Tag Archives: Tupelo Honey

Van Morrison & Mark Knopfler : Last Laugh (Happy Birthday Van!)

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102

You’ve either got it or you haven’t.

Presence.

Some things you just can’t buy.

Presence.

Coaches and Gurus and Snake Oil salesmen will portentously promise to reveal the secret to you.

Better save your money and your time and learn the things that can be taught – vocal exercises, relaxation, the whole assembly of skills that adds up to Technique.

But Presence?

No way.

You’ve either got it or you haven’t.

The gods or muses dispose as they will.

Hard to define but easy to recognise.

Greta Garbo.

Marlon Brando.

Rudolph Nureyev.

Maria Callas.

Miles Davis.

Muhammad Ali.

Van Morrison.

Intensity.

Impact.

Cultural, emotional and spiritual impact.

You’ll recognise it when you confront it.

Mark Knopfler is a gifted songwriter and as a guitar player has undoubted Presence.

He is also canny enough to know that some songs require an extra ingredient that he does not possess.

A voice with Presence.

So, for his Song, ‘The Last Laugh’ he called up Van Morrison.

There must have been a moment in the studio as they listened back when Mark exhaled and smiled deeply as the sound of Van’s voice at the beginning of the second verse lifted the work to a wholly new level.

Presence.

Emotional and Spiritual impact.

Van Morrison.

Sing it Van!

Games you thought you’d learned
You neither lost nor won
Dreams have crashed and burned
But you’re still going on
Out on the highway with the road gang working
Up on the mountain with the cold wind blowing
Out on the highway with the road gang working
But the last laugh, baby is yours
And don’t you love the sound
Of the last laugh going down

Very few singers merit the Bold and the Italics.

Van Morrison always has and always will.

Don’t you love the Sound!

Presence.

Cultural, Emotional and Spiritual Impact.

Demonstrated time after time in studios and on stages from Belfast to Buffalo.

Hey Girl! Baby Blue. Brown Eyed Girl. Sweet Thing. Moondance..

Linden Arden.

Listen to The Lion.

The Healing has begun.

No Guru. No Method. No Teacher.

Just Van and that Voice.

It ain’t why, why, why, it just IS.

A voice capable of transcendence as only the rarest voices are.

A voice that reaches up to the Moon.

Don’t you love the Sound!

Van is 74 this week.

So, Happy Birthday Van!

A heartfelt thanks for all the Songs and all the Singing.

 

May your Song always be Sung.

if this is your visit to The Immortal Jukebox you are very welcome!

Sign up for email alerts or follow me on Twitter @thomhickey55 and you’ll never miss a post!

There are more Posts about Van than any other artist here on The Jukebox so, in case you missed one or would like to be reminded of an old favourite here’s the Van Compendium for your delectation and delight!

Brown Eyed Girl’.

An introduction telling the tale of my headlong plunge into obsession following my first hearing of Van’s best known song.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-2L

‘Don’t Look Back’.

A meditation on Time featuring 2 astounding versions of John Lee Hooker’s tender Blues Ballad. One a reaching for the stars take of a teenager the second the work of a fully realised master musician.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-3k

‘Carrickfergus‘.

A meditation on family, friendship and loss. How the shadows lengthen! Sung with infinite tenderness and bardic authority.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-7J

‘In The Days Before Rock ‘n’ Roll’.

A miraculous meditation on the persistence of memory, the power of the radio and the post war world as seen by a young Irish mystic.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-bi

‘Tupelo Honey’.

A rhapsodic meditation on the nurturing, redemptive power of Love. A Hallelujah!

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-fr

‘All in the Game‘.

A meditation on the carousel we all ride. It’s been sung by many singers but never like this!

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-jY

Domino’ .

A Founding Father joyously celebrated by a Master from the next generation.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-pH

‘Sometimes We Cry‘.

Bringing it all back home to singing on the street corner Days. The sweetness of Doo-Wop seasoned with wry maturity.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-sf

‘I Cover the Waterfront’.

Van and John Lee Hooker, Blues Brothers and Soul Friends, conjure up ancient tides.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-tq

‘Buona Sera Signorina‘.

