#BEST VAN MORRISON SONGS PROFESSIONAL#

ThatвЂ™s why everybody was shipped to Germany. There wasnвЂ™t that possibility here or in England. It didnвЂ™t exist here, playing seven sets a night, nine on the weekends. I forget what itвЂ™s called, but he talks about this: the people that made it have put in so many hours. I think it was Germany, going to Germany and going through all that. YouвЂ™ve had incredible discipline about work all through your life. It was something that stuck with you, though. ItвЂ™s a job like any other job, and if you wanted to do it, and loved doing it, then it was a good job. I find in retrospect a lot of it is romanticised, and mythologised, but early on there wasnвЂ™t any of that. People didnвЂ™t have time to think about what it is: you either did it or you didnвЂ™t do it. Ya, but the fact about it is that you didnвЂ™t go around saying, вЂњI had the work ethic.вЂќ ItвЂ™s just what people did. So you obviously had this work ethic: it was just there. I must have been 16, because I had about five jobs before that. This guy I knew, he sold me this run for very cheap, because he was retiring, and so he gave it to me for a few quid. Well, that was only because I bought a run.

#BEST VAN MORRISON SONGS PROFESSIONAL#

I had loads of jobs вЂ“ about six or seven different jobs вЂ“ before I became a professional musician.Д¬leaning windows is one that comes into the songs, obviously. You could always get a job at something, even if it was washing dishes, so that was the mentality, rather than, вЂњOh, jobs are hard to come by.вЂќ As soon as you left school that was it: you got a job. Of course, as years went by, there were more cars and more building, and a lot of the countryside was getting built on, so it started to change.Д®verybody had their work. Not like nowadays, where everybody is driving, so it was buses all the time вЂ“ take the bus everywhere вЂ“ or walk. It was a village then вЂ“ cobblestone streets. And I remember asking my mother why they are taking the railings away.

ThatвЂ™s the first thing I remember in relation to when people were talking about the war. I remember after the war they used to take the railings away. That phrase in the song The Street Only Knew Your Name, about вЂњthe view of the street from your window paneвЂќ, when you think back, what were you seeing as a kid? What are your earliest memories of that streetscape? What were the sounds you were hearing? Having lived through second World War, and going into the fifties, the outlook was much more positive. Ya, it was a very positive outlook, actually. Yeah, it was much more optimistic than now, thatвЂ™s for sure. When you look back on that sort of postwar Britain, it was an optimistic time in a way. Growing up in the fifties, really, I always consider myself to be part of the fifties, not the sixties, because I caught the tail end of the fifties. Van Morrison: Well, I was a product of the time, you know. How much do you think your imagination was shaped by the war and the postwar period? I was just thinking about Wild Children, where you actually talk about being the child of 1945, soldiers coming home. It takes you back to 1945 and the second World War. The only disconcerting thing about him is a kind of simplicity IвЂ™ve never encountered in anyone else IвЂ™ve interviewed, the simplicity of someone who has no game to play, no impression to make, no line to sell, no image to construct or maintain.ДЇintan OвЂ™Toole: The obvious place to start is being 70. He looks as if he might have come straight from a boat in the bay, dressed in a well-worn green waxed jacket and a fishermanвЂ™s cap, a ruddy, wind-blown glow to his cheeks. All he asks for is a cup of coffee and that we sit at the window of the hotel where we meet with a view over Belfast Lough. And I find him courteous, engaged, oddly straightforward. Paradoxically for such a great performer, he has a complete inability to perform вЂњVan MorrisonвЂќ, the shaman-like figure of his songs, the conjurer of transcendent moments. It is a deep dissociation from the whole business of putting on a public face.

His often difficult relationship with fans and interviewers isnвЂ™t mere petulance or arrogance or bad temper. He experiences it neither as an addictive high nor as an inconvenience that comes with his territory but as a kind of punishment, the worldвЂ™s revenge for all those moments of ecstasy and exhilaration he has achieved in his art. You donвЂ™t have to spend long with Van Morrison to realise that his relationship with fame is one of deep, honest and implacable hatred. There are many ways to play the fame game: some suck it up insatiably, some hide ostentatiously from it, making reclusiveness an even more elite brand of celebrity. In the age of celebrity nothing is quite so incomprehensible as someone who hates fame.

Best van morrison songs