me more about Van Morrison… this topic needs expanding, serious expansions. Same with Zappa story; is mind boggling. I got off on a tangential for several days…
boggled_yo >pd
Pat’s last blog post..Bulletin: BLOGGER STRIKE
Link | January 22nd, 2008 at 10:06 pm