Lyrically the most interesting song is probably Madame George with its evocation of the carefree summers of childhood. The themes it addresses traverse the pastures of love and nostalgia but this is done through stream-of-consciousness imagery, so to break the album down to these two themes is too banal to give an accurate idea of what is achieved here. Impression is almost certainly the best word to begin describing ‘Astral Weeks’ as nothing about it is strictly defined not the song structures, nor the themes in which the album’s two sides are divided (“In The Beginning” and “Afterwards”), and the feelings it evokes are more easily compared to the paintings of Monet and Degas than to even the music that directly influenced it.
Any number of adjectives, emotions and metaphors are used when talking about the album, but they only give an impression of what your emotional response might be, leaving the music itself out of the conversation completely. Morrison was twenty-three when the album was recorded.ĭescribing the music is quite another matter. It came a year or so after Van Morrison’s hit song Brown Eyed Girl proved the singer’s songwriting credentials and about eighteen months after the break-up of Northern R&B band Them. The facts of its creation are that it was recorded in New York in September and October of 1968 and it was released that November. Writing about an album like ‘Astral Weeks’ is not an easy task. The album to be taken out of the Golden Vault for reappraisal this week is ‘Astral Weeks’ by Belfast‘s finest son Van Morrison. We hope to get you reacquainted with old friends and create new favourites. You’ll know some like the back of your hand and nothing of others.
Welcome to the latest edition of ‘Golden Vault’, where we delve into the annals of music to bring you a classic album.
0 kommentar(er)
