Astral Weeks
Published February 12, 2004
I've been constructing Top Ten Albums of All Time lists for about 25 years now. It might seem odd that I can pinpoint my lists with such semi-accuracy, but the inspiration is clear, which is why I can place that date. In 1978, a man named Paul Gambaccini compiled a book called Rock Critics' Choice: The Top 200 Albums. Gambaccini polled a cross section of American and British rock critics and DJs, from Loraine Alterman (worked at Rolling Stone, was friends with Yoko Ono, married Peter Boyle, #1 pick at the time John Lennon's Mind Games) to Ritchie Yorke ("Canada's best-known rock writer," author of a Van Morrison bio in the mid-70s, #1 pick Supertramp's Even in the Quietest Moments). It's fascinating to see the names who submitted lists, a kind of late-70s Who's Who of rock writers (and DJs) ... the expected pioneers (Robert Christgau, Cameron Crowe, Chet Flippo, Ben Fong-Torres, Simon Frith, Charlie Gillett, Lenny Kaye, Greil Marcus, Dave Marsh, Scott Muni, Ed Ward, Ellen Willis) along with a couple of emerging punk writers like Mark P. The consensus choice for best album ever, then as now apparently, was Sgt. Pepper. Bob Dylan grabbed the next two spots, and then, at #4, was Van Morrison's Astral Weeks.
Soon after buying this book, I got out a piece of paper and wrote down my own Top Ten list, dated it, and stuck it in the pages of the Gambaccini book. (The date was March 21, 1979, my #1 album was Born to Run, the weirdest pick in retrospect was Lou Reed's Rock and Roll Animal at #10.) Each year I'd go back and write a new list on the paper (in the time between my first and second lists, The Burbank Sessions, Vol. 1, an Elvis bootleg of the "unplugged" part of the King's '68 TV special, had come out ... it was my #1 pick until the music on it was finally released officially, at which time the official release became my #1). After a few years, I tired of the annual nature of the lists, plus I ran out of room on the piece of paper, so I added a second piece of paper and made my choices every several years instead of annually.
The most recent such list (August 2002) was inspired by Charlie Bertsch ... the results were posted on my blog. Charlie's criteria ("must have been conceived and released as an album") forced me to relegate Elvis '68 to the bench ... if not for that, I'd still put it #1 ... here's what I wrote in 2002, betraying the same 60s orientation that plagues the Rolling Stone Top 500:
Top Four (these come before anything else):
- Astral Weeks
- Published: February 12, 2004
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- Section: Music
- Filed Under: Music: Classic Rock and Oldies
- Writer: Steven Rubio
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Thanks Steven. I never thought of what "Madame George," or all of Astral Weeks for that matter, "means." Then again, I can't tell you what love means either. That's the power of the album -- it's not a meaning, but a feeling, like the blues. It's cannot be defined or put in a category, because the best art, like life itself, cannot be pinned down that easily. And I agree with you, but the best way to describe Astral Weeks is through anedotes -- you with the pain meds; Lester Bangs with depression; a friend told me a story of being stuck in Alaska, and hearing "Cypress Ave." for the first time. I remember one rainy evening, when feeling as lonely as a person can ever be, I gave the album one last chance (after hating the first 20 spins of it) and realizing that there was someone out there who felt as bad as I did.
"Astral Weeks" is my favorite recording of all time.
Alongside Miles "Kind Of Blue",this may be the greatest make-out album ever.It's
mellow,tender,intimate & intricate.Plus the bass playing on here!Whoa daddy-o!!!
What more could you really need on the deck during a tender bender??? Of course
for music just to f**k to,ya can't beat
Jimmy Reed or Slim Harpo's "Baby Scratch
My Back". Great Post,Classic LP.
In my opinion, Van Morrison did come close to recapturing the Astral Weeks fire on both Veedon Fleece and side two (CD tracks 7-10 for you youngsters) of Into the Music. In fact, "And the Healing Has Begun" on the latter disc returns to an image Morrison introduced on "Ballerina" --that of a young man at the end of a date, on the verge of seducing some young beauty, standing in her doorway and so entranced by her that he loses all sense of time and place. He isn't seducing her at all; the moment itself is seducing him, overpowering him, just as some ethereal muse seems to be guiding his voice and his words.
Still, no question this record is unique, both in his career and in the history of rock and roll. There's nothing else like it -- a truly spiritual, mystical record that begins with a song about going to heaven, and ends with the words "I know you're dying, baby, and I know you know it too." It's a record that, like some strange Romantic poem, is as intensely aware of the richness of life as it is of its brevity, and all the sensual pleasures that span it, most of which are embodied in a variety of women; Madame George, certainly, but also thay girl in the doorway, the young mom helping her little boy put on his little red shoes and seeing that he's got clean clothes, and the one wandering down the diamond-studded highway. This record is like the purest blast of clean air -- you breathe in you breathe out you breathe in you breathe out you breathe in you breathe out...
All these years later, Astral weeks is still amazing. But I absolutelely agree with Rodney that Veedon Fleece comes close to capturing the same spirit and feeling. In fact I did not discover Van until Veedon Fleece and it remains for me the best. I have a hard time understanding why anyone would think it might be the beginning of the demise. He is unique.
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Great job Steven, thanks. I have to go in the more melodic direction and take Moondance as my Van fave, but your take is more common among the cognoscenti.