Van Morrison Just Released One of the Worst Albums I’ve Ever Heard
Part One: Van Morrison Used to Be Good
I’m a casual Van Morrison fan. I love his work in the late 60s and early 70s. Astral Weeks is commonly identified as one of the greatest rock albums ever made, and I think its reputation is totally justified. Its songs are so complex, so mysterious, so hauntingly beautiful. It takes a real songwriter to make you nostalgic for vaguery, to make you feel emotional about unknowable things. I don’t connect to most of the lyrics on Astral Weeks in a literal sense, and yet it still affects me deeply. I’ve listened to several of Van’s other 70s albums (Moondance, His Band and the Street Choir, Saint Dominic’s Preview, Veedon Fleece…) and found a tremendous amount to admire on all of them. His best songs had an unpredictability, a constant evolving of melody and rhythm that, coupled with strange but poetic lyricism, made his work uniquely gripping.
I would love to go beyond the 70s, to fully digest the rest of his work. Now and then I’ll hear a random song from a later album, like when Philosopher’s Stone showed up in Curtis Hanson’s adaptation of Wonder Boys, and I’ll be blown away. The reason I don’t do that is that Van has so many goddamn albums. His new album, Latest Record Project, is his 42nd release. As much as I love Van’s work, as intrigued as I am by the thought of discovering all of that beautiful new music… Come on. It’s 42 albums. Someday I’m going to die. I would happily dive into 42 albums of new music if Van was one of my favorite songwriters. I’ve done it before (see the oeuvre of Robert Pollard). But I’m a casual Van fan, so as much as I respect him I don’t think I’m going to be listening to Born to Sing: No Plan B or Duets: Reworking the Catalogue or Tell Me Something: The Songs of Mose Allison any time soon.
But there’s that word… respect. Do I respect Van Morrison? I certainly used to. I still respect him as a writer, a composer, and a creative mind. But Van the guy, the human being… I’m not sure I respect him much anymore. Now, I would say approximately 99.9% of the people on Earth did not enjoy last year’s COVID-related quarantine. They did not enjoy being afraid of leaving their houses or seeing their loved ones or going to the store. So if Van had simply complained about what was a clearly shitty situation I would have commiserated with that. I did a lot of complaining myself last year. Unfortunately, Van took it one step farther.
Part Two: Van Morrison is Currently a Moron
You see, Van said that those lockdowns, along with social distancing and mask-wearing, were based on “pseudo-science.” He said that the UK was attempting to take away the freedom of its citizens by using COVID as an excuse, that it was all a ploy to rob us of our democratically-held rights. He released four horrible songs about it:
As I Walked Out: In this horrible remake of classic country song Streets of Laredo, Van is grappling with the fact that sometimes things can change. “The government website” said that the COVID-19 situation wasn’t high risk, and then TWO DAYS LATER they placed everyone under lockdown. CONSPIRACY! Or maybe the information evolved, or the situation changed, or testing caught up with reality… or maybe COVID-19 was created by a shadowy cabal of evil politicians as a means of not allowing Van Morrison to go on tour. If I had to guess I’d say it was the latter.
Stand and Deliver: Van got Eric Clapton to sing this one. Fortunately, I already didn’t respect Eric much, so it’s not like I’m losing a hero here. Not only did Van have the audacity to compare COVID restrictions to slavery, he hired a known racist to do it. The song ends with a line comparing people who wear masks to a 17th-century horse thief, which is the kind of lyric you can only write if you’ve recently had a stroke or are currently having one. Good stuff.
No More Lockdown: This is where Van’s conspiracy theory mentality gets REALLY explicit. He calls his government fascist and says they’re trying to take away his freedoms and “God-given rights.” He calls out “Imperial College scientists” (whatever that means) for “makin’ up crooked facts” (like COVID, which totally isn’t real, and even if it’s real it’s not a big deal so LET VAN MORRISON GO ON TOUR DAMMIT). He says that the government is “Pretending it’s for our safety/When it’s really to enslave.” So now that’s TWO songs comparing COVID restrictions to slavery if you’re keeping score at home. He also rails against “celebrities tellin’ us how we’re supposed to feel,” and I couldn’t agree more. Celebrities are just people like you and me, and if they don’t know what they’re talking about then they should shut the fuck up. Particularly if their stupidity could hurt others, and considering how many “plandemic” comments I saw on Van’s videos that seems like a real concern.
