Astral Weeks
Published February 12, 2004
Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run
Van Morrison: Astral Weeks
The Beatles: A Hard Day's Night
The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground and Nico
The RS 500 puts Astral Weeks at #19. This would seem representative ... Acclaimed Music has it at #12, the All Music Guide gives it the top 5-star rating and claims it "is generally considered one of the best albums in pop music history." And, of course, I seem to have placed it in my own Top Four only a couple of years ago. The high regard for Astral Weeks continues: in the mid-80s, the New Musical Express called it the #2 album of all time, in the mid-90s Mojo had it #2, and of course it ranked high in the recent RS500.
If the above seems to reduce Astral Weeks to a statistical summary, an explanation is in order. Mostly there's an intimidation factor: it's very difficult to write about Astral Weeks, in part because the odd transcendent beauty of the album renders me relatively speechless, in part because Lester Bangs, as idiosyncratic a writer as Van Morrison is a musician, already wrote the definitive piece on Astral Weeks, and there's no way I'm up to the challenge of matching Lester. And so I'm left citing statistics.
And that's patently unfair, because Astral Weeks has always defied any attempt to quantify it. On a basic level, you can't ever be sure what the lyrics are "really" about. The album can barely be classified at all ... as the AMG notes, "it isn't a rock & roll album at all.... a mixture of folk, blues, jazz, and classical music ... Unlike any record before or since." Personally, I've always had trouble describing instrumental music ... I need words, I don't have the theoretical chops to explain why a particular guitar solo by Duane Allman gives me chills. Well, Van Morrison's vocals and lyrics when he's in his Astral Weeks mode is closer to instrumental music than to a poem. I can't get it into words, I can only try to transcribe what he's up to and hope you put the album on for yourself. "Madame George" sucks me into places I don't often go ... and it works just as well now, when I'm an aging fart trying desperately to cling to "reality," as it did when I took psychedelics and spent trippy hours listening to Astral Weeks over and over. Do a web search for the lyrics to "Madame George" and you'll get a sense of what I mean: people can't even translate the damn thing, which won't stop me from trying:
and as you're about to leave
she jumps up and says
hey love,
you forgot your glove
and
the love that loves the love that loves the love that loves the love that loves to love the love that loves to love the love the glove
- Astral Weeks
- Published: February 12, 2004
- Type:
- 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.