Van Morrison's Deeper Album Cuts Quiz

Answer: His Band and the Street Choir

Morrison's fourth studio album, US release date of November 1970, didn't match the commercial or critical success of the previous one, "Moon Dance." However, it did continue a fruitful, mostly happy period in his music and his personal life. The songs are solid, uncomplicated, well arranged, and backed by competent players who really understood his frame of mind.

The album also contains the big hit single "Domino," which received some serious airplay all across the pop music radio spectrum. The album cover is a double exposure showing Morrison looking peaceful and contemplative; the inside photos have him surrounded by friends and domestic bliss.

The song in question includes a stellar sax solo by Van himself, although Jack Schroer handles saxophones on the bulk of the tunes.

Answer: Beautiful Vision

The 1982 album includes this upbeat, biographical song, which details a day in Van's early life and references some of his early influences (Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, author Jack Kerouac). The song was recorded at a studio in Sausalito, California in 1981.

After a lot of soul searching in the '60s and '70s, Van Morrison continued to mine his early life and its mundane pleasures as material for songs.

Answer: Veedon Fleece

You're on your own trying to figure out what this song is about. It must be experienced. It includes some of Morrison's great vocal stretching and improvisation. Van was legendary in his disdain for critics who insisted on analyzing his songs or who tried to force him to explain what they meant. He reluctantly submitted to few interviews, but did occasionally provide windows into his creative process when comfortable.

The "Veedon Fleece" album contains songs written after his return to Ireland (in October of 1973) and clearly has him physically and metaphorically exploring his roots. The album was not a commercial success, and critics largely dismissed it when it came out. This evidently annoyed Morrison greatly, and at least partially explains why he disappeared from the music scene for the following three years. Rumors also abounded about his struggles getting clean from drugs and alcohol during this period.

Answer: Moondance

"Glad Tidings," the final song on side two of the original "Moondance" vinyl album, released in early 1970, is one of those fine, friendly songs that you just want to hum or sing along with as the chorus of "la-la-las" cascade melodically through your consciousness.

The album was a big commercial and artistic success, coming on the heels of the phenomenal but often misunderstood "Astral Weeks," and it established Van Morrison as an artist with broad appeal who could sell a lot of records as well as craft excellent, accessible rock songs. The songs have a rhythm and bluesy feel, and it's easy to see how much Morrison was influenced by the Afro-American R&B artists from the 1950s whom he listened to in his youth. It must be mentioned that the album's jazz-influenced title track is one of Morrison's most popular and most often covered songs, as well as the song he has played more than any other during his live concerts.

Answer: St. Dominic's Preview

"Jackie Wilson said it was reet petite" is the opening line, of the opening song on side one, of this 1972 album. The bouncing, upbeat rocker is an homage to R&B music, to Wilson, and to Van Morrison having a blast making the kind of music which makes his heart go "boom boom boom"! These early R&B giants, Jackie Wilson, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Clyde McPhatter, Muddy Waters et al, were a continuing source of inspiration for Van Morrison. Wilson's song, which was a hit in 1957, is entitled "Reet Petite (The Sweetest Girl In Town)." The term is evidently old British slang for "all right."

Answer: Astral Weeks

If there's a creative, artistic force guiding the universe, Van Morrison was blessed (or cursed) with as direct a conduit into it as any poet or musician who's ever expressed himself. To call "Madame George" a song is like calling a giant redwood a tree. It is, but there's a little more to it than that. This rambling, haunting stream of consciousness from 1968 runs for more than nine minutes and gets to the core of why Van Morrison has such loyal and devoted followers. Its characters, images, and mesmerizing instrumental backing combine to evoke a powerful nostalgia and a trance-like feel, which takes each listener to some private inner place.

Most of the rock critics who have tried, futilely, to explain the song, believe it to be about a transvestite, but Morrison has denied every surface reading. He has said the song was originally titled "Madame Joy," that he just changed the title because he felt like it, and "I don't know what it means." It is well documented, however, that some of the places referenced in the song (Dublin, Sandy Road, Cypress Avenue) were places of significance in Morrison's childhood, and he has admitted as much.

The musicians pulled together by producer Bert Berns for the 1967 New York recording sessions which led to "Astral Weeks," were an eclectic mix of high-powered jazz session men who were unfamiliar with Van Morrison or his work. Several of them reported later that Van came in by himself, went into a sound booth, and barely spoke to them. The arranging was unusual, in that these session men were not given song charts and were essentially free to play whatever they liked, with Morrison's blessing. Somehow, it worked. Greil Marcus of Rolling Stone magazine said of the bass player, "Richard Davis provided the greatest bass lines ever heard on a rock album."

Answer: Poetic Champions Compose

Merriam Webster's defines "slipstream" as "an area of reduced air pressure and forward suction immediately behind a rapidly moving vehicle, such as an airplane." Van Morrison first used the reference on his earlier "Astral Weeks" album, and here uses it again for a title, then expands the metaphor into a soft, ethereal, romantic ballad. If you view the comments posted on youtube versions of the song, you can get a feel for how effectively this dreamy, loving homage to a woman touches his female fan base.

The song includes full orchestration, including a 26 member string section. The album is from 1987.

Answer: Tupelo Honey

After breaking from his early band Them, Morrison came to the United States in 1967 to further his career, under the tutelage of legendary producer and song writer Bert Berns. This liason produced some excellent songs, including the classic single "Brown Eyed Girl," but then deteriorated over creative differences. When Berns suddenly died, confusion over Van's contractual obligations led to a lot of acrimony between Morrison and Berns's widow. It took a year and several lawyers to get it resolved, and it left Morrison with a unshakable bitterness toward the music business in general.

His career was rescued by a move to Boston with his new American wife, Janet. He began playing a lot of live concerts, and then hooked on with Warner Brothers records, which produced "Astral Weeks" and the next three albums, culminating in "Tupelo Honey" (1971). "Starting a New Life" is one of Morrison's simplest songs. It features basic acoustic guitar, bass, and spare drums, with an equally simple harmonica break. The song perfectly conveys the idyllic scene on the album's cover. It shows Janet perched on a white horse which Van is leading through the woods.

Answer: Days Like This

"You Don't Know Me" was written by Cindy Walker in the mid-1950s in collaboration with country singer Eddie Arnold, who supplied the idea and the title. Ray Charles released the definitive version of the tune in 1962, which appeared on his ground breaking "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music" album, and crossed over to reach #2 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.

It was this version that inspired Van Morrison to create the memorable duet with his daughter Shana which appears on "Days Like This"(1995). Shana, a recording artist in her own right, is the daughter of Van and ex-wife Janet (Planet) Rigsbee.

She has been known to drop in on her father's concerts and accompany him on songs.

Answer: Avalon Sunset

"Whenever God Shines..." is a spiritual tour de force with gospel overtones and some dynamic call and response action with Cliff Richard, the venerable British rock fixture, who shares the vocals with Morrison. Although this is one of the more familiar and popular songs from the Avalon Sunset album, I had to include it as one of my personal favorites, and use it to end the quiz.

The song soars, uplifts, and is a strong testament to Van's personal Christian commitment. The album was released in June of 1989 in the UK and the USA, but the song was released as a single in November for Christmas, and the duo performed it live on "Top of the Pops," the influential British pop music television show.