[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Rave on John Donne, rave on thy Holy fool
Down through the weeks of ages
In the moss borne dark dank pools
–
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”
-John Donne[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]The streets are always wet with rain
After a summer shower when I saw you standin’
In the garden in the garden wet with rain[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Look at the ivy on the cold clinging wall
Look at the flowers and the green grass so tall
It’s not a matter of when push comes to shove
It’s just an hour on the wings of a dove[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
The great song was included on his 1973 album Hard Nose the Highway. It was first performed live May 21, 1973 (Odyssey Room, Sunnyvale, CA, USA), and last time VM played it in concert was December 5, 2017 (Europe Hotel, Belfast). It has been performed 82 times live, mostly in 1973, 1974 & 2017.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]And all my love come down
All my love come tumblin’ down
All my love come tumblin’ down
All my love come tumblin’ down
Oh, listen listen
To the lion
Oh, listen listen listen
To the lion…
Inside of me
Oh, oh, oh
—
“And all my love come tumbling down….” An 11-minute journey into music as a distillation of spirit, as Morrison searches his “very soul” for the lion “inside of me”. The music is as delicate as breath on a window pane, looking out on a vision of hope and redemption. Van’s voice scats, breathes, roars, lilts and sways before finally dissolving in a rapturous journey into glossolalia. “And we sailed and we sailed….”
~The Telegraph
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“Listen To The Lion” is one of my favorite Van Morrison songs. Here are 9 different versions.
Wikipedia:
“Listen to the Lion” is a song featured on Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison’s sixth album, Saint Dominic’s Preview (1972). Its poetic musings and “bass-led shuffle” lead back to Astral Weeks territory.
Released
July 1972
Recorded
Spring/Summer 1971, Columbia Studios, San Francisco
Genre
Folk rock, R&B
Length
11:08
Label
Warner Bros. Records
Writer
Van Morrison
Composer
Van Morrison
Producer
Ted Templeman, Van Morrison
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]..but arguably the best due to Van’s most amazing vocal performance ever. The song is an 11:08 minute soul journey into finding and following your inner voice amid crashing piano, cascading acoustic guitar, and strumming mandolin. That alone makes it a good song, but what takes it to best of all time level is at about the five minute mark Van stops singing words and starts scatting non-stop for the next 3 minutes. He growls, wails, roars, and howls as if possessed and wrestling with the lion inside. After these vocal fireworks the exhausted Van finishes the song barely whispering about sailing on a journey to mystical Caledonia. A fascinating, one of a kind song.
~theframjak (hubpages.com)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
And we’ll walk down the avenue again
And we’ll sing all the songs from way back when
And we’ll walk down the avenue again and the healing has begun
And we’ll walk down the avenue in style
And we’ll walk down the avenue and we’ll smile
And we’ll say “baby, ain’t it all worthwhile?” when the healing has begun
–
“It starts just like ‘Cyprus Avenue’, no coincidence as the line about ‘songs from way back when’ hints, and with a walk down the avenue (of dreams), to the sound of a haunted violin. A song of full, blazing sex as well as revelation. The healing here is like that in Arthurian myth, the wounded King restored through the action of the Holy Grail, but it is also through as graphic a seduction, almost, as the original live version of “Gloria”
-Brian Hinton (Celtic Crossroads)
This beauty was recorded at the Record Plant Studios in Sausalito, California in spring 1979. He has performed it live 274 times according to the brilliant website ivan.vanomatic.de.
Here are 5 lovely versions..
Live At The Oasis Centre – Putting The Boot In – Swindon – 1999:
I want you to put on your pretty summer dress
You can wear your Easter bonnet and all the rest
And I want to make love to you yes, yes, yes, when the healing has begun
Louder, when the healing has begun
So good
Whoo
All right, whoo
Yeah
Aah
Whoo
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]I wished I had you in Carrickfergus
Only for nights in Ballygrand
I would swim over the deepest ocean
The deepest ocean to be by your side[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
“Carrickfergus” is an Irish folk song, named after the town of Carrickfergus in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It was first recorded, under the name “The Kerry Boatman”, by Dominic Behan on an LP called “The Irish Rover”, released in 1965.
–
Van Morrison has performed “Carrickfergus” 86 times live (1988, 1989, 1990, 1994, 2002 & 2003) – top year was 1989 with 31 performances.
I love this song, and no one does it better than Van Morrison. Here are three brilliant versions.
From the album “Irish Heartbeat” w/The Chieftains:
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]And all my love come down
