Nights in Copenhagen with Van Morrison
Van Morrison, the new album is A Sense of Wonder. You've come to bring a sense of wonder to your audience? Could you repeat that? I'm not really sure... I'm not either ...(nervous laughter) In general terms - just exactly what do you... Yeah, that's all that there is - it's just in general terms. There's nothing mysterious about it. I've noticed that on the last few albums there have been several instrumental tracks. Would you like to move into that direction of pure music, without singing and without lyrics? No, I don't think so. No - no, I wouldn't, no! I remember you appeared on a Rockpalast television broadcast from Germany a few years back. And right in the middle of the show you stop and say to the audience, 'I bet you're wondering what I'm doing at a rock'n'roll event. Well, I'm wondering, too.' You don't see yourself as a rock'n'roll performer or artist? Well, these things you do and say, they're not really terribly important when you do them. And they're less important afterwards. I don't really think about what I've said about five years ago or whatever. It doesn't interest me. So I forgot about that, and you sort of go into other things. You do other things, and it's not important. Do you have any recollections of those Rockpalast appearances? Are they satisfying for you as concerts, as performances? I think so! I mean, I can't remember. I've done so many performances, you know. I can't remember specific performances. Like I said, you do them, and you're on to something else. And you do many more. And it's hard to pinpoint specific performances. There are songs on the album that you didn't write yourself. You've got a Ray Charles thing and a Mose Allison. Is that the music you listen to? Why did you choose those particular songs to record? There's no particular reason. It just felt right at the time. I don't particularly listen to ... I wasn't particularly listening to these songs. It was just something that I remembered from when I did listen to this type of music. And I just remembered it and thought that it worked. That was it. What does Van Morrison do when he's not touring, writing songs or recording? Well, I don't really feel like I want to get into that. I mean, if you want to ask me about Van Morrison the industry - which is what I'm here to talk about. But Van Morrison the person is something else. It's not for public consumption. Van Morrison the industry? There is a sense in which Van Morrison the performer of songs is an extension of Van Morrison the person? I wouldn't say it's an extension of Van Morrison the person, no! Something wholly divorced or rather simply a part of? Oh well, you know, sometimes it's apart from, and sometimes it merges. But the reason for doing something like this would be to talk about Van Morrison, the performer, the writer, in terms of the music industry. It's not in terms of what I want to do or say personally. What I do personally has got nothing to do with that. This is something I do. It's just like what you do on the radio. I mean, you do interviews and you do programs. That's what you do, but that doesn't mean you're that 24 hours a day. You know, it's the same thing. OK, back to the musical end of it then. You've been in the business, the industry, a long time. Do you find yourself - the Van Morrison industry - in any way part of the music business? Do you see yourself as part of the music business in that whole showbiz thing? Well, I try not to. I try not to. Isn't it sometimes hard to keep out of it? It's hard to keep out of it, because there are so many things you have to take into consideration. I don't really know. I mean, the question's not really ... I'm not getting a positive on that question. Can you rephrase it or something? You see yourself as Van Morrison the performer in this connection and Van Morrison the industry. But then you put out records, you go out on the road, you do interviews - rarely. Is there any sense in which you find yourself under some kind of pressure to be part of the business and to play a certain role in a rock 'n roll game? Oh, I see what you're saying! Well, you're sort of forced to be part of the business just by putting albums out, and you're making music, you're forced to be part of the business. You don't want to be! I don't want to be per se, but I'm forced to be, you know! Because I have these albums out and I have to have business people to handle the business of the albums being out, existing or whatever. And that's when it becomes an industry, you know, which I'm forced to take part in, basically. Well, it's got nothing to do with actually writing the music or even recording the music. I mean, it's after it comes out that you're involved in business. Has the business ever had any influence on the product, on the records? No, anybody knows that. Not with me! I mean, that's compos mentis. Everybody already knows that as far as I'm concerned. No, that's taken for granted. After a very long stay in the United States you returned to Great Britain. Has that move had