It’s a theme thing this week where the 56th anniversary of Astral Weeks is marked by covers of six tracks from that landmark LP. Enjoy!

First Word

Van Morrison’s second album Astral Weeks was released on 29 November 1968 to almost universal puzzlement from the music industry and the record-buying public. Far from the pop-orientated approach of the 1967 single Brown Eyed Girl that his record company wanted, the ever-obtuse 22-year-old Morrison recorded the eight tracks of Astral Weeks in three days in New York with four high calibre jazz musicians. Legend has it that Morrison played his strange, mesmerising songs once through on his acoustic guitar in the studio to bassist Richard Davis, guitarist Jay Berliner, drummer Connie Kay and flautist John Payne. Morrison then walked into the vocal booth with his guitar and engineer Brooks Arthur hit the record button. The other musicians simply followed Morrison’s lead, improvising their parts behind him with nothing written down but a few jotted notes. Morrison remained characteristically uncommunicative throughout, totally absorbed in his music and himself, connecting only through his singing. Arranger Larry Fallon overdubbed strings and horns on a fourth day and producer Lewis Merenstein mixed it down. The LP had a song cycle of eight tracks – four on Side 1, which was subtitled ‘In The Beginning’, and four on Side 2, subtitled ‘Afterwards’. On listening to it, critics and fans alike were bemused by music that was neither folk, nor jazz nor blues but had something of all these genres coded into the DNA of the strange, yearning tunes.

Given these conditions, it seems incredible that the album has gone on to become an acknowledged classic, which some regard as possibly the greatest work of art to arise from popular music. Unlike similarly lauded records from that time (Pet Sounds, Sgt Pepper, Blonde on Blonde, etc) it had a limited impact on the evolution of popular music. It is truly unique – a one-off. Like many, I came to Astral Weeks late. My great friend Mark moved to Leeds in the early 80s and developed a taste for the Celtic-mystic style Morrison deployed on 1982’s Beautiful Vision and its follow-up Inarticulate Speech of the Heart. These songs became associated with long nights of talking and drinking when I went down to see him. They inspired me to poke around Morrison’s back catalogue, eventually reaching Astral Weeks. It took a few listens, but suddenly its breathtaking beauty and emotional intensity clicked into place and I was hooked on what is a rare thing in pop music – an album that lives up to it’s own legend. Elvis Costello once described it as ‘still the most adventurous record made in the rock medium – there hasn’t been a record with that amount of daring made since’. And Nick Cave was amazed by ‘its power to mesmerise and disturb’, and wondered ‘at the sheer nerve of this young guy to attempt something so obsessive and uncompromising, and then actually pull it off’.

So, if it’s so good, why am I playing six covers of songs from the album and not just choosing six of the originals? Well, I suppose it’s just what I do here at WIS Towers – I like to avoid the obvious and mix things up a wee bit. If you are unfamiliar with the Morrison original or even if you believe it is not to your taste, I’m going to suggest that you listen to this week’s playlist – and read the accompanying narrative, of course! After that, if the songs are not for you, then fine – there’s always next week. But, if you are intrigued by what you hear, then follow this link and listen to the original record – trust me, you won’t be disappointed.

---

Astral Weeks – Sarah St Catherine (2011)

Morrison sets out his stall early with his title track opening Side 1 of the record with the lyric: “If I ventured in the slipstream, between the viaducts of your dream/Where immobile steel rims crack, and the ditch in the back roads stop”. There is no coherent narrative here – this is poetic, stream-of-consciousness stuff. Rhythmic and musical loops dominate whatever structure there is and the listener is already adrift in a strange place.

Not many people have chosen to do their own version of Astral Weeks. I heard a couple of ropey ‘rock’ versions but I found this lovely folk version by a Canadian singer/songwriter from Calgary called Sarah St Catherine. I’ve searched high and low on the world wide web trying to find out a wee bit more about her but have struggled. She had an LP out in 2008 but the Morrison cover comes from her 2011 album called Helios. I’m not sure she is still active as her website is no longer available and her Soundcloud page hasn’t had anything new added for ten years. However, by listening to her version of Morrison’s tune, you will be nudging it up towards 15,000 listens on Spotify. So we’re talking niche.

