‘Astral Weeks’: Elvis Costello on “one of the most original albums” ever made
One of the hardest things an artist can hope to find is some originality when writing songs. Countless artists have written numerous songs before you thought of putting pen to paper, so what makes yours any different from those who inspired you in the first place? It sometimes feels impossible to make something original, but Elvis Costello thought nothing compared to hearing Van Morrison on Astral Weeks.
Compared to the other singer-songwriters of his time, though, Morrison wasn’t really rock and roll in the traditional sense. He may have had a classic under his belt with the song ‘Gloria’ with Them, but his solo career was all about him stretching out as a writer and vocalist, usually drawing from the sounds of jazz half the time.
Morrison may have had a great deal of respect for someone like Bob Dylan at the time, but you wouldn’t mistake Morrison’s grumbles for anyone else. From the way he scat-sang to how he twisted words in his mouth, half of his songs were about trying to capture a feeling that best suited the words rather than worrying about whether everything was technically perfect.
This is probably why Astral Weeks sounds as frayed as it does. While the common way for people to make records is to rehearse for weeks on end before finding a groove that fits, Morrison never wanted that model. Working with session musicians, Morrison’s only instruction was to play what they felt when they heard him before going into another room and pounding out tunes on an acoustic guitar.
Somewhere in between what amounts to a jam session, Morrison hit on something that felt human whenever he sang. Whether he was talking about his lover on ‘Sweet Thing’ or ‘Cyprus Avenue’, the singer served up every kind of emotion he could feel, whether it was infatuation getting the better of him or spilling his heart out because he knew she’d gone.
It might not have been meant for the hard rockers of the world, but Costello knew that he had witnessed something unprecedented when he heard it, telling VH1, “Astral Weeks is one of the best albums of original thought that anyone’s ever made. It’s completely unlike anything that went before it. You can hear the influences of certain kinds of music upon it, and the performances are some of the freest than anyone has ever recorded”.
Throughout the recording, Morrison also seems to be calling on something more than just music. Whenever he opens his mouth, there’s almost a gospel flair behind every note, as if he’s begging some higher power to set him free from the emotional turmoil he’s feeling half the time.
Even though Costello went in a far more literate direction with the Attractions years later, he still has pieces of Morrison in his musical vocabulary. From the pub rock sounds of his debut to his heartbreaking ballads, Costello learned from Morrison that the power comes from the person singing the song just as much as it does from the notes on the page.
Costello might not be the first person to come to mind when you think of the Van Morrison fan club, but every time someone plays ‘Alison’, they’re not hearing just a man playing his guitar. You’re hearing someone live through the pain of being in love, and that’s something that Morrison mastered across just one album.
