Review #120: Moondance, Van Morrison

#120: Moondance, Van Morrison

You know how they tell you to play Mozart for babies to make them smart? Well, part of me is convinced that someone played Moondance repeatedly for me when I was an infant, because I really strongly feel like I knew every single song on this album. Some of them I could sing along to.

Anyway, it didn’t work! Play your kids Mozart, not Van Morrison. The Irish can’t help you.

Also no shade to Van Morrison, who was not at all a bad-looking man, but he looks horrible on this album cover. If they zoomed out by a foot, and maybe took out those stills of him looking really confused along the side, he would look great. Who approved this?

FAVORITE SONGS:

“And It Stoned Me” — Van Morrison is a lot like Irish Bob Dylan.

“Moondance” — Oh my God, or maybe he’s a lot like Irish Ed Sheeran! If Ed Sheeran scatted instead of rapped.

“Crazy Love” — His backing singers rule, and his voice is pretty, too.

“Caravan” — Laaa laaa la la! La la la!

“Into The Mystic” — I love the horn parts the most.

“Brand New Day” — I feel like Van Morrison could have a really irritating voice, but has such control over his tone that he doesn’t. Good for him.

“Everyone” — I bet this is what the music sounds like at a leprechaun house party.

“Glad Tidings” — He really did have an awesome band.

LEAST FAVORITE SONGS:

“Come Running” — This is a great album, but I did get tired of all these very ethereal, slow, acousticky songs after a while.

IS RS FULL OF IT?

I wish it wasn’t so easy to be pretentious about Van Morrison, because I think Van Morrison himself is pretty unpretentious. He’s just a cool Irish poet with a horn section and an organ player! But no, Rolling Stone’s blurb has to say “To listen to the album is to get your passport stamped for Morrison’s world of ecstatic visions.” What does that even mean?

In sum: RS is full of it. Still a great album.

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