Rock & Roll RePast: “Astral Weeks”

Posted: October 12th, 2015 | Filed under: Music, Ruminations | 9 Comments »

rock3imagesFirst in a series. Essays on songs that resonate.

Van Morrison has granted an imagined interview, in his dressing room before a show.

It’ll be a short audience, advises Morrison’s guy, who ushers me into the dressing room, advising that I not tarry with my questions.

The singer mumbles a greeting that’s short of hail fellow well met, but far from as surly as expected. His man gives me the sign to get on with it.

“So, Van, I’ve got to ask, uh, in the song, “Astral Weeks,” when you’re telling the woman you’re singing to that she’s “taking good care of your boy,” is she helping him put on “little red shoes,” or “leatherette” shoes?

“I know it’s a silly question, but I’ve always wondered.”

Morrison, nonplussed, raises his eyebrows, looks at me curiously, then grumbles a parry of a reply, not really answering, it doesn’t seem. His brogue is thick. It sounds like he says something like, “What do you think?” Then pauses in reflection, before his man takes my arm, thanks me for my time and quickly ushers me out.

Later in the imagined show, Morrison peeks down midway at the written set list, shakes his head, turns to the band, and apparently advises of a change. After a pause, they commence “Astral Weeks.”

Soon enough, he gets to the moment.

There you go/ Takin’ good care of your boy/ Seein’ he’s got clean clothes/ Puttin’ on his little red shoes/

Puttin on his little red shoes/ Puttin’ on his little red shoes/ Puttin’ on his leatherette shoes/ Puttin’ on his leatherette shoes/

So it goes. Over and over again. Eyes closed, Van Morrison drifts off into the middle distance as his band provides texture and space and a sense of context, while Morrison explores the nuances of the phrase. As if he himself now wonders, red leather shoes or leatherette shoes?

He continues to riff on the phrase until his voice morphs saxophonic. In the final go round before, with the slightest nod to those playing behind him, he moves on to the rest of the song, the phrase merges, blends. It is indecipherable.

All permutations of phrasing having been explored, he doesn’t know. Neither do we who are listening. The question remains.

The truth is in the seeking.

 * * * * *

This one was real.

Back and forth. Back and forth. Left to right, return. Then again. And again and again, a barren rut being worn in the Oriental rug covering the stage.

Like a deerstalker, Van Morrison prowled the stage, a haunted man, one needing answers. Looking for the beast to slay, his bête noir so he could hide away. Eyes closed as if it made him invisible, growling, scatting, imploring some unseen benefactor through the mic, seeking a spirit force to help with the deed, at least give him the wherewithal to face it by himself.

Indeed, consumed by the music, he became it, and it, him. Until the corporeal Morrison disappeared into quarter notes and pauses, melodic arcs, stutters and repetitions.

He was oblivious to his surroundings, in a trance. It mattered not that we were there. He had consumed his band, internalized the music, become one with it.

It was odd to experience such intensity in such a venue.

I’m talking September, 1970. Cincinnati Gardens, a place whose most transcendent denizen previously was The Big O, Oscar Robertson, a hoopster who similarly lifted his craft to another variance and beyond.

The place was (and remains) a big barn devoid of any significant intimacy. What little was there that evening, Morrison had usurped, enveloped, coopted for his needs, to do his bidding.

He was the opening act for the Moody Blues. Such is too oft the nature of the game. Hendrix ahead of The Monkees, etc.

Most in the crowd were still rambling about the hallways, awaiting the orange barrel to kick in, slipping in and out of the restrooms, turning them Satyricon.

Fifty or so of us were huddled in front of the stage, the only ones really paying attention to the Irishman.

Back and forth, Van Morrison strode. Then again. I was mesmerized. I could have cared less if he was connecting with those of us listening, if he dared to “entertain” us.

It was hard to tell how much of the singer’s intensity was pain, how much focus? What I know is none of it was false, for show. He could have been anywhere at the moment, the surroundings didn’t matter. This was a man immersed in his own inner travail.

He sought to feel safe, to hide, find calm harbor, from that which menaced, reach succor. He was Benjamin Braddock in his scuba gear floating neath the surface of his parents’ swimming pool.

I couldn’t tell you the name of a song he sang.

This was 22 months after the release of “Astral Weeks,” to a yawn frankly from both fans and the cognoscenti. I never listened to or bought the album until years later. “Moondance” was out. So, I guess I was familiar with the title tune, “Caravan” perhaps, “Crazy Love” maybe. And, of course, “Gloria” from his days with Them.

What I know is that moment remains indelible.

And, like Lester Bangs, whose provocative take on “Astral Weeks” the album you can read here, my path to the title song is circuitous. This is heavy eggplant.

For adventure, I climbed a starter mountain once, Mt. Shasta in northern California. It was enough of a challenge for me. If you fall on Avalanche Gulch, you might tumble some feet, break a leg, but aren’t going to find yourself freezing in some Himalayan ice crack, from which rescue is nigh impossible.

Tackling “Astral Weeks,” is not Shasta. It’s Denali, K2. Not to be undertaken by the faint of heart. Not to be undertaken if resolution is the goal.

The whole album, considered by many as transcendent as any ever recorded, is too much for my fragile soul. Let the Lester Bangs and Greil Marcuses of the world, heartier fellows, more inclined for the challenge, do it.

“Astral Weeks” the song is enough for me right here right now.

If I ventured in the slipstream
Between the viaducts of your dream
Where immobile steel rims crack
And the ditch in the back roads stop
Could you find me?
Would you kiss-a my eyes?
To lay me down
In silence easy
To be born again

“Will you still love me/ when I’m down and out” but at a whole nother level.