any influence on your musical output? Yes, I think it had some influence. Because, I mean, I'm British. Although I lived in America, I am British, and I'm much closer, being in London, I'm much closer to Belfast. It's not very far away. So it means I can go home more than I could when I was in America. It was too far away. So I can get back there more frequently, and I'd say that has had a big effect on my songs and music. What do you listen to when you listen to music? Well, I don't really listen to much music. I mean, I used to listen to quite a lot. I can't find that much. I got very bored with listening to music, because I wasn't hearing anything different or anything that inspiring. I virtually, you know, I just listen to it out of habit, not because I want to listen to it. I don't really listen to it very much at all. On this particular album there seems to be a great literary influence. I mean, you drop a lot of literary names. There's Rimbaud; you do a Blake poem. Are you into a lot of poetry? It's not a matter of dropping names. It's just the way it felt. I mean, the reference to Rimbaud, that was just a song that came through. I mean, I just write down what I get, you know. I mean, I don't go and say, 'Well, I'm gonna write a song about Iceland or something,' you know. I just sort of write down whatever's coming through me. I put it out and this is what it becomes. It's not a matter of namedropping. It's the matter of the way the songs are coming out. And the Blake song I've always wanted to do. I've wanted to do this song for several years. So I just got around to it on this album, but I've been wanting to do this song for four or five years. Now, I was thinking in terms of Rave On, John Donne, Dylan Thomas and so forth. I mean, are you in... That's the same kind of thing. That's just the way it came out. It just came out that way. I mean, I sat down and I wrote the poem which I turned into a half spoken, half sung. But basically, it was just the way I wrote the poem. You're not a technically trained musician as such. But you've always surrounded yourself with some very fine people. How do you work with musicians in terms of communicating your ideas? Well, actually, I am technically trained. I studied music when I was fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. I am technically trained. I just don't like to work that way, you know. I mean, I felt studying music was stopping my spontaneity and stopping my originality. But I have studied music technically. I know what the notes are. I know what it is, and if need be I can communicate this to players. And that's how it works. It seems as if regardless of who you perform with on record or the occasions I've seen you live that there is a Van Morrison sound, and there's no mistaking that. You have this ability to inspire and communicate exactly your intentions and your style, to convey that to any of the musicians that you choose. That's not quite the way it works. I have to find people that are conducive to it in the first place. It doesn't work at random, and it can't work with ... I mean, it has to be a certain type of musician. And they have to be a certain quality and a certain proficiency in the first place. And then you take it from there. But they have to have a certain proficiency level and be interested, and know the type of area of music that I'm doing first. Otherwise, they can't play it. You've worked with Pee Wee Ellis frequently and an old Motown bass player, Jerome Rinsom. Are those elements that you'd like to have as part of your music? Yeah, I like to have the r'n'b gospel element as well as a sort of Folk/Celtic element. I mean, those two areas are combined in my music to a greater or lesser degree depending on the actual song, but I mean, it's a sort of combination of what I call, you know, Celtic Soul Music which is not really white music. It's Celtic and black music. Black American music, not African. Black American music in particular. You mention that Celtic element. I remember a review in one of the English papers of Beautiful Vision, and they mentioned that strong Celtic influence. They mentioned Avalon, Aryan wind, and then they mentioned Vanlose Stairway as another example off your Celtic influence. Does that kind of ignorance ever bother you about your music? I don't know the particularly thing you're referring to. I mean, as far as press goes ... I mean, it's 99 out of a hundred as far as the kind of press I get. I don't get bad press. I get usually on the whole very good press. Usually people who write about it understand what it is. So I very rarely have problems like that. I know a lot of people do, but fortunately I don't. That particular song title which obviously is a local Danish reference. What did that come from? Where did it come from? Well, I think you probably know where it came from. But you know, that's the way it came out. That's the way it was written. Like I say, the way I write songs is, you know, inspirational. I have to wait for it to happen. And when it happens I get lines, and I