Poetry in motion

VAN MORRISON
MOONDANCE

“How many murdered Moondances have you heard in how many late night lounges?” Niall Stanage asked that very question in the pages of Hot Press back in 1999, as he reflected on a special ceremony that saw Van the Man become the first inductee into the Hot Press Irish Music Hall Of Fame. It was soulful works such as that classic tune’s parent album that ensured the Belfast Cowboy would always be the first name on any Celtic Music Honours List. Another question – how, as a Northern fella of 25, do you follow an album now widely seen as one of the last century’s musical masterpieces? Moondance was the answer. In fact, though it’s hard to imagine it now, Astral Weeks hadn’t immediately set the world alight the previous year. So it would be Van’s next record that would make him a star.
As Hot Press noted some quarter of a century later, “Astral Weeks is cited by many as Van Morrison’s greatest artistic achievement. Moondance remains the album that broke him commercially. Released in March 1970 and produced and arranged entirely by Morrison, Moondance was much closer to Stax soul and hippy folk than the jazz and orchestral leanings of its predecessor. It proved much more accessible to audiences and at least two of the tracks – ‘Crazy Love’ and the title-cut – have become widely covered pop standards, while tracks like the horn-driven ‘Caravan’ would turn up again and again in Morrison’s career, most notably as a highlight in the film The Last Waltz. Despite the memorable melodies, Morrison’s lyrics remained heavily spiritual and soul-searching as highlighted by the key track ‘Into The Mystic’, which continues to be a live favourite.”
Moondance would go on to feature 49th in a Greatest Albums Ever list in an April 2006 edition of Hot Press. The magazine contrasted it with its illustrious predecessor: “It showcases the lighter, more melodic side to Morrison’s songwriting. Moondance may lack Astral Weeks’ intensity, which might also explain why it doesn’t attract quite the same level of fan worship. It is still brimming with moments of brilliance. The title-track has an easy, graceful shuffle that few can match, proving that the old curmudgeon always possessed a romantic side.
“Opener ‘And It Stoned Me’ is another breathtaking number – an exultant brass blast, with a wonderfully infectious chorus refrain. It may only be second best in the Morrison catalogue, but that could scarcely be employed as a criticism, given the competition.”
During a People’s Choice poll the year previous, HP reader Russell Shaddox commented: “Every track on Moondance is a gem; nothing is wasted. And it’s representative of the lush sound and soulful musicianship that made Van, well, the man. In short, Moondance is one of the best of all time.”
Remarkably, its maker wasn’t thinking too long and hard during its genesis. In the midst of a purple patch to rival any great artist, Van Morrison was playing and singing on instinct. He told HP’s Dermot Stokes about his process and philosophy in a memorable 1978 interview.
“What I’m trying to get at is that music to me is spontaneous, writing is spontaneous and it’s all based on not trying to do it, you know? It’s all based on spontaneity, and that’s my trip from beginning to end, whether it’s writing a song or playing guitar, or a particular chord sequence, or blowing a horn, or whatever it is, it’s based on improvisation and spontaneity, right? And that’s what I keep on trying to get across in interviews, and it’s very hard because the process is beyond words! You know what I’m saying. The process of doing it can’t be put in to words!”
Guess the only thing left to do is stick the record on...

THE BOOMTOWN RATS
A TONIC FOR THE TROOPS

It may not have been home to arguably their biggest hit, ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’, but A Tonic For The Troops was undoubtedly The Boomtown Rats’ most important long-player, bridging the gap between the eager pub-punk of their debut and their more sophisticated, high-charting new wave pomp. The band’s strongest collection of songs, it accurately took the pulse of a young Irish nation with sharp lyrical wit and bags of melody. As evidenced by Hot Press reader comments when it ranked 26th in The People’s Choice 2005, the album resonated with a generation.
“My older brother got A Tonic For The Troops free with a Hot Press subscription back in 1978,” recalled E. O’Connor. “We just played it like crazy. This was the sound of Ireland and the world as we knew it in ‘78. I still play it today – the songs are great and it brings back memories of a simpler time. ‘Walk, don’t walk, Talk, don’t talk!’”
Lyrically, Geldof was making astute observations, looking outside of himself and not terribly pleased with what he saw.
“I’ve always been bothered by other people,” he told the late Bill Graham in 1990. “Nearly all my songs, like ‘Rat Trap’ and ‘Joey’, are about other people.”
‘Rat Trap’ would become their first No. 1, knocking John Travolta and Olivia Newton John off their Grease-y perch in the Singles Chart. In November 2004, after Tonic... had been named 24th Greatest Irish Album, Hot Press said of its lead single: “A neo-Springsteen-ish urban drama, along with ‘Me & Howard Hughes’ and ‘I Never Loved Eva Braun’, it confirmed that Geldof was a real songwriter, capable of slugging it out in the heavyweight division. His singing had improved hugely too, as had the band’s playing generally.”
The album, meanwhile, was deemed “a revelation”.
At The Music Show 2010, Niall Stokes asked Geldof about his work at the time. The playfully controversial ‘I Never Loved Eva Braun’ stuck out in the singer’s memory.
“I’ve always written about music so I’ve got this tuning chord in my head and I remember the first time seeing pictures of Hitler’s girlfriend doing handstands on the beach, this cute girl. This young girl on the lakeside beach at Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s country house. And she was laughing and doing these exercises, and I just thought, ‘What the fuck?’ I thought, what a drag having a girlfriend who does exercises all the time. And I was thinking of that and I was thinking, y’know she must have loved him, but he probably didn’t love her. Hitler, the most bizarre thing about him was that he was incapable of love, he had no empathy for humans. So I was imagining him coming back and saying, ‘Look, I was mad for the uniforms and the blood and shit but I didn’t love her, y’know’. So I put in Ziggy Stardust who blew apart when he got to be the guy and I put in ‘Let’s Spend The Night Together’ from the Stones. I put in ‘Leader Of The Pack’ from the Shangri-La’s so…”
Giving the ever-honest, pull-no-punches Bob the last word, how does he rate the album overall?
“I never liked ‘She’s So Modern’ on that record,” he told Stokes. “I always thought that was shite because I’d set out to get us into the top ten. I’d been in London and I’d been meeting all the girls on the scene then, so Paula (Yates) was one of them, Magenta Devine, Julie Burchill was one of the girls on the scene. And they were a bit of a pain. And so that’s why I wrote, ‘She’s so 20th century, she’s so 1970s/She knows the right thing to say/She’s got the right clothes to wear’ – but the truth is I put every hook in there that was possible, to get us into the top 10 ‘cos otherwise we were over. But I like that record. ‘Like Clockwork’ was good but then that was mainly Pete ripping off ‘Psycho Killer’ by Talking Heads.”