Born to Be Free: This one’s my favorite cause it’s under three minutes. I mean, it’s still horrible, don’t get me wrong, it just wastes less of your time. Here Van calls out the new normal for not being normal, which is such a brilliant insight that I could go on and on about it all day. I mean, at the time (Fall 2020) people were less concerned with maintaining normalcy and more concerned with not dying and/or not being homeless, but Van just wants to get back to the way things were. Why are we all acting so weird? Come on, everybody, did you learn nothing from the Berlin Wall? No, but seriously, he compares quarantine to the Berlin Wall.
This was all equal-parts hilarious and infuriating to me, so when I heard that Van was coming out with a new album I was… intrigued. Then I learned it would contain tracks with names like Where Have All the Rebels Gone, The Long Con, Big Lie and They Own the Media, and the truth was clear: Van had clearly made a concept album about all of his crazy COVID conspiracy theories, and I had to listen to it. This was an album that needed to be mocked, taken out into the street and beaten. I was looking forward to a funny (if infuriating) album about a moron spouting a bunch of crazy paranoid bullshit. As I would soon learn, Van couldn’t even give me that.
Part 3: Van Morrison’s New Album is Unbearable
First, a little background: this album is called Latest Record Project Vol. 1. It is 28 tracks long. It is more than two hours in length. It has earned mixed reviews, currently holding a 52% on Metacritic. That, of course, means that reception is approximately half positive and half negative. That blows my mind. American Songwriter magazine said that it was not “his greatest, but in many ways it clearly comes close.” It’s the “clearly” in that sentence that really gets to me, as if they’re saying “you just don’t get what Van Morrison is doing on his brilliant new record, troglodyte.” Uncut called it his “most visceral album in years,” which seems pretty accurate. Listening to a guy angrily complain for two hours is some type of visceral experience for sure. But I think I personally agree more with Under the Radar, who called it a “full-on dumpster fire fueled by toxic thoughts, meaningless rants, and a surly attitude.”
I’m gonna break it down track by track, and if that sounds time-consuming to read, well… just imagine listening to it.
#1 Latest Record Project: Van kicks this one off by asking the listener a question, which he delivers in an aggressively slow manner: “Have you got my… latest… record… project?” He then goes on to describe said record, project, saying it’s “not something that you might want to know” and “not something you might be able to relate to in the present.” Bizarrely, he adds that it’s “not something I have to say.” I’m still a little thrown off by that one. It all seems self-aware, like he’s mocking his own album to its face, which makes it even more jarring when he calls it “my latest joy I’m bringing.” Joyful is the last way I would describe this album. There is not a trace of joy or positivity to be found anywhere.
This is such a strange, lazy, absurd way to start the album… and it’s one of the best tracks here. As you’ll soon learn that’s not a very high bar, but still: the album’s gonna get a lot worse before it gets better and then worse again. Every time I listen to this one the vocal melody gets stuck in my head whether or not I want it to. And, just to be clear, I don’t want it to. As it goes on the song keeps building, Van’s vocals keep climbing in intensity. He is clearly passionate about me listening to his latest record project. So okay Van, I’ll bite. What have you got for me?
#2 Where Have All the Rebels Gone?: This is a song about how there used to be cool guys around, and then computers came along and made everybody not cool except for Van Morrison. Van Morrison is the only cool guy left in the world, and the only one with the guts to STICK IT TO THE MAN. This lingering coolness might be a result of Van’s hatred/fear of computers and technology, as he seems to think that his technophobia makes him a deeper and more valid person. More on that later. Regardless, the implication is clear: everybody else is just going along with this dumb COVID bullshit, and Van is the only one who can see the situation for what it is. At first, you just have to guess that this is all related to COVID, even though it clearly is, but then Van shows his hand: “Need a real live audience to perform/Where have all the rebels gone?” Van promoted this album with an online show, and he performed this song during it. That must have felt deliciously ironic, but I am not willing to pay for the schadenfreude.
