Like Northern Ireland, Van Morrison exists with multiple identities. He rose to prominence fronting an R&B group called Them, best known for the garage rock standard, “Gloria.” Morrison wasn’t finished writing standards, though, as he started over as a solo artist and wrote another standard, “Brown Eyed Girl.”
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The Celtic traditions of spiritual quests run through Morrison’s sprawling catalog of soul and R&B-inspired songs. They also lean comfortably against the leafy dirt of folk music. Born George Ivan Morrison, his father’s vast record collection particularly influenced him, and artists like Ray Charles and Solomon Burke shaped him. But it was the King of Skiffle, Lonnie Donegan’s cover of Lead Belly’s “Rock Island Line” that connected the thread between the folk and blues music Morrison loved. His songs have reached a broad fanbase, even when floating inside beautifully weird dreamscapes.
Aesthetically, he has an improvisatory spirit like a jazz musician, curious and searching, yet equally at home in traditional composition. He’ll tear into blue-eyed soul aas readily as early rhythm and blues. Taking on a vast catalog is daunting, but the five songs below are a good place for Van Morrison newbies to begin. Then, let “Tupelo Honey” guide you from there.
5. “Brown Eyed Girl” from Blowin’ Your Mind! (1967)
Making love in the green grass was too saucy for late-’60s radio, but the Caribbean-by-way-of-Belfasthit endures as Van Morrison’s most famous song. “Brown Eyed Girl” is a song most people could name in two seconds, and it kicked off his solo career after his group, Them, disbanded. He’d signed an awful contract with Bang Records, a group of crooks masquerading as music executives, a dark cloud at odds with this breezy song. “Brown Eyed Girl” has many fans, but one of them is not Van Morrison. He told Time, “I’ve got 300 songs that are better.” However, “Brown Eyed Girl” hints at Morrison’s inspiration from Romantic poets like William Blake, foreshadowing the brilliant creations ahead.
4. “Crazy Love” from Moondance (1970)
Van Morrison was recovering in upstate New York from the commercial failure of his second album, Astral Weeks, when he began work on Moondance. Formally arranged folk and R&B songs replaced the abstractions of the previous album. Morrison was also becoming a father, and the Catskill Mountains were a reset for the Irishman in New York. An album full of religious ecstasy and psychedelic dreams about Ray Charles isn’t the most direct path to radio acceptance unless you write as well as Morrison. But he’s always been a little fussy. He derided the 2013 reissue of Moondance as “stolen” and urged his fans not to buy it. They didn’t listen.
3. “Moondance” from Moondance (1970)
When Van Morrison moved near Woodstock, he planned on befriending Bob Dylan, but the Freewheeling One had already left. The swinging sound of “Moondance” was Morrison’s move to the mainstream, and the title track became his most-played live song. On Astral Weeks, Morrison wrote nine-minute folk songs backed by jazz musicians. But without “Madame George,” he doesn’t get to “Moondance” because he wouldn’t have had to endure the threat of Warner Bros. Records pulling the plug unless he wrote some hits. And that’s precisely how one of the 20th century’s most remarkable songwriters responded.
[RELATED: Despite Comparisons, Van Morrison Claims He and Bob Dylan Are “Worlds Apart”]
2. “Into the Mystic” from Moondance (1970)
“Into the Mystic” is Van Morrison’s “Yesterday,” an existential song plucked straight from nature. Like Paul McCartney’s earthy hymn, the music and words of “Into the Mystic” are fused as one entity, body and soul, into a singular graceful piece of beauty. Lester Bangs and Greil Marcus, writing for Rolling Stone, called “Into the Mystic” the heart of Moondance, but it may be the soul, too. If Moondance is a dream sequence, “Into the Mystic” is when REM sleep kicks in. Morrison’s songs sound like they’ve always existed—reflected in “Mystic”’s poetry. That would be the definition entry if you wanted to explain his music. Van Morrison: Born before the wind. Younger than the sun.
1. “Gloria” by Them from The “Angry” Young Them! (1965)
Risking blasphemy, “Gloria” is as good as anything written by The Beatles or The Kinks. “Gloria” is Van Morrison’s big bang and something he’d written and sung since he was 18. Early on, Morrison would ad-lib lyrics, stretching the improvisations like a jazz musician. “Gloria” is so pure and simple, and at its heart, it’s the very essence, the stardust remnants of “Tutti Frutti” and “Johnny B. Goode” combined to make the universe of rock’ n’ roll. It reached New York’s shores in the early ’70s, at the birthplace of punk rock, where a poet named Patti Smith, hanging at CBGB with Tom Verlaine and Joey Ramone, perfected Morrison’s standard.
G-L-O-Arrrr-I-A!