Van puts his party hat on and romps through the Louis Prima classic.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-Xg

Hey Girl’.

Van takes a stroll along the strand and suspends Time.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-1cA

‘Gloria! Gloria!’

Once, Now and Ever.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-1dh

Coney Island 

A Pilgrim’s glimpses of Eternity in the everyday.

https://wp.me/p4pE0N-1OQ

Brand New Day

Born again each Day with The Dawn.

https://wp.me/p4pE0N-1kL

And It Stoned Me

A mystic dweller on the threshold shows us the wonder ever present everywhere.

Happy Birthday Van!

Happy Birthday Van Morrison! Checkin’ it Out (An Immortal Jukebox Van Fest)

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75

‘There are guides and spirits all along the way who will befriend us’

Guides and Spirits. We all need them.

Pilgrims all, we need Way Markers reassuring us that there is indeed a Way and that we are not the first to have set off in this direction.

Guides and Spirits are all around.

You find those with whom you feel a certain sympathetic kinship.

You think, ‘Here’s someone who speaks to me.

Here’s someone who knows what they’re talking about.

Someone worth attending to’.

So, for me; Thomas Merton, Erich Fromm, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Seamus Heaney, Emily Dickinson, Anton Chekhov, Samuel Beckett, Russell Hoban and Buster Keaton.

In music Hank Williams, Howling Wolf, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan and .. Van Morrison.

One of Van’s ‘lesser songs’ but one which has always spoken to me.

Get into it like a meditation.

Taking it further.

Taking it further.

Further.

Van is tuned into the ‘Undersong’ all around us if we would but listen.

The Song of the Earth.

For Van this is first the undersong of his home place.

Belfast. East Belfast.

With the bewitching sounds of the Sea and the River.

The morning fog and the trees wet with Summer rain.

The bustle of the streets and the hushed quiet of The Avenue.

The salty tang of Belfast speech and the Mystery of voices coming through the ether.

At the same time he is tuned into the Music of the Spheres.

Music that’s always, always, all around us.

Van invites this music in and channels it for us.

On record and especially in performance he surrenders to this blessing.

Only a very rare artist can do this.

He’s a musical and spiritual voyageur opening up the territory for us to journey wherever we are brave enough to go.

I once met Russell Hoban at a book signing and said that I thought his words took us as far as words could go and then left us to explore the white space beyond.

He laughed and said, ‘Bon Voyage’.

It’s the same with Van.

His songs and his singing, incorporating the Undersong and the Music of the Spheres, act to flamingly make present the unnameable, the unsayable and the unknowable.

There’s a lot more Van to come on The Jukebox (while I toil over the, one day I’ll finish it, Book, Van Morrison : Dweller on the Threshold’).

So, on his Birthday, I offer my thanks for these gifts and wish him well in his further journeys.

I take this opportunity to present all The Jukebox posts featuring Van.

The Immortal Jukebox’s very own VanFest!

Catch up with those you may have missed and revisit those you read in the past.

It’s Too Late To Stop Now!

‘Brown Eyed Girl’.

An introduction telling the tale of my headlong plunge into obsession following my first hearing of Van’s best known song.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-2L

‘Don’t Look Back’.

A meditation on Time featuring 2 astounding versions of John Lee Hooker’s tender Blues Ballad. One a reaching for the stars take of a teenager the second the work of a fully realised master musician.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-3k

‘Carrickfergus‘.

A meditation on family, friendship and loss. How the shadows lengthen! Sung with infinite tenderness and bardic authority.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-7J

‘In The Days Before Rock ‘n’ Roll’.

A miraculous meditation on the persistence of memory, the power of the radio and the post war world as seen by a young Irish mystic.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-bi

‘Tupelo Honey’.

A rhapsodic meditation on the nurturing, redemptive power of Love. A Hallelujah!

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-fr

‘All in the Game‘.

A meditation on the carousel we all ride. It’s been sung by many singers but never like this!

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-jY

‘Domino’ .

A Founding Father joyously celebrated by a Master from the next generation.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-pH

‘Sometimes We Cry‘.