just write them down, you know. I'm not sort of a Tin Pan Alley sort of songwriter. I just sort of write down what I get - without censoring or questioning what it is and what it means, you know. Like later on I look at what it means, but not at the time. How much of it is autobiographical? Part of it, not a lot. Part of it is. I don't know how much, but part of it. Seen all kind of guesses as to a song like Cleaning Windows. How much of that is... That's completely autobiographical! When was that? When was it? I think, it was ... that period was '62, 1962. Could you tell me who Boffyflow and Spike are? Oh - fictional characters. That's all. On the one hand, you say you're not a Tin Pan Alley songwriter hacking out songs, but on the other hand you work with purely fictional characters. Sorry? On one hand you say you're not a Tin Pan Alley songwriter, but on the other hand you do create wholly fictional characters and situations in some songs. Well, it's both fact and fiction, but, I mean, it's based on people I know. I mean, where else could it come from? I mean, it's based on characters maybe they're not exactly the same, but you know these people are like this in Ireland - now existing at this minute like this, so... (Tape stopped for coffee break) Would you be interested in doing some more biographical stuff? I mean, taking it back a ways? Yeah, I'll have a go. Alright - I get the impression from what I remember from the early Them days it was a great deal like what went down in '77 and '78. The whole punk thing seemed to be a whole revisitation of that. Your early days in the music business. Could you describe what happened - what it felt like in those early days around the Monarch Hotel, I think... Oh, the Maritime Hotel! Well, I started before that, you know. That period to me, myself, is really not that significant. I mean, the period from like 1963 through to '65, '66 is really not that significant to me. What's more significant to me is the period before that. 'Cause the period before ... what happened ... I mean, I'd already been playing in bands for five years. And this is just in Ireland. I mean, I never played outside Ireland before that. At that time there were a lot of good bands, and there were a lot of places to play at that point. It was a very sort of positive period for working in Ireland. And then that period ended, like, mid sixties, completely vanished. Now at this point there was virtually nowhere to play, and there was really not that much happening musically. But I'd say the period before that was more important in terms of actual music. I think, what happened to us in particular is that we were sort of carried along on a wave, sort of a rollercoaster during two or three years there, particularly '64 and '65 where actually what was supposed to be happening wasn't happening. The original intention of the Maritime Hotel was to play r'n'b in an environment that catered for that type of music and that type of audience. But somehow it went wrong somewhere along the line. And it got translated into part of this British pop scene which ... it really had nothing to do with it when it started, but it got translated like that anyway. What was it that killed that live music scene? Well, I think ... What killed it in Ireland? Yeah! I think, it was the Troubles. You know, the political situation. That was what killed it there. Is that what you mean or is it another question? What happened to ... Why was there no longer that thriving live music scene with a lot of bands and a lot of venues? Well, I think in Ireland it was just the completely political situation because of ... They had a warzone situation. I think, that's what happened there. You mentioned being carried along on a wave, and you also ran into one Bert Berns who also happened to carry you to the States. Did he have any influence ... He wrote a lot of the songs in those days. Did he have a lot of influence? Did he change the band? Did - what happened? Did he what? Did he have any real influence? Did he change the way the band...? Yeah, I think he had ... Well, he produced most of our first album actually, and we wanted him to do the second one. But he wasn't available to do the second one. But he did the first one, and yeah, I think his influence was both positive and negative. I mean, he produced a lot of great r'n'b records. He had the knowledge of doing that in the studio. But at the same time ... I mean, the song that he wrote which was one of the most popular, you know, Here Comes the Night, was sort of slanted towards more of a pop audience rather than an r'n'b audience at a time we were trying, you know, we were doing r'n'b, because we loved the music, and we wanted to do it. It wasn't a question of wanting to have a hit record. I mean, it didn't even enter into the picture. So that was something that was happening parallel to what we were actually doing. Which was not what we were doing. So when we went out to play gigs in the UK - one-nighters. I mean, we did about four months of one-nighters in the UK. So we would be