Van Morrison has been knighted!
Here Comes the (K)night
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Musings on the byways of popular culture
Van Morrison has been knighted!
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I hear he broke into a slight smirk when hearing the news
For services to the Harmonica industry?
Always think it’s faintly ludicrous when “Rock” people get honours. However, good on yer to the old curmudgeon.
If I think about it, I have probably gained greater spiritual succour from the music of Van Morrison than any other source.
It started with listening to the version of Listen To The Lion on It’s Too Late To Stop Now, in the dark, when I was fourteen . 40 years later I’m in thrall to the possibility of redemption still.
Knight of the Realm: ‘Take me back, take me back, take me way back – down by Buckingham Palace, Buckingham Palace, Christopher Robin, Winnie the Pooh, Mahalia Jackson on long wave down by Avalon, down by Charing Cross Road, Simpsons In The Strand, playin’ R’n’B at Bouji’s with Prince Harry an’ the boys… Radio Luxembourg, Hilversum, Greenwich Mean Time, North Utzera, South Utzera, Flamborough Head, Camilla, Camilla, Camilla, where is Camilla? In the days before constitutional monarchy, constitutional monarchy – Oliver Cromwell, St Columbus, Eamon De Valera, Eamonn Andrews, Eamon Holmes, huge big sofas an’ daytime TV, Keith Chegwin, Ernest Hemingway, Christopher Biggles, Higgs’ Boson, the Dudley Moore Trio, Stiff Little Fingers, Spangles, Rancheros, sherbet dips an’ Sidney Bechet, Georgie Fame at the Flamingo, smokin’ dope with Prince Albert an’ WB Yeats an’ Jimmy Clitheroe – take me back, take back, TAKE ME BACK FOR GOD’S SAKE YOU SHOWER OF INCONSIDERATE B*****DS!’
Her Majesty: ‘And what do you do?’
Your Van impersonations always make me giggle uncontrollably, even though I haven’t really heard the original blatherings from the Man himself…I’ll be seeing him at the festival I’m going to in August and if he goes into any stream-of-consciousness-list in song I will probably crack up, as they will remind me of your parodies!
I can’t imagine how daft it must read for someone who (a) hasn’t heard all the Van stuff I’m parodying and (b) doesn’t know all the cultural references because they’re Swedish!
Still, the intro to this might give you a feel for The Man’s schtick:
And this one’s pretty much a smoking gun from start to finish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE54SxaENS4
The DVD that this comes from is just amazing. Highly and unreservedly recommended.
Hi Vulpes – have you seen the footage on Youtube of Van performing ‘Into the Mystic’ on the Musik Laden show? It’s the clip where he’s sporting a natty pair of aviator shades, playing acoustic guitar. Pete Wingfield is on keyboards. It’s absolutely splendiferous.
I recommended it to my brother and he lost four hours of his life watching it again and and again and again. When Van is at his best, he’s the one artist I know who can inspire a feeling of utter transcendence within me. Every time I listen to ‘Astral Weeks’, this feeling kicks in around halfway through ‘Sweet Thing’. This clip also does the same. Good on him.
Not a big fan of articulation, is he?
Regarding b) I’d say I get almost all of the references. I do learn some things from all of those books you know! 😉
Touché! 🙂
So long as the ceremony lasts no more than eighty minutes…
Just imagine the scheduling meltdown if the Mahavishnu Orchestra were booked as the cabaret.*
(* Just saving Leedsboy the effort.)
He’ll probably show up to the Palace with an enormous digital stopwatch round his neck. As soon as it hits zero, tap of the sword or no he’s out of there and feck the lot of yez!
Bad luck if Chris Farlowe’s in the queue after him. He’d be Out Of Time.
Sorry Buzzcocks – Time’s Up…
Some great music over the years, but a knighthood seems a bit extreme?
Of the great 60s and 70s solo artists – Dylan, Simon, Mitchell, Cohen, Young et al, Van is the only Brit routinely mentioned in the same breath. Sir Van does sound a bit odd but I’d say he deserves it more than many who get it.
Perhaps he’s part of a Northern Ireland quota?
That’s me being cynical about the whole honours list business, though I have no problem on all the awards going being thrust upon Van. I enjoy his music more than that of any other knighted rock and pop act I can think of.
