Backstreet JellyPOLL: ILM Van Morrison Poll Discussion Thread

Overlook His Band and the Street Choir at your own peril, friends. I was looking for the studio version of I've Been Working and found this 9 minute live raveup that can only be described as scorching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0dpNHLLCBs

Real live Them on French TV in '65

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goR8Lf3YH2w

holy shit @ that Orphanage clip. Van running deep on the James Brown records

I often feel apologetic about how much I love Van Morrison

well...like...this is just sort of an example of why van has become as close as I get to a guilty pleasure, but...because he's devoted multiple songs in the past 20 years to how annoying it is to do press work. you know? like...most great artists maybe take a swipe at the press when they're young & drunk but they get over it. van...will never get over it

holy shit @ that Orphanage clip. Van running deep on the James Brown records

Yes! And I bet he was as equally prolific at firing band members.

I will definitely be giving a vote to "mystic eyes"

One of the few artists where I genuinely cannot see how he made a living as a pub singer let alone a comfortable living as a jobbing touring act let alone got rich selling albums let alone enjoys bonafide legend status.

Good luck to him but rly wtf

wanted to rep for this, every song on veedon fleece is amazing but this song, which is one of the more traditionally arranged songs on the record along with "bulbs," is my favorite. i love the way the verse melody keeps sinking into van's vocalization whirlpool
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XQnZEkrn7s

Veedon Fleece for me is like you're sitting around thinking I've got Astral Weeks. This is the only album I'm really ever gonna need how can it even get deeper than this, forget it. and then you hear about Veedon Fleece so you find a copy and you think holy fuck he just took the whole operation into outer space

^^^^^^^

dmac, I went from wondering the same thing to understanding that he creates his own aesthetic gravity through sheer force of will. People don't think they like slurry mumbling, or repetitive nonsense, and yet. With druidic mojo Van decrees that this is his jam and you will like it, and the sheer confidence of his delivery and the fact that he keeps doing it convinces one to pay attention. It's a bit like Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff in the cartoons - he doesn't fall as long as he doesn't look down. Van doesn't look down, ever.

It's an angle, certainly.

I come not to snark in all seriousness, so it's interesting to hear a take on it that at least acknowledges that he's bovrilish

Re: mumbling and repetitiveness of his vocals. He likes to use his voice like a jazzer might solo on a saxophone.

whoa wait hold on everyone don't submit your ballots without song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOhG7GYmE6Y

er without this song*

beyond that "irish heartbeat" is my favorite song in the entire world. i might prefer the recording with the chieftans but i also might not!

'cause the world is so cold!
don't care nothing about your soul
that you share
with your own ones

taking sides: og "irish heartbeat"'s formation as a gently rotating synth orb vs. chieftans recording which is crisp and embroidered with bagpipes

Veedon Fleece for me is like you're sitting around thinking I've got Astral Weeks. This is the only album I'm really ever gonna need how can it even get deeper than this, forget it. and then you hear about Veedon Fleece so you find a copy and you think holy fuck he just took the whole operation into outer space

― she carries a torch. two torches, actually (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi)

Outer space with beautiful lawns that smell like honey.

astral turf

holy fuck he just took the whole operation into outer space

To me, that's the long songs on Saint Dominic's Preview, particularly Almost Independence Day, where he isn't even burdened by lyrics, just a few repeated phrases. It's perfect.

i always forget how wonderful this song is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvDamp4tvA4

It won't help the voting but, true confessions, I always skip Beside You. Someone up thread used the term bovrilish - no idea what that means exactly but I don't like bovril nor Beside You which has always sounded too strident.

The opening synth burbles at the beginning of "A Sense of Wonder" -- man

gonna send in a ballot before i torture myself about the order too much

'cause the world is so cold!
don't care nothing about your soul
that you share
with your own ones

otmfm

Irish Heartbeat is such an incredible album

prob should be a separate poll for best van morrison horn arrangements but this is my no. 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ-ib0euAKk

Thanks for the information
Never give a sucker an even break
And with her everything light becomes heavy
And everything heavy becomes light

People let me tell you, the results of this poll are quite interesting thus far.

Get those ballots in. We were pretty slow there for awhile, but they're starting to come in now.

i love both versions of "wonderful remark" so so so so much

also this song!!!! idek if i can fit it onto my ballot but i really want to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMP9jMJlsks

really enjoying my research here - I can submit a ballot in the evening West Coast time as long as it's before midnight right?

also wanna note that this is the dude who wrote GLORIA which I will certainly vote for

I can submit a ballot in the evening West Coast time as long as it's before midnight right?

Yes.

any consideration of extending by a day?
I just got back in town but have a final 33 to pare down-would like to spend enough time to rank.
Thanks.

Yeah sure why not. Let's extend it through August 2. I'll start the rollout on Wednesday, and finish up on Thursday or Friday depending on how many ballots I get.

i'd say cyprus avenue, or caravan, or into the mystic, or

Cyprus avenue gets my #1

Re: mumbling and repetitiveness of his vocals. He likes to use his voice like a jazzer might solo on a saxophone.

This

completely forgot that fun. did a cover of "queen of the slipstream." it's pretty good imo otherwise i wouldn't subject y'all to it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlrmUuukVV0

I should submit a ballot, right?

yes

just submitted mine!

jesus this guy has a lot of good songs...

It is touched on upthread, but one of the enduring mysteries for me is that I am completely in thrall to these songs on subjects I find almost intolerable anywhere else: I am on tour; people are phonies; I'm staring at a 14-year-old girl from a car; those other people are phonies too; Ireland is lovely.

Which is just to say I am sitting here regretting not making a song that goes on about 'merry gypsies' my number one.

speaking of "ireland is lovely" here's a song van dedicated to his high school in belfast. prob my favorite song on avalon sunset, can't get enough of those golden autumn days

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKBao_-FJU8

I think I said this elsewhere but while there are plenty of good songs about California, Van's are pretty much the only ones that make me want to be in California.

I understood Van the vocalist much better when I realized he was a saxophone

I am on tour; people are phonies; I'm staring at a 14-year-old girl from a car; those other people are phonies too; Ireland is lovely.
lol otm -- also "i can't believe i signed that contract"

the first couplet on his latest album might literally be the biggest load of shit ever sung haha:

"I was Mr Nice Guy too long
And I found out that was wrong"

really now

lmao van

One of my favourite scenes in "The Last Waltz" is at the big singalong at the end; Neil Young puts his arm around Van in a gesture of brotherly solidarity. Van visibly recoils/shudders and Neil puts his arm away

I really like this also love the moxie of calling a song "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" like fuck Pink Floyd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14VTF3EWqUo

i can imagine van singing "never heard of pink floyd / never got no insight from sigmund freud"

just on its surface Pink Floyd's whole approach to music would be so antithetical to Van