VAN MORRISON
Has VAN MORRISON mellowed at last? After yet another remarkable period in his ongoing creative renaissance, the Celtic soul warrior is on good form as he talks R&B, transcendence and mythical bootlegs with Graeme Thomson. “I didn’t know what the hell I was doing for quite a while,” he reveals
"I’M current,” says Van Morrison in a tone that brooks little argument. “I’m always current.” More than half a century since he recorded John Lee Hooker’s “Don’t Look Back” with Them in 1965, Morrison remains admirably true to its central thesis that “you cannot live on in the past”. At 74, he’s still pushing forward, a natural law unto himself.
Speaking to Uncut from Los Angeles, he appears remarkably upbeat. While “Days Gone By”, the final song on his frequently terrific new album, Three Chords And The Truth, laments the fact that critics simply cannot resist throwing old quotes back in his face – “They tried to stitch me up with so many words I said so long ago/but we were all so young and foolish then” – he’s a more accommodating interviewee these days than his prickly reputation might suggest. There remains a no-nonsense crackle to his replies, and you sense he still doesn’t suffer fools gladly, but Morrison proves happy enough to chat about the 50th anniversary of Moondance, dusty old bootlegs, matters of transcendence, the perils of fame, even meeting fanboy Harry Styles.
In “Tore Down A La Rimbaud”, one of the many jewels in Morrison’s often overlooked ’80s repertoire, he expressed the wish that “my writing would come”. In the old days, the muse was a capricious house guest. It’s not a problem he appears to be grappling with these days. Three Chords And The Truth is his sixth album in the past three years – and easily the best. While Roll With The Punches, Versatile and his two recent collaborations with organist Joey Defrancesco, You’re Driving Me Crazy and The Prophet Speaks,
featured a slightly off-hand mix of covers, jazz tunes, blues standards, originals and reinterpretations of songs from his back catalogue, the new album is a focused collection of 14 new compositions.
It is 50 years since the astonishing twin peaks of Astral Weeks and Moondance, and more than 30 since the more pastoral, esoteric concerns of midcareer highlights such as Into The Music, Common One and No Guru, No Method, No Teacher.
Morrison is less likely to blow the doors off these days, having settled into a more comfortable jazz/ soul/blues groove, but his voice remains a remarkably elastic muscle, capable of performing a series of somersaults at the end of recent single “Dark Night Of The Soul”, where he returns, not before time, to matters of meditation, healing and “the soul, the soul, the soul…”
Are we witnessing a purple patch? “Oh yeah, yeah,” he enthuses. “Definitely!” He goes as far as suggesting that, in fact, he’s just getting the hang of this songwriting lark. “You know, at first, I was learning. I didn’t just start as a songwriter and know everything. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing for quite a while, I had to work it out and, like anything, I had to evolve. Just like if someone only writes one or two books, they have to go on from there.” It’s certainly food for thought. Morrison, it is clear, believes he has not yet delivered his magnum opus.
You’ve released six albums in the past three years. Do you feel like you’re on a roll at the moment? I do, definitely. I mean, it’s difficult to answer these kinds of questions, because one doesn’t really know. It just is what it is, and it feels like there is momentum at this time. I don’t really like to question what I do… I don’t have to, you know. It’s not necessary for me to question it. It’s probably just momentum.
You told Uncut in 2017 that you no longer enjoyed making albums. Is that still the case? No, I think I started to enjoy it again. I did two albums with Joey, working really fast, like the way we used to work in the old days. Well, it wasn’t seen as ‘fast’ in the old days, it was just how it was. I haven’t been used to working that way since the ’60s and early ’70s, but getting back to working that way, I got on a roll and I’m enjoying it more now. Also, there is a difference when you are doing it under duress. In the old
days I was doing it under duress. The way things were worked out, I was doing it in between gigs, and it was very pressurised. Now it’s not, because I manage it and produce it myself. I’m not going through a record company. I deliver the product to the record company. In the old days it was a very different thing.
Where and when was Three Chords
And The Truth recorded? It’s a mixture. Half of it was recorded in Cardiff. There are guys I’ve worked with before, who are like my studio band. The other half was recorded when I was doing a residency in Las Vegas earlier this year. I had a nine-gig residency there in February. That was done with some of my band and some guys who had played on previous albums. The organ player, John Allair, has played on a lot of my albums previously.
Jay Berliner is also on there, playing amazing acoustic guitar on “March Winds In February”. Your association with him stretches back to Astral Weeks. And Bill Medley sings with you on “Fame Will Eat The Soul”. How did those collaborations come about? Well, Jay does most of the US gigs now – and I’ve always liked Bill Medley’s singing. I was listening to one of his solo albums, and then when I’d been in Vegas in 2018, I heard he was playing there, so I went to see one of his gigs, which was really good. I met up with him, and when I went back to Vegas earlier this year, I got him in to do the vocals. That’s how it happened. There wasn’t a lot of pondering. We ran through it a few times, then we did a take.