#3 Psychoanalyst’s Ball: While listening to Van’s COVID songs I thought, more than once, “wow, this guy needs some therapy.” And it turns out Van agrees... sort of. My theory is that this is a song from the point of view of a psychoanalyst attempting to treat Van (surely a thankless and exhausting task). One verse goes “Are you too hung up on fortune and fame/Will nothing ever be the same again/Can we say that you are clinically insane/Can you still even use your brain?” It sounds like somebody giving Van a mean pep talk: “Look, it sucks that you can’t tour, but eventually things will get back to normal. So cool it with all the wild conspiracy theories, okay? Are you nuts or just stupid?” Once again, this seems very self-aware, but that’d be giving Van too much credit.
In reality, PLOT TWIST, this is a song mocking the psychoanalyst himself. They’re telling Van things like “Can you think for yourself?/Get a book on self-help” and “Help you control your fears/Keep coming back for years” and, most annoyingly, “When you try to break every rule/Do you still fantasize everything is cool?” It seems to be Van saying “Fuck you for thinking that I’m narcissistic and crazy and paranoid, I’m VAN FUCKING MORRISON and I break EVERY RULE! WHERE HAVE ALL THE REBELS GONE?” At its core, this is the album’s second song in a row about how Van Morrison is the only man on Earth capable of independent thought and the only one with the guts to STICK IT TO THE MAN. It certainly won’t be the last.
#4 No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: I took notes as I was listening to this album, and my first note for this song reads “Worst goddamn vocal melody I’ve ever heard in my entire life.” I stand by that. The main issue with this one is that the lyrics are so mean and petty. Van seems to be describing some ex-ladyfriend who wasn’t thankful enough for all of his grandiose gestures. He “booked her the top restaurant table” and VIP seats at the opera, and rather than kneeling down and worshiping the timeless God that is Van Morrison she had the gall to not enjoy the food or the show. How dare she have opinions. That BITCH. And then Van complains that he “Gave her a million Euro” and I just kinda checked out after that. Nobody cares about your boring rich-guy problems, Van. You’re worth $90 million. You can afford to give her one.
#5 Tried to Do the Right Thing: Van Morrison has 60 years of experience as an acclaimed lyricist, but you wouldn’t know it from this record. Perhaps the most infuriating thing he does here, from a technical point of view at least, is to sequence his words in whatever order fits the melody whether it makes logical/grammatical sense or not. He does this a lot, but my favorite example is the first two lines of this track: “Tried to do the right thing for my baby/For my baby tried to do the right thing.” Okay, Yoda, I’m sure you did. Unless it’s a pun, like he was trying to do the right thing for his baby ‘fore she tried to do the right thing, but I think that’s giving him way too much credit. Also, I have no idea what that could mean. That being said, it is possible… because apparently, Van Morrison LOVES puns. More on that later…
#6 The Long Con: My biggest disappointment with this record is that I was expecting it to be an insane, conspiracy-laden rant about how COVID was fake, and while the topic does pop up on a couple of tracks Van doesn’t really dwell on it. He spent an entire year railing against COVID-restrictions and releasing horrible protest songs, and then he announced an album with tracks called things like The Long Con and Big Lie. Van almost certainly did this to be provocative. Any publicity is good publicity, and Van wanted to capitalize on the press he got from his whining by being misleading. Unfortunately, this song is not about how COVID is a fake disease created in a lab to keep Van Morrison from going to the pub, it’s about divorce. Turns out that Van got divorced in 2018, and he spends a good portion of this album talking about it.
Now listen, I love divorce albums. They’re usually very emotional and raw and cathartic, and they make you feel feelings. That is not the case here. Sure, Van complains about how his wife “tried to erase [him] as a father” and expected him to “pay through the nose,” but he buries these lines in a SEVEN MINUTE 12-bar blues song. You know, that blues style where the first line repeats twice and then there’s a second line that rhymes with the first line, aka the most boring song structure in the history of music? Yeah, Van does that for seven minutes, and it is excruciating. This is the moment when I began skipping around in these tracks rather than pouring over every second. I wanted to listen to it all, for journalistic purposes, but these songs are so repetitive and endless and, once again, life is finite.
