"Astral Weeks - I Believe I've Transcended" tells you exactly what this album means after forty years. Easily my favorite song on this release. The lyrics and music meander like a wandering stream. The tempo rises and falls, continually rising to a new level. Transcended is the perfect word for what the 63-year-old man sees when he sings about love. The lyric "I believe I've transcended" is a new one repeated at the end of the song and it sounds like the ending of a gospel song.
"Beside You" is a love song about being spiritually together with you child. The song of hope in your 20s is a song of wise, melancholy in your 60s. The mournful strings make this a richer, fuller song.
"Slim Slow Slider - I Start Breaking Down" is the last song on the album, that's now placed as the third track. I always recall this as one of the more bluesy pieces on the original album. He stretches it out here, really playing up the jazz and blues angle of the piece. The additional lyrics of "I Start Breaking Down" clears up the symbolic theme of drug abuse. The music reflects chorus.
"Sweet Thing," my favorite song off the original album, is almost flipped on its head here. This song has the most evocative lyrics on the album. It's got beautiful symbolism of love as a blooming garden. The song envisions a future of growing old together - "You shall take me strongly in your arms again / And I will not remember that I ever felt pain." Sung with a swelling string section, instead of being a song about future love, it feels like an ode to a lost love that he'll be reunited with in Heaven. The meaning remains but the vision is even more poignant here.
"The Way Young Lovers Do" was my least favorite song on the original album and remains so here. Lyrically obtuse and musically the basic jazz arrangement just doesn't do anything for me - especially following the brilliance of "Sweet Thing."
"Cypress Avenue - You Came Walking Down" is both about Belfast and a mystical city. The progression of the song through Van Morrison's vision and impressionistic memories feels much deeper sung from the distance of forty years. There's a rhythm to the lyrics that is transcendent, much like "Astral Weeks." The urge to get back to a young love is so much more heartfelt here. The same lyrics feel so fresh here - this song may be the most improved over the years.
Article comments
1 - steve MacIsaac
Just a short comment to point out -- and it's worth watching --
VM used a chant-like "I believe I've transcended myself" as early as 1980 in the Montreux jazz concert.