playing the hit singles and stuff and that's not really what it was about. The intention was not to do that. The intention was to be much more musical than that. So it was a big conflict between the music that I wanted to do and the music we had to play, because the audience wanted to hear the hits and stuff, you know. This was a conflict. Was that was...? But still when the time came for the first Van Morrison solo release you worked with Bert Berns! Yeah, that's true! That just seemed to be the best way to go at that particular time. I mean, there was actually another record company, a European company that I was going to sign with at the time. And this company kept dragging this thing out, and I'd been in touch with Bert Berns. Someone told me, a friend of mine told me that he wanted to get in touch with me, so I'd been talking to him. So basically, what happened was I just got tired of waiting for this record company to send me a contract to sign when I was going solo and I took this other thing instead. And that's what happened. Just an aside. Is it true that the backing voices on Brown-Eyed Girl were you and Bert Berns and a couple of other guys? No, it's The Sweet Inspirations, but Bert Berns is on it. But he sort of dubbed himself on afterwards. For some reason he wanted to be on it. But it's The Sweet Inspirations singing with me. I remember the album, Blowin' Your Mind, with one of the worst covers in the history of pop music. Yeah, that was sort of the beginning of the end. I mean, when I saw that cover I realized this was not for me. And it wasn't actually in fact an album. I was told it wasn't an album. I actually cut four singles for this company. It was four singles, and they were going to release these singles one at a time. So I got a call saying it was an album coming out and this is the cover. And I saw the cover and I almost threw up, you know. So that was the beginning of the end, really. Was that the album with Eric Gale and a lot of the hottest New York session people? That's right! It was Eric Gale, Hugh McCracken, Bernard Purdie, The Sweet Inspirations, the organ player - what's his name? - Paul Harris. Yeah, they were all.. Later on it became - some of those players were in Stuff or something, so that's who it was. Coming out of a group of that time, was it hard for you to have control, to convey ideas to these strangers basically? Well basically Bert Berns produced the session. So what happened was that I played him the songs first. I put them on a tape recorder, just a two-track tape. Just guitar and voice, and I put the songs on tape. So he listened to those, and then when we went into the studio he more or less directed the band and I just walked in and sang. So I mean, it was dead easy for me. I didn't have to deal with any of that. I just walked in and sang the songs. That was it! There seemed to be a quantum leap from Blowin' Your Mind to Astral Weeks! Well, that was because it was sort of going in the wrong direction. I mean, when I was starting doing my second album with Bert Berns. The sort of the same situation. I played a lot of the songs into a tape of my own. And I said, 'Look, this is the way, I want to do it, you know. I don't want a big rhythm section. I just want certain things, and all the songs don't have to be the same way. So he agreed with this. But then when we got to the session, he had like overbooked the session. He'd booked too many musicians for the rhythm music - like a ten-piece rhythm section, of which six of them we didn't need. Things like this, you know. It wasn't the right situation for me. Then Astral Weeks. Everybody sees that as some kind of song cycle. Was there from the start any concept or was it just a collection of songs for you? Well, I think the concept was sort of suggested to me after it was done. I mean, there wasn't really a concept. The producer of the album saw it as a concept. I mean, this is after it was done, and we have the songs. And he said, you know. He saw this as some kind of a concept, and I think, that's how the idea came about that it was a concept. The first time you sounded totally comfortable and that you've really got it all together, and the first thing with Van Morrison and Caledonian Soul Sound was Moondance. You seemed to be coming from a completely different place at that time, much more up and positive - not to say that Astral Weeks is totally down. But it seems to be ... Had you settled in in the States at that time, or what happened? I don't really know if I settled in. I don't think so. I suppose it was just the timing and I'd just found a band that was able to play what I had in mind, actually. I think that was what happened. I did the Woodstock festival. Not the other one. And there was a band on it, Colwell-Winfield Blues Band and that was most of the band that played on Moondance. It was from that group. So I just met them at that festival and did a couple of rehearsals and it seemed to be what I was looking for. And that was it. How much were you part of that Woodstock thing, The Band and everyone