#7 Thank God for the Blues: The best way to follow up a generic, seven-minute blues song is with a five-minute generic blues song. Thanks for that, Van. Van says on this one that he was “born, born to sing the blues,” which I’m not sure I agree with. There are tons of people out there who are much better at singing the blues than Van Morrison, but there are few people who are better at complaining. Van says that he’s “singing it for the people who feel the same way that I do.” So, in other words, he’s not singing it for me. Throughout the entire album it feels like the backup singers are thrown in to break up Van’s tired melodies and make them more dynamic. It does little to mask how little he cares about anything he’s singing.
#8 Big Lie: Yep, this one isn’t about COVID either. Or maybe it is. Honestly, I have no idea what Van is talking about here. He says that there was “no cake to bake” and “no heart to ache” and “no food to taste,” if that helps you deduce what he’s complaining about. Lines like “I was king for a day/I was just making hay/They hung on every word/that I had to say/When I turned around/Somebody stole my crown/It was all a big lie” make it sound like Van is complaining about his current lack of relevance, that he’s mad at his audience for not being as fervent as it once was. Van could, of course, fix that by making great music again. In fairness, this is actually better than most of the other songs on the album because Van only sings half of it. His duet partner, Chris Farlowe, sounds so much more invested and energized than Van that his presence makes the track almost bearable. Yoda also returns on the line “Everything seemed about it fake.” Thanks for that, Yoda.
#9 A Few Bars Early: Remember when I said that Van loves puns? Well, in this one he has a little fun with the line “I was in a few bars early.” This could refer to the bars in a song, meaning that he entered the track before his cue, or to the kind of bars that you drink in, so that’s kinda cute. Then he ruins it by changing it to “I came in a few bars early,” which makes the pun much more awkward. Like, you wouldn’t say “I came to another bar today before this one.” That doesn’t work grammatically. Unless he literally, you know… came in them. Never mind. Ew…
#10 It Hurts Me Too: This is another divorce song, one that begins with fairly harrowing lines: “Been turned over/Can’t see my child/Is it any wonder that I’ve got a troubled mind?” However, the emotion just doesn’t come through. Part of the issue might be that he complains much more about how much money they’re leaching from him than his lack of visitation with his son, which is the problem I’d have an easier time empathizing with. I just can’t make myself give a shit about the financial woes of such a fabulously wealthy person.
Marvin Gaye spends a lot of time on Here, My Dear complaining about alimony. One of the tracks on it is literally called You Can Leave, But It’s Going to Cost You. However, it hits so much harder than It Hurts Me Too because you can feel Marvin’s pain. You can empathize with him so easily because, even though you may not have gone through this specific situation, his sadness can trigger those feelings in you and get you into his headspace. Van doesn’t quite pull that off here. I don’t know anything about the situation, but he’s so disagreeable that I’m siding with his ex-wife through process of elimination alone.
#11 Only a Song: This is a song about writing a song, and while it feels just about as lazy as the title track did it’s definitely one of the least objectionable songs here. That’s because this is one of the few tracks where Van’s presence doesn’t feel toxic. He’s not railing against one of his exes or complaining about how a pandemic is inconvenient for his touring schedule, he’s just… writing a song. So, while this track is nothing special, it’s pleasant enough. You can listen to it without feeling too pissed off, and it goes by at a decent clip. If you’re going to listen to one song from this album… You know what, I can’t force myself to say that. Don’t listen to one song from this album. But if you do… just don’t okay?
#12 Diabolic Pressure: You get it? It’s like “diastolic pressure,” but instead it’s diabolic. Best blood pressure-related pun ever. What a wordsmith. Especially that part where he says he’s “Not working for you” cause it “just doesn’t make true/just doesn’t make true no more.” Tell me, Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee Van Morrison, how exactly does one “make true?” Am I making true if I call you a hack? Teach me, Van. Teach me how to make true like you.