“Nobody In Charge” seems to rail at the current political climate, the culture of fake news and the abdication of responsibility. That’s exactly it. It doesn’t occupy a lot of my time, but it seems to be a theme at present across the board. Nobody being in charge is a theme of the times we’re living in.
Do you concern yourself much with Brexit and the issue of the backstop in Northern Ireland? Not really. That’s their job, to get on with it. My job is making music, writing songs and singing. That’s my job. I’m apolitical.
Are the songs on the new album all recently written, or do you stockpile material? Most of them were written in the last year or so. The only one that wasn’t is “Fame Will Eat The Soul”. I had a demo of that but I didn’t like the arrangement, so I redid it, and it worked out better. Apart from that they are all brand new.
Does the muse still blow hot and cold? You’ve said before that “you’re not going to be divinely inspired all the time”. Are there times when you just can’t write? There have been previously, but I think that’s part of the old regime, when there was a tendency to believe that. People thought they got writer’s block and that kind of thing. If you believed that, then you got it. I don’t really believe that any more. The times have changed, in relation to writing songs.
You used to talk about ‘channelling’… [Dismissively] Yeah, yeah. I don’t believe in that any more. That was then. That was then. I’ve probably written over 400 songs now, and if you follow the timeline, in that [ previous] period I probably wasn’t writing as much as I am now. In the timeline, I’ve kept writing more, and now I am writing more than ever. It was probably at that particular time where it slowed down a bit more. Now it has picked up.
Does the idea of transcendence still have a place in your writing and your stage performances? I’d say transcendence still does, in certain themes and certain songs, but not in all of it. At the same time, I have to address obstacles and other things I’m dealing with. You have to address other kinds of stuff that is relevant in one’s timeline right now, that is maybe not so transcendent. You have to address that.
How would you define transcendence? Well, how would you define it?
Well, broadly, as the process of elevating the mundane or the human form onto a more spiritual plane, to gain an understanding of or to experience something that is essentially beyond our articulation. Well, that’s a great definition! [Chuckles] I couldn’t have said it better myself. That’s really good. I like that.
“I don’t really like to question what I do... I don’t have to” VAN MORRISON
I’ve seen you perform many times when you appear to be experiencing something like that on stage. Yeah. It’s not something I seek out, it’s something that happens in the process.
When you were performing a song like “Summertime In England” in the ’80s, for instance, it sometimes felt like you were engaged in some great quest, like climbing a mountain. Did it feel that way to you? No, it didn’t feel like that. No! It felt normal. Maybe it came off that way, because you’re working with dynamics. When you’re performing, there is a certain amount of acting involved. By the very nature of performing, you are acting. In order to act the songs, I have to get into that mode of operation. I have to act my way through it, to get from A to B. That’s the process.
What is your criteria for adding new songs to the setlist these days? Well, it doesn’t really work like the old days. Back then I could go out and do most of my new album and add some older stuff, but nowadays, the whole dynamic has changed. You’re not really aware of how many people in the audience even know an album exists or have heard it or know it is out. With people buying single tracks and the downloading thing, it’s much more fragmented. I don’t know if I could go out and just do my new album now, especially if I’m playing bigger gigs. The expectations – which are quite normal expectations – are that people want to hear certain songs. They’ve paid money to come and recognise songs that they have heard before. You have to mix it up a bit. I’ll play some of it and mix it with catalogue stuff.
It’s interesting what you say about expectations. When you play one-off gigs in more intimate settings, like the Seamus Heaney Home Place earlier this year, or the Eisteddfod in 2018, you tend to dig deeper into your catalogue – performing material from No Guru, No Method, No Teacher, Common One,
Astral Weeks and St Dominic’s Preview. I think many fans would love to hear more of that in your regular gigs. It’s horses for courses. If it’s a literary type gig, of course it becomes more wordy. If it’s kind of a rock gig, then it’s a whole different vibe. If I was going to play the Hay-on-wye festival, I’d do a completely different set than at a bigger gig where people just want to hear the hits. I’d like to do more of that, but they are few and far between. I don’t know. I don’t really get a lot of feedback on this kind of stuff.
Does performing your more intense material require a different mindset and approach? It’s just different set-lists, but I’m working on that. It’s a work in progress, to develop that more, with different sets for different types of gigs. I’m working on it now.
When you received your knighthood in 2016, you named Common One as your favourite of your own records. Does that still stand? That’s one of them, but I said that because the interviewer who approached me that day said that was one of his favourites and asked what did I think? And I said, “Yes, that’s one of mine as well.” I felt that we were on to something on that album, with that particular group of musicians.