else? There were really two Woodstock things. The Woodstock that happened as a global event was not really the Woodstock that was happening on its own sort of thing. It had been happening for a long time. So there was like two Woodstocks. One of them was sort of the commercial entity and the album and the festival. I mean, that was just that one particular thing. But the other, that really was what was happening in Woodstock had nothing to do with that. In fact, it was the opposite of that, because the people in Woodstock were trying to get away from that overblown, superstar, commercial kind of thing. It was actually just about getting some room to write something, you know. That was what it was about really, Woodstock. At one time you got a nickname, at least in the music press that stuck it on you whenever they needed something to call you for a headline, Belfast Cowboy. That came from 4% Pantomime off the Band's Cahoots album. Was that an improvisation, or...? No, actually, I wrote the song with Robbie Robertson. I think 4% Pantomime came from the difference between Johnnie Walker Red and Johnnie Walker Black or something was 4%. And that's how the title came about. I'm going to change tape, if you've got time, or would you rather be moving on? No, that's OK. (New tape.) You were there for the Band's Last Waltz. How much of that was pre-arranged or just a jam? Oh, it was all pre-arranged. There were no jams. It was all ... Oh, it was just one rehearsal. That was all. I mean, about a week before the show there was a rehearsal and then the show the next week. Is that your first, say ... or only feature film appearance? In a film? Oh yeah! Yeah. You've never considered going into the movies yourself? No, I mean, the only reason I did that was because Robbie asked me to. I mean, I would never think about being in a film. Robbie Robertson has scored a couple of pictures since then. Could that kind of thing appeal to you, motion picture scores? Again, it would appeal ... It would ... I mean, I've got a couple for consideration at the minute. It is appealing, I must admit, because you don't have to be in the limelight to do it. That's one thing I like about it. It all depends again on what it is, what the subject matter is and so forth. It would depend on the subject matter and what room you would have to work in. You know, what the thing was saying and what you could say with the music in between whatever, you know. Moving into the seventies, Veedon Fleece, Hard Nose the Highway. You talked about overarranged things, overbooked sessions, but Hard Nose the Highway seems to be that one album where you threw everything in but the kitchen sink. Really? I've never thought of it as that - really! Well, the choruses and the string arrangements. You've always had string arrangements with very subtle string... Not always, not always! ... Yeah, but it wasn't on every song, I don't think. I mean, it was just on the chorus on one ... Yeah, there were strings on a couple of things, but not everything on that. No, I don't think it was that big, that album - arrangement wise. This was sometime in 1972. Now, Too Late To Stop Now... That was right after. ... A double live album! Well, that's almost a rock'n'roll cliché. What did you have in mind at the time? Double live album ... Rock'n'roll cliché. I'm not really sure what you're talking about there, because in those days, I mean, double albums were something to stretch out on. I mean, that's what they were to me, anyway. To me that was the opportunity to do some good music. I don't think that's a rock'n'roll album, anyway. I mean, it doesn't sound like it to me. I think that one of the most interesting - one of the many interesting things about that album is the use of a string quartet and four or five girls. OK. Was that for the album? Or were they on the tour anyway? Oh, they were on the tour, because, you see, we used some of them on Hard Nose the Highway, and then the tour came up right after that. So they were on the tour in America and Europe. They were on the whole thing. Then there was the Mac Rebennack collaboration, Period of Transition. Was that what the late seventies were for you? Well, let me see, I actually was out of the music business for two and a half years, and that's what it was about. I remember now. That was the first album I made coming back into it. Because I'd been out of it for, like, two and a half years, I think. That was why I called it that, I suppose. Is this where I'm not supposed to ask what you did for two and a half years? Well, yeah, I mean, I'd prefer if you didn't. I mean, you know, that's my business, you know. A Period of Transition. And then there was, in commercial terms, a real comeback, Wavelength. Yeah, it was, as far as selling goes. Yeah, you know, that album sold quite a bit. Wavelength, yeah. Did you deliberately move back to shorter song structures for that? No, it wasn't deliberate. I mean, I didn't really have a lot of material, you know, so what material I had was just sort of squeezed in. I think, maybe there