(Also, as listeners, we assume that the narrator is far older than she is, but there is no evidence of that. Acknowledging my debt to Lester Bangs, I claim only that Van has imagined a character but made no moral judgments about him Van has dared to ask what if this man genuinely loves her as a person – as a human being – and not as the sick obsession of a pedophile. The narrator falls in love with a fourteen-year-old girl. The first half of the album, titled 'In the Beginning,' chronicles this man's (or boy's) estrangement ('I ain't nothing but a stranger in this world'), loss of innocence ('Beside You'), and euphoria of new love ('The Sweet Thing'). ' The record was released in 1968 as political violence escalated.'īefore, I believed Astral Weeks was the painful story of one man who, by way of his obsession with a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl, becomes the tragicomic figure of Madame George. This last listen, though, felt something like an epiphany. They were small understandings: how the strings' entrance on 'Astral Weeks' suddenly creates drama Richard Davis' bass, by jumping up an octave in the trombone solo of 'The Way Young Lovers Do' causes the song to tumble into the chorus how Connie Kaye's off-kilter cymbal work at the end of 'Madame George' adds poignancy. Once I found a narrative, though, I had no more realizations about the album. Gradually, this revealed a strange narrative (which, to me, compliments Van's own assertion that Astral Weeks is some sort of rock opera). I spent several hundred listens trying to make emotional, if logical, sense of the lyrics. I have listened to Astral Weeks many, many times (probably as many as Nick Hornby has listened to 'Thunder Road') and I find some new thrill in each listen. Writing for the Manchester Guardian, Matthew Collin commented on Van Morrison's Astral Weeks: 'The record was released in 1968 as political violence escalated, but Morrison reminisced about a more innocent time, recounting the sights and sounds of a bygone life while escaping into his imagination, an oasis of romantic reverie.' An object of personal obsession, I have read many things about Astral Weeks, but none connected the album to Northern Ireland's 'Troubles,' and despite my knowledge of the album and Van's origins, I never made the connection myself. Recently, the arts organization Factotum published a book entitled Belfast Songs, a collection of musings on the city and those who choose to sing about it. Astral Weeks and the Troubles by Kevin Parker (April 2003)

Astral weeks van morrison