#13 Deadbeat Saturday Night: This is what I thought most of Latest Record Project Vol. 1 would be like: railing against the man for not letting Van Morrison tour because of some dumb pandemic. He begins with the lines “Don’t smoke, don’t drink/Still can’t sleep a wink/No hope, no joke/No flicks with chicks.” This is an interesting verse, because I can relate to parts of it. I had a lot of trouble sleeping last year too, for fear-related reasons, and it was easy to feel hopeless and humorless as well. But why can’t you smoke or drink or watch flicks with chicks? Cigarettes, alcohol and pornography are all available to you through multiple avenues whether you can go outside or not.
Maybe there are elements of this that I am not privy to. Maybe Van lives in the country and can’t get booze delivered easily. Maybe he doesn’t get the internet out there, or he lives with a ladyfriend who doesn’t like him watching “flicks with chicks” at home. I can imagine Van Morrison being the kind of guy who rents a hotel room just to watch porn. I don’t know and I don’t really care. All that I know is that these were pretty petty complaints to have at a time when so many people were dying.
He also throws in that he hates “hicks from the sticks” who are “more pricks than kicks.” I took this as more evidence that he lives somewhere rural, and that he hates his neighbors because he “don’t know what makes them tick.” They are not legendary genius icons like Van Morrison, as as such he has trouble relating to them. This does not surprise me, because Van seems to hate literally every other person on Earth. If Van really wanted to shock me at this point he’d write a song about enjoying the company of another carbon-based lifeform. But that’s a mutual thing where another person would have to enjoy him as well, and I don’t see that happening at this point.
#14 Blue Funk: Look out everybody, VAN’S GETTING FUNKY! You better watch your back, Sly and the Family Stone. In all fairness, this one does have some nice piano and organ, a pretty solid groove. Van does have a tight band backing him up, as he always does. The only difference is that this time Van Morrison is singing lines like “Stop listening to the mainstream media junk/Look how far we’ve sunk/Blue funk” as opposed to lines like “If I ventured in the slipstream/Between the viaducts of your dream/Where immobile steel rims crack.” Remember that thing I said about present-day Van Morrison being a hack? That was clearly unfair of me. What was I thinking?
#15 Double Agent: I’ve been a little negative during this review, so let’s lighten the mood. Double Agent is one of my favorite tracks on the album, for several reasons. For one thing, it seems like an actual… song? You know, as opposed to an angry rant set to light jazz? Also, the lyrics are pretty fun. At first, it seems like Van is using the whole “double agent” thing as a metaphor for who a musician is onstage vs who they are at home, but then after a while he seems to forget that he was being metaphorical and just makes it a literal piece about spies. Is that good writing? No. Is it fun writing? Sure! So you’ve got me on this one, Van. You actually wrote an entertaining song.
#16 Double Blind: The title, along with an early reference to mind control, suggested that this would be a continuation of the narrative on Double Agent. Unfortunately, it’s just another track about how Van Morrison is the only person on Earth who still has the capacity to think for himself. He complains that people should “Try to think /Outside the blind leading the blind.” He also says that the man “police(s) everyone’s mind/Nowadays you have to be careful of everything you say.” So if you wanted to know Van Morrison’s stance on so-called “cancel culture” then there you go. He doesn’t like it. And then, out of nowhere, there’s a line that stopped me in my tracks: “Nigel comes on strong then backs away.” Immediately I was intrigued. Who the hell is Nigel? Is this in reference to something? But then the moment passed and Nigel left the album forever, always unknowable, an eternal mystery to take with me to my grave.
#17 Love Should Come With a Warning: More ex-wife bashing, though this time it’s a little more confusing. One verse stood out to me: “She was smoking and drinking and I just can’t get to sleep/Man she’s a better actress than Meryl Streep.” I have so many questions. Is her smoking and drinking keeping you awake? Like is she smoking and drinking loudly? Is the cigarette smoke bothering you and making you cough and is that making sleep a challenge? And then this actress line… is it related to the smoking and drinking? Is she smoking and drinking in character? Or did you just tie two unrelated statements together as more of an impressionistic portrait? I want to understand you, Van. LET ME IN.