was just one long song on that or something. But I mean, that's just the way it came out at the time. I mean, the thing about this is, like ... It's only afterwards you see these things. I mean, at the time that was the particular thing I wanted to do. I wanted heavy emphasis on the synthesizer and all this, you know. That's just what I felt like doing at the time. Then afterwards ... I mean, everybody said, 'Oh, that was really commercial! You must have ...' But I didn't think about it when I was doing it, you know. And ... I wasn't really happy with that album, actually. I'm still not. It's not really what I do. What is it you're not happy about? I just don't think the music was up to scratch, you know. Was this about the time you switched labels - left Warner Bros. after a very long relationship? No, no, no. I'm still with Warner Bros. in America, but I was off it everywhere else. Everywhere else I was on Phonogram. And in America I was still on Warners, but it just changed everywhere else except there. Was there any reason for that change? Were you dissatisfied with the work they were doing for you? Warner Bros in the UK and Europe and everywhere else ... They weren't really doing anything, you know. They were just sort of getting the album and saying, 'Oh, here's a Van Morrison album!' And then they would bury it, you know. So they weren't really doing anything with the albums. So it didn't really make sense to stay with Warner Bros. here simply because they just weren't promoting the albums. They weren't doing anything. They were just releasing them. And I just said, 'Well, you're not doing me a big favour just by releasing them. You have to do something with them. And they weren't really coming up with any money either. So it didn't make sense to stay with them here. So I went with Phonogram here. While we're talking about record companies, let's talk about something that's not record companies, but bootlegs. You haven't been - a victim might be flattering - but there haven't been a lot of Van Morrison bootlegs. But have you heard any of them? Oh, there are quite a few. I mean, there's more than I thought, because I'm not really into this area. But there are quite a few, I mean, about. I don't have them personally, but I've been told by various people who collect them that there are quite a few. You've never heard any of them? I've heard a couple. I've heard a couple of them, yeah. Do you have any feelings about the revenue you're losing or the quality of the sound? Or that kind of thing? Oh yeah, but I mean, that's old hat. That's old hat. Not for most Danish radio listeners. No, but I mean. As far as in terms of a question to me that's old hat. I wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole, you know. I know of one bootleg which I think is particularly brilliant. It's called Strange Bedfellows, I think. [Ed: Probably Chair Fellows] It's a Bottom Line gig where Peter Wolf from the J Geils Band - '78, I think it is, does this long introductory rap ... Doesn't ring any bells for you? I mean, like I said, I've done hundreds - thousands of gigs. And I don't remember this. Would you have any objection, say, to a bootleg track being played on the radio? Sure, I would! I mean, what for? Just as an example of the fact that you, too, have an audience that's so large and fanatical that there is a Van Morrison bootleg industry. Just one thing to indicate that fact. I'm not really flattered by bootlegs. I mean, I could do without them. I could do without them. I'm not flattered by them. I'm, you know, promoting the albums that I have out, not that. I mean, it's, you know, it's illegal. I mean, that's it! Well, that's why I was asking permission... No, I don't support it at all! OK, that's fine ... And you definitely don't see any flattery in it? No, I don't see ... Not at all. You don't believe that anybody who buys a Van Morrison bootleg would buy everything else that you do? I've no idea! But I mean, it doesn't ... I don't buy bootlegs myself. I don't ... It's not something that comes up. I'm not interested in it, you know. Moving into the eighties. Exactly when did you make the move back closer to home? See, it was '75 ... '75. Before Period of Transition, no, it was way before, earlier? Well, it's actually before that, you know, during this Period of Transition. So that transition was both getting back into the music business and a physical move across the Atlantic? Yeah, it was physical, as well. But I mean, like I said, I didn't know whether I wanted to stay in the music business at that point, anyway. So it was a bit more than a period of transition. It was sort of like - it was taking stock, re-evaluating. Things hadn't sort of went the way that I thought they would. I mean, in terms of, you know, what this sort of, this worldly success that everyone values so much. You know, what everybody said about it wasn't true, I found out. It was, you know, it just wasn't the way, you know, the TV and the media and Tom, Dick and Harry made it out to be. So I had to think about it, because it