Astral Weeks

Van Morrison’s debut solo album was more lucid dream than hard songwriting, a beautifully evocative vision of an imagined East Belfast populated by sweet things, heroin casualties, elusive Lolitas and persecuted drag queens. Over improvised backdrops constructed by top session players (some of whom had cut their teeth with Charles Mingus), Van sang white soul mantras and incantatory melodies that fused Ray Charles and Joe Heaney, while the words were stream-of-consciousness extrapolations that wed Beat poetry to Joyce. Hardly any surprise that the record inspired arguably the single greatest piece of rock ‘n’ roll writing ever set down on paper, Lester Bangs’ contribution to the Greil Marcus-edited Stranded anthology. But although the songs had strong literary associations (the protagonist of ‘Cypress Avenue’ could’ve been Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert, the tragic Madame George straight out of Selby’s Last Exit To Brooklyn), Van insisted the words had more to do with Northern vernacular than any written tradition.
Like its spiritual twin, the Velvet Underground’s debut (coincidentally, John Cale was in an adjoining studio when the album was being made), Astral Weeks was a sui generis classic that dealt with adult (if not X-rated) themes, and one whose influence vastly overshadowed its meagre original sales. The balance has since been redressed. Van revisited the set of songs for a live album recorded in LA last year. The result was, against all odds, almost as astonishing as the original.

No 1 in 2009, as voted for by over 200 Irish musicians. Same position in 2004.l

Tim Wheeler on Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks"
“I always remember seeing the cassette in the old music and book store at home, and being intrigued by the cover. In amongst a load of heavy metal cassettes was this one, random, ‘60s looking album! I thought the cover was so beautiful and intriguing. It didn’t really hit me how great an album it was until I was 18 years of age and Stuart Bailie gave me the lowdown on it. Shortly afterwards, Ash were touring the US: there were many moments of homesickness and I listened to Astral Weeks a lot then. It’s remarkable to think that such an extraordinary work of art came from just 20 miles away from my home. I love all the allusions to Belfast – lines like “On that train from Dublin up to Sandy Row” in ‘Madame George’ – and the fact that I knew all the street names and all the little references in there. ‘Cyprus Avenue’ is the best song for me, but Astral Weeks is full of them. I was driving through the old neighbourhood recently and I saw the street he grew up on, this modest little working-class street with terraced houses and it produced this epic record. Amazing.”