#18 Breaking the Spell: This one’s okay. The chorus has this annoying singsong quality, but at least the song is jaunty and weird and doesn’t overstay its welcome. It hints at Van’s technophobia with lines about how he’s “breaking the spell of the bright shiny objects” and about how he’s a rebel who plays by his own rules (“They’re ringing the bell but I’m not salivating”). It’s also vaguely confrontational, but I don’t know what he’s mad about (“Are you breaking through the chatter?/No, you’re driving down the road”). He’s probably just upset that nobody’s as rebellious as him, but who could ever hope to be?
#19 Up County Down: Another decent song, I guess, albeit one that definitely does not need to be five minutes long. Like Breaking the Spell it’s a little fun, a little jaunty, a little weird. I might go so far as to call it “playful.” Like all of Van’s best songs, it’s built around a pun. County Down is a county in Ireland, and Van clearly enjoys the concept of driving UP to County DOWN. He does ruin it by saying he’s going down to County Up, which makes no goddamn sense, but at least he tried. Though there is apparently an Up County in Maryland so… Well played, Van Morrison. I guess your pun almost maybe checks out after all sort of.
#20 Duper’s Delight: This one was when I had to take a break, when the weight of Van’s cynicism and bitterness became too much for me to handle. I turned the album off and did something else for a couple of hours, rested my brain, tried to cheer myself up. I have nothing to say about this song. It’s a slow, repetitive, SIX MINUTE ballad about how Van’s ex-wife lied to him. I don’t recommend it.
INTERMISSION
You guys ever heard that song Street Choir? Man, what a song…
INTERMISSION OVER (sorry)
#21 My Time After a While: My Time After a While, much like The Long Con, is an endless 12-bar blues song. It’s better than The Long Con because it’s one minute shorter, but it’s still SIX MINUTES which is way the fuck too long. The lyrics are notable because they’re made almost entirely out of cliches. Van sings about how it’s “raining in [his] heart” and how it’s “wintertime now but soon it’s gonna be spring.” Then he says that his ex-wife is as “thorny as a lucky dip,” and I had to look that one up. Don’t be like me, it’s not worth it. Let’s all just let Van’s boring blues songs lull us off into a sweet, nightmare-filled sleep. Aaah.
#22 He’s Not the Kingpin: This one almost begins to capture the fun weirdness of Up County Down and Breaking the Spell but it’s just too mercilessly repetitive to be anything but torture. If I ever need to extract government secrets from somebody I’ll just blast a loop of this track. They’ll crack within half an hour, guaranteed.
#23 Mistaken Identity: I have a single note for this one: “This song is fine but it’s a fucking slog.” That about sums it up.
#24 Stop Bitching, Do Something: I don’t know if you’ve noticed this yet, but Van Morrison is a badass rebel who plays by his own rules and isn’t afraid to STICK IT TO THE MAN. You and I, on the other hand, are weaklings who could never compare to the sheer masculine splendor of Van Morrison. He is truly a man’s man, the kind of guy who can karate chop a tree in half or convince a grizzly bear to be his wife. So maybe we should all stop being a bunch of little bitches and be more like Van Morrison dammit! If we don’t make a stand, if we don’t fight our government oppressors who are trying to keep us in line with this phony-ass plandemic, then Van Morrison might have to delay his tour until 2022. I don’t know about you, but I can’t bear to live in a world that cruel. Chant along with me and Van: NEED A REAL LIVE AUDIENCE TO PERFORM! WHERE HAVE ALL THE REBELS GONE!?!
#25 Western Man: Okay, everybody, it’s been a tough slog but we’ve made it to the promised land. No, not the end of the album. What are you, crazy? It never ends. No, we’ve made it to what I believe is the very best song on Latest Record Project Vol. 1. Western Man isn’t a masterpiece. Far from it. Nobody’s gonna be comparing it to Into the Mystic any time soon. But at least there’s an attempt here at a little poetry, metaphors that don’t immediately fall apart, language that’s slightly more heightened. At least Van is attempting to be empathetic, to make your care in some small way, even if you don’t really get what it is that you’re meant to care about.