Could you foresee making something that immersive again? Again, it’s chemistry, and also it depends on what I’m writing at the time. The songs and the musicians and the way the thing happens sort of dictate the direction.
Do you have a clear overview of your career, in the sense of how different records fit into phases and periods? I can do, and that’s kind of what I’m working on live. The problem is I’ve got so much material, I’ve got hundreds of songs to deal with, so that becomes, “How do I get all this into gigs?” The only way to do is to have different sets. I can have several different sets. Live, that’s the direction I’m going in.
You’re 74. On “Bags Under My Eyes” on the new album, you intimate that you are growing tired of the road. Is retirement imminent? I’d like to cut back and be more selective. The travelling is the hard bit. Well, the travelling, then having to get your energy up to do gigs after you’ve travelled. I can see me cutting back. But that song is a bit tongue in cheek.
Unlike “Fame Will Eat The Soul” and “You Don’t Understand”, which return to a familiar theme concerning the grief you’ve experienced within the music industry. Is there… [Interrupts] Nah, it’s nothing to do with the industry. I keep getting this all the time. It’s not the industry. That’s an old sort of cliché from a long, long time ago.
So what are they about? They’re about life. Life.
On “Fame…” you sing, “You drank some darkness, didn’t you? Against the light within
you.” Is that how fame feels to you? Yeah, at times. But not all the time. Sure, I’ve felt that at times. That’s the oldest song on the record, it was written a while ago. I’ve felt like that, but it comes and goes and you have to deal with it, and you have various degrees of it. But really, it’s just about
getting this stuff out. You could say that writing songs is therapy – which it is.
Has songwriting always fulfilled that therapeutic function? Not really. I haven’t always felt like that. I think it applies more now, because the subject matter is changing. It evolves. With any vocation, you start somewhere and then you have to grapple with it and think, ‘Where does this go now? Where am I going to take this now?’ There are different phases that one goes through depending on where you’re at – your age, the time that you’re living in, all these different factors play into it. It’s very complex.
And yet, for you and most artists of your generation, the work you created in early adulthood tends to take precedence. Is that frustrating? I can understand that, it’s perfectly understandable. That’s how record companies operate, they are always promoting the old stuff – not just me, but everyone. They are promoting mainly compilations of what they think the public want.
Would you ever embrace that? We see Dylan, for example, carefully curating his legacy in his own lifetime with vast boxsets of outtakes, alternate versions, live cuts and films. Does that interest you? My situation is very, very different to a lot of people, because I’m still putting out new stuff, and that’s really what I do. My modus operandi has always been about that, being in the present.
Dealing with catalogue stuff is extremely difficult. For instance, I’ll give you an example. I signed off on [the deluxe version of ] The Healing Game three years before it came out in 2017. It took Sony three effing years to get that product out, and then they put it out on the back of one of my new albums. It’s crazy, it really is, and that gives you an idea of what I’m dealing with. So it’s a very messed up situation. In my case, it doesn’t really work for me.
Moondance will be 50 years old next spring. Will you be marking the occasion, perhaps during your Palladium residency? No, because I’m not promoting it. I’m promoting what I’m doing now. Simple as that.
Do you pay much heed to the deconstruction and fragmentation of the album format in the age of downloads and streaming? As we know, record sales for people not doing pop have diminished, and everyone is aware of that. So it is what it is. There is a certain core audience. It’s probably not as big as it was before, but I don’t think anyone’s is, the way things are going with streaming and all that. It doesn’t bother me. As long as I have a platform for releasing my product, it suits me fine. We know it’s not going to be Top 10, but that’s OK. I’m not really trying to get on the record company’s Valentine’s list, know what I mean? I never was! And vinyl’s coming back, which is good.
“Early Days” on the new LP hymns the birth of rock’n’roll. These days, your live show typically features Them material as well as a high proportion of vintage jazz and blues tunes. Do you feel closer to those roots now than perhaps you did 20 or 30 years ago? I always feel close to that. My influence was black music, not pop music. It was jazz and blues. I mean, pop music was great when you were a teenager. I was in rock’n’roll bands, which was great, because there was a brand new shiny part of it that was going on, but apart from that, I’m not really into pop music per se.
Having said that, there’s a great picture of you doing the rounds on the internet, where you’re having a right old laugh with Harry Styles. He claims he tickled you… [Laughs] Well, how that came about, he was in Los Angeles and I was playing at the Wiltern Theatre there and he was at the gig. He came backstage and he wanted to get a photo. That was it, really.
Styles has been raving about his love of “Madame George”. Is it important to you that younger generations pick up on your music? It’s important to them, it’s not important to me! It matters to them, and good luck. I’m still checking out my roots of the music. I’m still getting deeper into that.