Trivia / Van Morrison

• Acclaimed Flop: Astral Weeks sold poorly when it was first released, but is consistently listed amongst the Greatest Albums of All Time. According to Music Historian Andrew Ford: "Astral Weeks will sell as many copies this year as it did in 1968 and has every year in between."
• Black Sheep Hit: Zig-Zagged. His biggest hits in the US ("Brown Eyed Girl", "Domino") and the UK ("Whenever God Shines His Light") aren't very representative of his typical style. Although, to be fair, Van Morrison doesn't ultimately have a typical style, and many of his most iconic and popular songs (e.g. "Moondance" or "Into the Mystic") were not big hits on the charts.
• Breakthrough Hit: "Brown Eyed Girl". "Domino" was sort of a Breakthrough-after-the-Breakthrough Hit.
• Breakup Breakout: Morrison's career began to soar to new heights after he left Them. His old group never recovered and sank into obscurity.
• Chart Displacement: In the US, Morrison's Signature Song "Brown-Eyed Girl" (#10), was edged out by "Domino" (#9) on the charts by one spot.
  • Many classics by Van were either low charting singles - "Moondance" (#92), "Bright Side of the Road" (#110), "Jackie Wilson Said" (#61), "Tupelo Honey" (#47), "Days like This" (#65 in the UK and did not chart in the US) - with "Wild Night" which fared better, reaching #28, and "Someone like You" and "Have I Told You Lately" being exceptions, reaching respectively #28 and #12 on the Adult Contemporary chart - or they were not released as singles at all - "Into the Mystic", "And It Stoned Me", "Sweet Thing", "Caravan", and the list goes on - "Crazy Love" is an exception since it reached #12 on the Triple A chart when released as a single in a duet with Ray Charles.
  • His previous band Them had two top 40 hits, but neither of them were "Gloria", the song for which they are most recognized today. This was mostly due to concerns over a suggestive lyric, "she comes to my room", in the song. As a result, many stations refused to play it, and a version by the One-Hit Wonder Garage Rock band The Shadows of Knight that eliminated the line was played in its place, moving it to a higher spot of #10. "Gloria" wasn't a top 40 hit in the UK either... because it was only issued as a B-side (its A-side, a cover of "Baby Please Don't Go", was a big hit).
  • "Come Running", which seems like it only got released as the single from Moondance because it's the shortest song on the album, outpaced a lot of the ones mentioned above and scraped its way into the Top 40, peaking at #39. Other songs that the general public likely wouldn't be familiar with, like "Blue Money" (#23), and "Wavelength" (#42) also fared better than some of his most famous songs.
• Contractual Obligation Project: After the death of producer Bert Berns, Morrison was still contracted for an album to his Bang Records company, owned by Berns' widow Ilene, with whom Morrison didn't get along. To get out of his contract, Morrison recorded an album worth of desultory, sometimes intentionally offensive "songs" such as "Ring Worm", "Here Comes Dumb George", and "Blowin' Your Nose". They sometimes get released as "rarities" to hoodwink completists, and, in some circles they're considered Cult Classics, to the extent that a band has named itself after one of the songs: You Say France and I Whistle.
• Creator Backlash:
  • He looks back on the Bang Records material negatively, because he had very little say in the way the songs were arranged. The lack of money he made from them is another contributing factor.
  • Morrison has also expressed contempt towards His Band and the Street Choir and Tupelo Honey. He was unhappy with Street Choir due to not being in full control of the songs' arrangements and the album title, while Tupelo Honey consisted of older songs that didn't "feel fresh".
• Creator's Favorite Episode: In a 2021 interview, Morrison cited 1980's Common One as his favorite album.
  "It's a mixture of different components - a bit of funk, blues, gospel - it's quite a fusion, and plus I seemed to tap into something, and that particular band seemed to have a rapport."
• Missing Episode:
  • An entire 1975 album, Mechanical Bliss, was never officially released. The songs eventually showed up as bootlegs, though, and the planned cover art wound up getting used for Steely Dan's The Royal Scam.
  • While in LA in 1967-68, Van Morrison joined The Doors onstage. The two Morrisons - Van and Jim - traded vocals in an extended version of "Gloria". And nobody thought to preserve a tape.
• Reclusive Artist: Morrison is notoriously shy about giving interviews or making public appearances. At times he has refused to go on stage or has cut gigs abruptly short, making buying concert tickets into something of a Russian Roulette.
  • This was marked from a very early age: a piece of archive film that still makes it onto blooper reels is an Ulster Television interview, where a young and gushing Gloria Hunniford is trying to interview "Belfast's Answer to Mick Jagger". The mounting horror in Hunniford's eyes, as she realises Ireland's Answer to Mick Jagger will only reply in monosyllabic grunts and an occasional "yes" or "no", is something to behold.
  • Oddly enough, he's frequently mentioned in Dublin society columns attending social events with his wife, but rarely photographed together.
  • In light of his 70th birthday, he finally consented to an in-depth interview to The Irish Times. He also appeared in a documentary series by Lenny Henry talking passionately about the blues, so it seems like he would consent to interviews or appearances only if the topics interest him.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: When Van was going to be photographed for the Moondance cover, he'd developed a noticeable blemish on his forehead - so the cover was a series of closeups on his face that kept his forehead out of frame entirely, which ended up being a little more distinctive than a typical Face on the Cover design.
• Sleeper Hit: His Astral Weeks album is considered by critics and many fans to be his best, though it wasn't until after the success of his later albums that it was actually noticed.

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