The more I look into these lyrics the more afraid I am that they’re actually about ethnocentrism and fear of the other. Or it might just be about the fat cats exploiting the working man. But that’s the whole point: it’s open to interpretation! This is a set of lyrics you can actually mull over and discuss, rather than just having Van blatantly complain about how there are no cigarettes at his house and his ex-wife is a jerk. I just hope Van doesn’t hate immigrants. Please don’t hate immigrants, Van. I’m trying to be nice for the entire length of a song review.
#26 They Own the Media: Hey, Van, I have a question for you… who’s “they?” You never specify, you never name names, you never give us a target to fight… all you give us is “they.” It’s almost like you don’t even know who you’re up against, like you’re fighting just to fight, just to say you hopped in that non-existent ring and went a round with “them.” At least you tried, right? Why don’t the rest of us have the guts to try? Well, what are you suggesting here, Van? Should I go out and punch Rupert Murdoch in the face? Is that gonna solve anything? Should I have him be visited by three ghosts in the night like Ebenezer Scrooge? Or are people like Rupert Murdoch only a tiny part of a much larger problem, one with far more complexity than you’d like to admit? I agree that the media can be dishonest and manipulative, that they often sensationalize and spout personal opinions as if they’re facts. But I don’t believe in “they,” Van. I don’t believe the problem is that simple. And if it’s that simple to you, can you at least explain what the fuck you’re talking about?
#27 Why Are You On Facebook? Why do you care? I went into Why Are You On Facebook expecting it to be hilarious. I mean, with a title like that how could it not be? Instead it just bummed me out. This might be the ugliest, most juvenile song on this entire record. I could break the lyrics down line by line and explain why every single line makes me sad. But I’ll try to sum it up:
Van, you’ve built your entire life around self-expression. You have laid your emotions, your fears, your ambitions, your loves and your hopes bare time and time again in song. And sure, you’ve muddied the waters with some vague language, but that’s just how you’ve chosen to express yourself. I would never bemoan you that. You have put out 60 years of work that plumbs the depths of your inner life, and your fans have hung on every word. And now you’re mad because other people want to express themselves too? Because they want to share things with their friends, potentially even with the world, that are important to them? Why? How are these people hurting you?
I think I might actually know the answer. There’s a line here that stuck out, with Van suggesting that these people on Facebook (which he seems to be using as a placeholder word for all social media) are trying to find some sort of shortcut to “what some people work very hard to attain.” Is that it, Van? You see these kids getting popular with vlogs or disgusting cooking videos or TikTok dances and you think “These people aren’t musical geniuses. They haven’t been honing their craft for 60 years. They haven’t worked as hard as me, aren’t as talented as me, aren’t as significant as me. Why should they be given more attention than me?”
Van, I’m not going to say that you’re not a talented guy. I’m not going to say that you’ve grown worthless in your old age. You still have something to offer, albiet to a shrinking number of fans. But we gave so much time and attention to your self-expression, and if you aren’t willing to do the same for other people, even if you can’t understand what makes them special, then you’re an asshole. Everyone deserves to be heard, if only for a moment. Everyone deserves a shot, whether they get it or not. You already had your chance, and you did plenty with it. Now stop whining about it being someone else’s turn.
By the way, of course Van Morrison has a Facebook page and a Twitter page and an Instragram page and a fucking Linkedin page (to name just a few), because if he didn’t he wouldn’t be a hyprocrite.
#28 Jealousy: Okay, let’s conduct a little thought experiment: You’ve just sat through more than two hours of a spoiled, entitled, out of touch conspiracy nut complaining about every tiny little thing in the universe that bothers him. What would be the most insufferable way for him to end the record? How about a song where he claims that people are just criticizing him because they’re jealous:
Jealousy/The things they say about me/I’m not too blind to see/It’s just plain jealously//Jealousy/Why don’t they just let me be?/They don’t dig my philosophy/It’s just plain jealously
Let me ask you a question, reader: by now you’ve presumably perused this entire article. You’ve seen me take Van to task time and time again. I honestly feel a little bad about it. I’ve been mean, and the only reason I allowed myself to be is that Van’s stupidity in denying the existence of COVID could have hurt or even killed some of his fans. I’m not saying it did, so don’t get all litigious, Van. I know you love to sue people. But after all of this, everything we’ve been through, do you honestly think I’m jealous of Van Morrison? Do you think I’m mad about this album not for any of the reasons I listed above but because I’m covetous of Van’s money or fame? Listen, I didn’t write this because I want to be Van Morrison. Honestly, he sounds so miserable that I’d rather be just about anyone else right now. No, I wrote this article because Van Morrison pissed me off, plain and simple.