was consuming a large part of my life. I mean, doing music was ... I mean, I like to do music, but it was taking up too much of my time, eating up too much of my life. So I had to think about if I wanted to stay in it, and sort of re-evaluate things. Because it was getting to the point where I wasn't feeling good about doing music. There was too many other things to do, you know. Too many other demands from people, organizations, about certain things that ... People wanted something all the time, so I just got fed up with it. And I was sort of taking time out to think about whether I wanted to continue or not, basically. Do you recall any of the deciding factors that brought you back into music? Well, I think what brought me back was just the need to play - just needing to play. That was basically it. You're still in the record business, the music business, and what kind of terms do you have with your record company? How often do you have to deliver product, whether there should be singles, which track should be selected as a single and that kind of thing? Well, that's not really specific at the minute. I mean, I'm not in negotiations at the minute. But I'm going to be, so I don't really ... I can't really talk about that now, you know. I can't be specific. Let's talk about the eighties albums. A high point like Common One, Beautiful Vision. They're not mysterious or obscure or anything, but there does seem to be an increasing element of the mystic and the mythological in terms of subject matter. Are you more occupied with these things? Let me see ... More occupied with the mythological? More occupied with the mythological and the mystic. Uhmm ... I'm more occupied with mystic subjects, not mythological ... No. The mystic subjects! Could you tell us about that? Uhm ... Well, what specifically? In terms of Beautiful Vision, Avalon, Aryan - is that mist or winds? Yeah, yeah... Those songs for instance. Any one of those. Aha ... Well, I mean, in order to explain that I gotta go back to the process of the way I write, you see. I mean, the way I write is I get inspired by something or, you know, an idea comes through from the subconscious, or whatever you want to call it and then it proceeds from there. I mean, there is no intention to, say, write about a particular thing. There isn't any intention to do that. There is an intention to write, but most of these things are subconscious. And then later on you look at them, and you'll be able to look at them with your analytical mind or in various intellectual ways and then I say, 'Oh yeah, I got that idea from that, But I don't dwell on it and I don't think about it. I just do it. Do you read about mysticism or study the subject? Oh well, yeah, I study the subject. But I mean, I've been studying the subject for a long time. That's apart from what I'm actually doing as a performer, you know. It's just something else. But as you said, it gets into the songs with some frequency. Well, like I say, this is subconscious. I mean, all sorts of things get into songs. I mean, it could be something somebody says that you don't necessarily recall, well, I remember they said this then. But I mean later on, when you're trying to analyze the thing, then you can come to that. But writing songs is a subconscious process for me. Could you ever consider writing a song for someone, that is, writing to order? Writing to order? It's something I'd love to be able to do, but it's not my job. I'd rather leave that to somebody else who does that. I mean, there are people that do that. I've tried to do it for King of Comedy. I mean, in fact, Robbie Robertson and myself tried to write a song to order for King of Comedy and we just couldn't do it. So I played him a song that I'd written, and that turned out to be the song. But it was a song that I'd already written and I had. It fit more than what we tried to do. Do you recall the title of the song? Wonderful Remark. Can you remember any other people's versions of your songs that you were particularly satisfied with? Yeah ... let me see ... Ben E King did a version of Into the Mystic that was really good. Esther Phillips did a couple. She did Brand New Day. I like that. Toots and the Maytals did one. I Shall Sing. What else? Buddy Rich did one actually that I liked. He did Domino. Instrumental, of course. I like that. I can't think of any more at the minute. Can you recall any that were particularly atrocious, offensive to you? No, I can't. I get an impression that there are not a lot of people who cover your material, because your music isn't just, say, the lyrics and a melody, but it's the whole performance. It seems to be an integrated thing. Well, this is what the publishers used to tell me, as well. The people that were publishing my songs used to tell me, 'We'd love people to do this, but we don't think they're gonna do them, because your version is definitive.' That's what they used to tell me, yeah ... Anyway, you got enough? I'm getting a bit tired. Alright! I'm definitely set up. Part of the van-the-man.info unofficial website |