---

Beside You – The Revelators (2000)

The second track on Side 1 of Astral Weeks is the percussionless and gossamer thin Beside You. Berliner’s classical guitar and Morrison’s expressionistic vocal play off each other with flute and vibraphone floating in and out. The imagery is said to be Morrison projecting the visions of his own childhood on to Peter, his adopted son. “Little Jimmy’s gone/Away out of the back street/Out of the window/Though the falling rain”. Morrison had been working on the song for a while and there is a more straightforward and much less interesting take on the tune recorded at sessions produced by Bert Berns at Bang Records in December 1967.

Like the title track, Beside You is very rarely covered with the only version of note being by The Revelators, a side-project of Australian blues rock band The Black Sorrows. The Revelators were known for doing shows featuring their favourite R’n’B covers done in their own way. In 1991 they released an album which included tunes by Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan and Gram Parsons as well as a cover of Morrison’s Tupelo Honey. When The Revelators reconvened for a second record in 2000, bass player Joe Creighton was very keen to cover Beside Me. Despite adopting some percussion, their version retains the ethereal feel of the original, using a pedal steel and a saxophone layered onto the guitars to give it the required hypnotic vibe. And, crucially, Creighton doesn’t try to out-Van the Man on the vocals, but he still gives a great performance.

---

Sweet Thing – The Waterboys (1988)

By the time the ‘In The Beginning’ side reaches its third track, some rhythmic structure arrives in the songs in the form of Sweet Thing‘s ascending circling chord progression and Connie Kay’s drums. The overdubbed strings come in halfway through and add to the rhythm, chopping the chords down to begin the ascent again. One of the most ‘accessible’ tracks on the LP, it’s a timeless, romantic song which is thought to be about his longing for his then-wife Janet who at the time he met her was living in the US while he was based in Belfast. Notably, it is the one occasion on Astral Weeks where Morrison can be seen to be looking optimistically forwards in his lyric and not painting hazy pictures from his past. “And I will raise my hand up into the nighttime sky/And count the stars there shining in your eyes”.

In terms of covering songs from Astral Weeks, in this scribe’s humble opinion, there are very few artists more attuned to Morrison’s Celtic-soul vibe than Mike Scott of The Waterboys. He shares Morrison’s passion for poetry and following a stint in Edinburgh punk band Another Pretty Face, Scott formed The Waterboys as a vehicle for his mystic, spiritual ‘big music’ inspired by his love of Dylan, the Beatles and Van Morrison. He recorded a cover of Sweet Thing in 1985 during the many sessions held for the band’s third LP This Is The Sea. Scott has stated this record was influenced by late 60s albums The Velvet Underground & Nico and Astral Weeks. In the end, the cover didn’t make the shortlist of nine tracks on the released vinyl album. Three years later, when Scott had moved his band away from their rock sound to be more Celtic folk focussed, the expanded band re-recorded the cover and this time it made it on to Fisherman’s Blues. Although Scott’s version adopts a violin to frame the melody as well as a driving drum pattern, it doesn’t stray that far from the musicality of the original. But Scott’s vocal performance takes Morrison’s staggering waltz through “gardens wet with rain” and makes it soar. The story goes that Scott improvised the end section using the lyric from McCartney’s Blackbird on the spot in the studio as they recorded it. Which might or might not be true, but I think it works.

---

Maria McKee – The Way Young Lovers Do (1993)

The first side of Astral Weeks closes with the majesty of his regular live set closer Cyprus Avenue but, in terms of covers, we are going to jump over to the second ‘Afterwards’ side and pick up the first track. While the lyric of The Way Young Lovers Do conforms with the romantic, nostalgic feel of the rest of the album – “Then we sat on our own star and dreamed of the way that we were/And the way that we were meant to be” – the music is different. Played in 3/4 time with the rhythm dominated by Richard Davis’ upright bass phrasing and the swing in the drums, it feels smoother and more jazz-dominated than the other songs. This despite Morrison singing it with a strong soul vocal and the overdubbed horn figures punching in frequently.