We’re near the finish line. Let’s break this shit down:
“Is It because I’m good at my job?” — Well, you used to be. But no, I’m not criticizing you because you’re good at your job. That doesn’t make any sense. And if this album is you being good at your job, what the fuck does it look like when you’re bad at it?
“I don’t go with the mob/I don’t do what they want me to do” — You’re such a rebel, Van. Teach me how to a badass rebel legendary genius sex god like you.
“I made it in spite of you” — Always a great reason to create art: spite. Maybe that’s why this album is so much fun to listen to. Hey Van, I wrote this article out of spite too. Was it fun for you to read?
NOTE: I know Van Morrison will never read this article. I’m not delusional like somebody else we know. But if he ever does… Hi Van! I just wanted to tell you that I love that album you made to fulfill your contract with Bang Records, with the songs about you wanting a danish and waiting for your royalty check and shit. Hilarious!
“You don’t have a clue/Have a clue just what it takes/You say you never got the breaks/Or you just don’t have what it takes” — Well clearly I’m not as talented a writer as you, Van. I would have never thought to rhyme “what it takes” with “what it takes.”
“You think that I’ve got it made/Cause I’m not a slave/To the system like you” — Oh boy… First of all, I don’t think you’ve got it made, Van. Your life sounds awful. I cannot imagine what it must be like to live with that much biterness in your heart. Second of all… you’re not a slave to the system like me? Why not? Because you’re rich? I see no evidence that you are outside of any system. You have property, you pay bills, you earn an income through touring, you sound like you recently got your ass kicked in a courtroom… Can you explain to me how you’re outside the system again?
You played multiple socially-distanced shows, and then said that they weren’t in “acceptance of the current state of affairs.” But they were, Van. You can’t just do exactly what the man tells you to do and then claim you’re sticking it to the man. Make all the excuses you want, but you were forced by your government to do the responsible thing. That wasn’t your choice to make. You kicked off this album cycle with a virtual concert. Van, if you’re such a rebel, if you’re so outside the system, why are you doing exactly what you’re told? Let them throw you in jail, you can just walk right out again cause you’re not a slave to their system. You do whatever you want cause you don’t play by their rules. Enjoy paying all of that fucking alimony.
Part 4: Let’s All Take a Breath
So, where do we stand now? Van Morrison has released one of the most abysmal albums I’ve ever heard. It has gotten a very mixed reception. He thinks that everybody that gave it a bad review is just jealous. Earlier this year Van annouced plans to take his fight against the Irish government’s COVID restrictions to court, particularly to challenge their mandate that indoor music venues remain closed. He did this in the midst of a new surge, the worst that the UK had yet experienced. Nothing has been reported on this since January, so either the case is still pending or it didn’t go well.
Van’s reputation was damaged by his COVID denial, but it did make certain portions of his diehard fanbase love him even more. They seem to agree with Van’s self-assertions that he’s the freest, most rebellious man on Earth. They also don’t get why all of these kids are on Facebook, and they also wonder where all the rebels have gone. And I wish those people the best, I really do. I hope they all get vaccainated and take precautions until they do, that Van Morrison’s words and actions don’t inspire them to put themselves in danger. If Van releases another volume I’ll review that too, but if he doesn’t I will be very, very relieved. And that’s about it. Fuck arrogance, fuck entitlement, fuck COVID denial, fuck it all… But Astral Weeks is still the bomb. So let’s all take a breath and let the sweet sounds of who Van Morrison used to be play us off.