His citation is ‘for services to music and tourism in Northern Ireland’. So the transcental Celtic soul and stream-of-consciousness over three chords with occasional funky horn riffs is 50%, and all those references to Hyndford Street, Cyprus Avenue, Orangefield, Davy’s Chipper, Fusco’s Ice Cream, Coney Island, potted herring suppliers, sundry cultural has-beens so-it-is and various bakeries and pie shops in East Belfast must account for the other half of it.
As Sir Tom might say, “Fabulous”.
Van Morrison was in Them, obvious I know, but a cruelly undervalued and virtually unknown group to the Michael Jackson masses.
I’d have knighted him in 1966.
I trust that Sir Van the Man is celebrating today with a nice lunch of potted herrings, before he gets famished…
…before a pasty supper at Daveys chipper including gravy rings, barmbracks, Wagon Wheels, Snowballs.
‘…and then down to Fusco’s Ice Cream with Paris Buns and spangles and walnut whips, cleanin’ windows on the way, playin’ kerbie with Georgie Best, drinkin’ wine-spodee-odie with Jerry Lee Lewis an’ Linda Gail Lewis an’ Detective Sergeant Lewis an’ Inspector Morse, down by Avalon, down by Avalon, down by the Lake District with Wordsworth an’ Coleridge, Ian Paisley, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Jack Vettriano, Tristram Shandy, the Chuckle Brothers, Bungle the Bear, Zippy an’ George, Bessie Smith an’ Billie Holiday, Gene Pitney an’ Johnny Hallyday, Arthur Askey an’ Cyrano de Bergerac, Cyril Fletcher, David Hockney, Ted Heath, Sam Cooke, the Cockney Rejects, Keith Chegwin an’ Kenny G – take me back, take me back, er – no, take me away from these people, TAKE ME AWAY!!!!!’
Arise Sir Colin!
This morning, when I first heard that the Belfast Cowboy had been knighted, my first though was “I hope Colin H gives us one of his Van the Man streams of consciousness rambles, in celebration”.
And he’s given us two. Hurrah!
Glad to be (predictably) of service!
So will it be Sir George ?Sir Ivan ?
Apparently it will be Sir George.
Ah, but will he be accompanied to the ceremony by Madame George?
Very good!
I second The Duke’s comment, Colin. Those Morrissonesque monologues were a treat.
I believe the fellow will be playing some kind of concert in Cypress Avenue (yawn…) a few streets away fronm me in a week or two. No doubt a ‘free’ concert which ends up being heavily subsidised by Belfast City Council like his ‘freedom of the city’ thing a couple of years ago. Yes, I’m sticking it to The Man…
Appropriately, it will be Sir George Morrison of Down.
That’s a reply to Junior’s post, by the way.
Weird about the Honours List pop-music wise isn’t it?
I can think of only one example of an act who got awarded a gong when they were at the top……The Beatles.
Otherwise it seems that longevity is the watch-word and, if anything is the absolute death for exciting pop music, it’s longevity.
What’s changed in the last (at least) 30 years in Van’s career that has defined he’s now worthy of such an honour?
After all, far and away his greatest solo LP was released before the Moon landing!
And was called Astral Weeks. The man is a seer, a prophet, clearly.
As well as, now, a Knight. Perhaps a Knight that likes to say Ni. Or Nye, given his Norn Irish lilt.
Funnily enough, Van’s career started in the basement of a bicycle shop, where Van reheased: ‘Dougie Knight’s’ owned by one Dougie Knight (pronounced Doogie by most people, it seems). Doogie later turned it into a record shop which lasted into the early 2000s.
So Van is, in a way, Doogie’s knight.
Where’s Ringo’s bloody knighthood?
…down by Avalon? Maybe it got mixed up with Van’s and was sent to the wrong address. King Arthur, as we speak, could be staring in bafflement at a knighthood for services to drumming and steam engines in children’s entertainment.
Late coming to this thread – I was sure that Colin would be giving it his best.
I’m thinking the Queen is going to say one of two things. Either
“You know Van Im thinking you should get John Platania and Jeff Labes back and do some more of Veedon Fleece style celtic soul – not this R&B re-treads crap you’ve been turning out lately”
or
“I loved it when you sang Paddy McGinty’s Goat on the BBC Val”
Or “When precisely are you going to drop your trousers, Mr Morrissey?”
The kneeling has begun…