This is not “Call me Ishmael.”

Or Gabriel Garcia Márquez:  “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

From the get go, listeners are sucked in, curious, aware this isn’t any Van Morrison we’d ever heard before, any rock & roller really, even the Dylan or Leonard Cohen who’d explored personal highways. Yes, Doo Wop is anchored by unrequited love, the ache of the street corner with your pals while she is off with someone else, over the mountain, across the sea.

This is another depth entirely, fathoms deep.

Morrison is adrift, a seeker, in need of a serenity he isn’t sure he is capable of finding. Is the person to whom he implores capable of rendering what he needs, wants?

She is not G*L*O*R*I*A. We are years gone, girlfriends aplenty from her.

I never married until I was 63 years old. The whys and wherefores are too personal a tale. When I met the Film Babe, a widow of ten years, I was ready. She was ready. She loves music as I.

I knew for certain this was the deal at the first JazzFest we attended together.

Phil Phillips was on the Fais Do Do stage, singing “Sea of Love.” I was engulfed by joy. “Come with me, my-y-y love,” I knew at the moment that every plaintive cry of every not so still nite ever suffered had been answered.

We married in June of ’08, which happened to be the fortieth anniversary year of the release of “Astral Weeks,” a song cycle we cherished.

A few months later at halftime of a David Byrne concert, a friend similarly smitten with Van Morrison mentioned the singer would be at the Hollywood Bowl several weeks hence, performing “Astral Weeks” in its entirety for the first time ever, to honor the album’s 40th anniversary.

We had yet to honeymoon. We scored third row tickets.

The show, the venue, the situation, it was the deal. The music abides.

Forty years on, Van Morrison believed he’d transcended. The intensity, the immediacy, the intimacy, the pain and longing, of the original recording have obviously softened. This is a jam, an evocation.

The original was another time, another place, his voice and mien, now more mumble and mature.

Not for lack of love or lack of caring, but just because it is what it is, the Film Babe and I split several years later. We still share musical moments. We are comrades in arms when nurturing is needed.

There you go
Standin’ with the look of avarice
Talkin’ to Huddie Ledbetter
Showin’ pictures on the wall
Whisperin’ in the hall
And pointin’ a finger at me
There you go, there you go
Standin’ in the sun darlin’
With your arms behind you
And your eyes before
There you go
Takin’ good care of your boy
Seein’ that he’s got clean clothes
Puttin’ on his leatherette (little red) shoes

We remain friends, close, supportive, accepting finally how are union was undone by outside forces. She has been and remains there for me in ways I can’t begin to describe. I too for her, when she allows it.

This is life in roundelay. The young Van Morrison knew desperation, loneliness, life in a ditch where the back roads stop. When the album evolved, he was living in Cambridge, adrift, listening to DJ Peter Wolf, another R & B acolyte.

For the Van Morrison of that moment, hope was to found only in another time, another place, from another face.

He would learn otherwise, but hadn’t when he crafted “Astral Weeks.”

He would later, in calmer, more serene times, sing:

Oh, this must be what it’s all about/ This must be what paradise is like/ So quiet in here, so peaceful in here/ So quiet in here, so peaceful in here

But the 1968 Van Morrison of “Astral Weeks” is lonely, a stranger in a strange land, in pain, unsure of himself, but certain his aim is true. He looked inside, wondered if the eternal she was willing to do so too?

And, if I so too have had those solemn moments, serene, at peace, full with love, they remain elusive.

Too oft I still wonder:

Will she find me?

Will she kiss my eyes?

Lay me down again in silence easy?

To be born again?

In another time/ In another place

In another time/ In another place

In another time

In another face.

— c d kaplan

 

 

 


9 Comments on “Rock & Roll RePast: “Astral Weeks””

  1. 1 Mark said at 9:53 am on October 12th, 2015:

    You mined it…and nailed it…sweet!

  2. 2 Jim mcgovern said at 11:01 am on October 12th, 2015:

    Dead solid.

  3. 3 Noel Thompson said at 12:46 pm on October 12th, 2015:

    Best yet. Thanks.

  4. 4 Tim Schooler said at 5:28 pm on October 12th, 2015:

    You left me wanting to know more about this love relationship that seemingly has been lost, at least in terms of committed togetherness. Regardless of the whys and wherefores, I grieve with you for what has been left behind.

  5. 5 Marty said at 11:47 pm on October 12th, 2015:

    Well done; detailed comments by e-mail.

  6. 6 CultureMaven.com » Blog Archive » Rock & Roll RePast: Marah “Round Eye Blues” said at 7:16 am on October 19th, 2015:

    […] This is the second of a series. The first, on the song “Astral Weeks” can be found here. […]

  7. 7 CultureMaven.com » Blog Archive » Rock & Roll RePast: Vito & Salutations “Unchained Melody” said at 9:21 am on October 26th, 2015:

    […] the third in a series of rock & roll essays. The first on the song “Astral Weeks” can be read here. The second on Marah’s “Round Eye Blues” can be found […]

  8. 8 Mr Bunley said at 10:52 pm on October 26th, 2015:

    Ain’t nothing but a Sweet Thing !!

  9. 9 CultureMaven.com » Blog Archive » Rock & Roll RePast: Peter Green’s “Black Magic Woman” said at 10:00 am on November 9th, 2015:

    […] It could very well be that all that gobbledegook about Peter Green crying out for solace is my own stuff. Perhaps it’s a lingering sentiment, unrequited, from my postulations on Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks.” […]


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