Astral Weeks

I learned a lesson from Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run: when an album is universally critically acclaimed, and I don’t like it even after multiple listens, it’s worth checking out the lyrics.  When I first listened to Born To Run with the lyrics in front of me, it was a revelation.  It transformed my perception of the album from an overrated mediocrity into a top 5 masterpiece that jockeys for the distinction of my favorite album ever.

Well, the effect wasn’t nearly as dramatic with Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, but it was still there.  And, you know, in retrospect…duh.  Morrison is known for being as much as poet as a songwriter, and these eight tracks are far more remarkable lyrically than musically.  Morrison’s imagery is a little more daring than that of a Springsteen, but less cohesive as well.  There are images and feelings in these songs, and the latter in particular lends them some sense of purpose, but actually putting an answer to the recurring question of “well, what does it mean?” is not always easy. Nonetheless let me give it a quick little go.

Fittingly, the first track is a thematic parallel to Born to Run’s opener Thunder Road.  Astral Weeks, the song, is vaguely about impossible lust, a lust so immediate and irresistible that the singer relents the notion of ever being with her (she has a kid, after all), and starts talking of seeing the girl in heaven, the one place where his love could be consummated.  Thunder Road is perhaps a tamer ode, but smacks of that same desperation.  They are both outstanding songs, but Morrison’s poetry is the greater here; his quiet insistence that he “ain’t nothing but a stranger in this world” is beautiful beyond the Boss’ more urgent supplications to “Mary.”

Astral Weeks is fantastic, but for my money it’s the best song on the album.  The follow up, Beside You, is a more tumultuous surge of visions, and aside from the rather soothing chorus, I have difficulty picking out a narrative.  (I think it’s noteworthy that Morrison uses the image of finger pointing here again, as he did in Astral Weeks.)  The third track, Sweet Thing, is one of Morrison’s better known cuts from this album.  It has some interesting lyrics (I like “hey it’s me, I’m dynamite”), but there is no change in tone, no thematic surprise like those in Astral Weeks or Cyprus Avenue, and the impact of his wordplay is thus somewhat lessened.

Cyprus Avenue and Madame George, tracks four and six, are of a kind; Morrison admits they’re both strictly stream of consciousness. They have a certain wistful beauty to them: a longing for the life of “the mansion on the hill” in the first, and a long, dreamy goodbye in the second. Madame George is particularly inscrutable, and I’ll gladly buy you a drink if you can explain to me why the titular character has to go away (I have the vague notion that the cops took her, but I have no idea why).  These two mini-epics are separated by The Way Young Lovers Do, the most upbeat and straightforward track on the album, and which I suspect is somewhat underrated.

Track 7, Ballerina, is my least favorite track.  The lyrics aren’t all that special (the recurring simile of “stepping up like a ballerina” is a little goofy), and Morrison’s musicianship is not enough to buttress 7 minutes worth of song.  Slim Slow Slider, the closer, regains a more moody tone, and repeats how a girl he passes by is dying, somehow, in a way that is suggested to be both slow and subtle.  I thought this song could have been fleshed out a bit more, but instead it ends very abruptly, after only 3 minutes.

Altogether this album does have some of the most daring and poetic lyrics I’ve encountered, but I’m not sure it justifies the somewhat weak compositions and nonsensical tendencies.  As always, I’m sure another few months’ perspective will work wonders.

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