The style of the music has attracted a number of people to cover the track including unlikely attempts by former Bad Seed Mick Harvey and Hugh Cornwell, formerly of the Stranglers. More plausibly, Jeff Buckley covered it on his first live EP in 1993 but I’m playlisting another cover from that year by Maria McKee. Her version was included on her second post-Lone Justice solo album You Gotta Sin To Get Saved and is musically very much in keeping with the feel of the original Morrison version with the horns given even more of a role. What stands out for me is McKee’s incredible voice where, in this case, she does attempt to out-Van the Man and just about gets away with it!

---

Madame George (Live) – Marianne Faithfull (1995)

If one song can be said to be at the heart of Astral Weeks, it is the ten minute whirlpool of emotion that is Madame George. The song is simply structured around three chords on the acoustic guitar with flute and violin swirling in and out. But, once again, it is Richard Davis’ twanging double bass that holds it all together. Like much of the album’s lyrical content, Morrison has said the imagery of Madame George came to him in a dream but he has no idea who the character is. His evocation of post-war Belfast comes loaded with nostalgia and longing in every lyric: “And outside they’re making all the stops/The kids out in the street collecting bottle-tops/Gone for cigarettes and matches in the shops/Happy taking Madame George”. In the long outro to the fade, it’s all about farewells, boarding trains, drying eyes and saying goodbye to the one “That loves to love the love that loves to love”. It’s a hugely influential song. For example, Bruce Springsteen has admitted he had the violin part in the last refrains of Madame George in his mind when writing the closing riff for Born To Run.

While it influenced many and the character of Madame George is referenced in songs by other artists, few have chosen to cover it. However, it seems right that the one person who has attempted it, and just about carries it off, is Marianne Faithfull. She made the Leonard Cohen covers list in WIS 8Nov24 for her great version of Tower of Song and brings her world-weary tones to the playlisted live version of Madame George, recorded at one of her many appearances at the Montreux Jazz Festival, this time in 1995. As you can hear from her intro, Morrison is in the audience when she sings it, so she certainly doesn’t lack courage. She reverts to spoken word for some verses which heightens the poetry in the lyrics. And sensibly, she keeps the whole thing to six and a half minutes.

---

Slim Slow Slider (Live) – Jackie Leven (1997)

And so we step gently over the dynamic beauty of Ballerina and arrive at Slim Slow Slider, the final track on Astral Weeks. It was the last song recorded at the New York sessions and the only track where no string overdubs were applied to the tapes. Shorter than the other songs, it is a haunting tale which Morrison has suggested is about a girl who is alone and adrift in London with an addiction to feed: “Slim slow slider/Horse you ride/White as snow”. Written in a minor key, the warmth of the nostalgia rush on the other tracks is now missing and a still sadness seeps through the music. The girl is seen going off with a new boy for ‘something’ she won’t return from which results in the bleak conclusion that “I know you’re dying/And I know you know it too”.

If anyone could do this stark and beautiful song justice in covering it, it was going to be the late Jackie Leven. He was born in Kirkcaldy of Romany descent and developed a reputation for being a singer/songwriter of some intensity. His wildly varying and turbulent musical career included a period recovering from heroin addiction. This stunning live performance comes from a recording of a solo acoustic show at his favoured venue, the Twelve Bar Club in Denmark St in London in 1997. The LP is titled For Peace Comes Dropping Slow – a line from the poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree by WB Yeats, something Van Morrison would very much approve of. The CD version of the album comes with a touching insert letter from Leven to the listener which comes with some great advice about how drinking on your own in a strange bar is great for the soul – well worth a read here. He sings Slow Slim Slider as his encore and the mood he creates with his voice and his guitar playing is so beautifully engaging and absorbing that when the applause starts at the end you are caught by surprise. I hope they did go that show at Dingwalls on 22 May – I wish I had.

---

Last Word

Well, that was a bit different this week, but I think it hung together quite well in the end, if you don’t mind me saying so. Those who were disinterested in Astral Weeks, either in its original form or in the cover versions, probably haven’t read this far. But if you have, please be reassured that WIS will return to a more conventional approach next time round with a couple of catch-up tunes that missed out this week.

The Van covers have been added to the other covers from past WIS theme weeks which swim among the deep plentiful waters in the stormy sea we call the Master Playlist.

WeekInSoundMaster

AR

If you enjoyed this, there is plenty more where that came from. Subscribers receive a link in their inbox every Friday evening at 5pm UK time. You can’t start the weekend without it.