Van Morrison Finally Gets Astral Weeks Right

Astral Weeks returns forty years after its original release, and it's way better now than it was back then.

Nobody paid much attention when, in 1968, Van Morrison released Astral Weeks, an unusual series of musical vignettes that matched an instinctive young soul singer with an intriguing backup band that included acoustic guitar, bass, flute, vibraphone, saxophone and string section. As people gravitated to the albums that began with Moondance and His Band and Street Choir, Astral Weeks, all banging acoustic guitars, rambunctious bass and careening violins, began to find an audience.

Even as critics christened it a song cycle worthy of genius, Morrison suggested more than once over the years that producer Lewis Merenstein spoiled his own Astral Weeks concept. And now, a propitious forty years after its original release, Astral Weeks returns, this time performed live, with a slightly larger band, apparently with little rehearsal, over a period of two nights in Los Angeles. It’s the debut release on Morrison’s Listen to the Lion label, and it is being released in several formats — DVD, vinyl album and compact disc — with each offering slightly differing versions, which at least suggests that Morrison never has decided on a final version of Astral Weeks, or perhaps he’s just being contrary.

Unless you’re a purist who feels that the album was perfect the first time around, you shouldn’t be disappointed in the retelling. Morrison, as is his wont, plays around with the arrangements. “The Way Young Lovers Do” approximates the original recording, but elsewhere, songs mutate into others. “Slim Slow Slider” almost doubles in length while “Madame George” comes in almost a full minute shorter. He shuffles the song order so that the set ends with “Madame George,” as it always should have.

The CD includes encores of “Listen to the Lion” and “Common One,” and each, especially “Lion,” fits the ambience perfectly, letting Morrison scat gloriously even longer into the night against those thumping, rambunctious, careening instruments.

Van Morrison
Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl
Listen to the Lion Records