Bringing it all back home to singing on the street corner Days. The sweetness of Doo-Wop seasoned with wry maturity.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-sf

‘I Cover the Waterfront’.

Van and John Lee Hooker, Blues Brothers and Soul Friends, conjure up ancient tides.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-tq

‘Buona Sera Signorina‘.

Van puts his party hat on and romps through the Louis Prima classic.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-Xg

‘Hey Girl’.

Van takes a stroll along the strand and suspends Time.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-1cA

‘Gloria! Gloria!’

Once, Now and Ever.

http://wp.me/p4pE0N-1dh

Happy Birthday Van!

Van Morrison – Tupelo Honey: The Grandeur of Love

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118

‘Tupelo Honey has always existed … Van was the vessel and the earthly vehicle for it’ (Bob Dylan)

Embed from Getty Images

If a songwriter is very, very lucky they might in their lifetime write one song that becomes the misty eyed anthem of love for devoted couples all over the world. A love song that incarnates love rather than merely describing it. A song that always seem fresh while yet building a patina of fond memories that increase every time it is played.

A song which flowing like a river, never the same twice, still seems to contain the past, the present and the future. A song which takes up residence in the hearts of succeeding generations – for today and every day, someone, somewhere, is discovering that they are in love for the very first time.

By my count (and on The Jukebox my count is the one that really counts) Van Morrison has written at least four songs that meet the criteria outlined above. From his incandescent second solo album the title track, ”Moondance’ with its peerless swooning swing and, ‘Crazy Love’ with its intoxicated, intoxicating, sweet surrender.

From ‘Avalon Sunset’ came the deep, devotional, ‘Have I Told You Lately That I Love You’ – a song especially close to my heart as it was the first song my wife, Clare, and I danced to once we were married.

But, if I had to pick one song to demonstrate the depth of Van Morrison’s romanticism; proof that he was and is the great courtly love balladeer of his age I will always choose, ‘Tupelo Honey’ – a pluperfect song, glowingly alive with love’s grandeur.

Good God, what a hallelujah of a song! A song that shares the blissful total immersion in the sweetness of love with Solomon’s Song of Songs! I love the majestically sure, unhurried flow of the song which sweeps our hearts away, illuminating our deepest wish and need – to love and to be loved.

The team of musicians assembled in San Francisco in 1971 to record Tupelo Honey brought all their technical accomplishment to the track but, no doubt inspired by their mercurial leader, they brought something much rarer – a devotional surrender to the music they were making, so that ‘Tupelo Honey’ really does sound like a direct revelation from Heaven itself.

On drums, the great Connie Kay from the Modern Jazz Quartet, having already played with angelic grace throughout Van’s sublime masterpiece, ‘Astral Weeks’ outdoes himself with his backbeat and fills surging the song forward to greater and greater heights of rhythmic rapture. On guitar Ronnie Montrose plays with a shimmering, harp like delicacy that is endlessly beguiling.

Mark Jordan’s piano takes us by the hand and navigates us through the song assuring us that we can and will find our way to that promised land of love and fulfilment we all believe is out there waiting for us to come home to. Bruce Royston on flute is the harbinger of the miracles to come while Ted Templeman on organ, Gary Mallaber on percussion and ever faithful Jack Schroer on saxophones ensure that the miracles are delivered.

Tying everything together is Van’s vocal which reached pinnacles of inspiration that is beyond the reach of critical language to adequately express. So, I will unashamedly borrow my language from Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem, ‘God’s Grandeur’.

Van Morrison’s singing on Tupelo Honey flames out like shining from shook foil, it gathers and gathers and gathers to a greatness that elevates everyone who listens to it – inducting them into a vision that encompasses love in all its sacred and sexual incarnations. A vision which once experienced leaves a permanent flaming brand on the heart and soul.

This post dedicated to Clare because she’s as sweet as Tupelo Honey. Because she’s an angel of the very first degree.

Note:

There’s a wonderful live version from his 1979 tour of Ireland featuring Toni Marcus on violin and the late Peter Bardens on keyboards which I urge you to investigate.