Five Van Morrison lyrics that are even stranger than he is
It’s truly astronomical what good lyrics can do. A well-placed line can change the world, and folk music has been a smelting pot for such words.
When you look at the work of artists like Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, it’s hard to deny just how impactful some of their lyrics can be. They don’t just sound nice and add another layer to a song, they change the way some people view the world around them. Minds have been made up, stances taken, lines drawn, all through words and music alone.
While lyrics can be life-affirming, though, so too can they be the opposite. There are plenty of songs out there which contain words which are either nonsensical, misguided, or poorly calculated, and the result is a song which, despite coming from a great musical mind, falls through the cracks of any kind of human understanding. Van Morrison isn’t immune to a bad lyric; in fact, some of his lines are so weird that they make him, as an eccentric rock star, look mundane.
So, let’s have a look at these strange words and try to pull some kind of meaning from them.
Van Morrison’s five strangest lyrics:
‘Stop Bitching, Do Something’
“Stop bitching, do something, stop bitching, stop bitching right now, stop bitching, stop bitching right now, stop bitching, stop bitching right now.”
Repetition in music can often work wonders. How many songs that repeat words have had a massive impact, be it because they’re catchy or they hammer home a message? Using the same word or phrase over and over again can often do a great deal for musicians, just think of songs like ‘Zombie’, ‘This Is America’ and ‘Around the World’, they’re all considered classics and their use of repetition goes a long way in obtaining such a label.
While the use of repetition can do a lot for a song, it can also fall flat, and that’s a horrible recipe for any artist. Not only have you written lyrics that don’t resonate, but you’ve made the choice to repeat those lyrics over and over. That’s what happens with Van Morrison’s offering on ‘Stop Bitching, Do Something’, as his words are both strange and poorly delivered.
‘Want a Danish?’
“Want a Danish? Want a Danish? Or a sandwich if you’d prefer.”
OK, we need to give Van Morrison some credit on this song, as while the lyrics are weird, they’re also weird with intent. Most musicians have been involved in some kind of dodgy contract throughout their recording career, but very few have dealt with those contracts in the same way Van Morrison did.
When he found himself backed into a corner with no means to get out except by recording an album, Morrison opted to improvise a string of nonsense songs which he had no connection to. When you listen to the album The Authroized Bang Collection, you’re listening to the unhinged ramblings of a tired and frustrated Van Morrison. It’s weird to say the least.
‘Ring Worm’
“Well, you’ve got ring worm, you’ve got ring worm, you’ve got ring worm.”
Realistically, we could include every track from The Authorized Bang Collection on this album because it’s so weird, but that feels like it would be cheating somewhat. As such, this will be our last mention of the record.
While it is a slight cheat to include any more than one song from this LP in such a list, all you have to do is look at the above lyrics to understand where I’m coming from. You think an accomplished songwriter like Van Morrison is going to write a song about getting ringworm and I’m not going to mention it? Give me a break.
‘Double Blind’
“Nowadays you have to be careful of everything you say, but it’s all by design.”
Have you ever listened to Van Morrison’s 2021 album Latest Project Volume 1? If you ever want to be thrown back into the mosaic of rage and conspiracy that made up the majority of the pandemic, then treat yourself to a gander. It’s like a time capsule made to torment future generations, as one of the best songwriters of all time is reduced to radical rhyming ramblings.
For a man who has never been denied the right to say anything in his entire career, the line “Nowadays you have to be careful of everything you say” is incredibly comical. If only Morrison would think about what he said a little bit more. But no, he doesn’t, and the result is messy tracks like this.
‘Here Comes Dumb George’
“Here come dumb george, Boogaloo! Boogaloo baby, here come dumb George, here come dumb George, here come dumb George.”
Okay, one more from this album, I couldn’t resist. Look at those lyrics. Just look at them! The reason I made an exception for this track is that while it still plays into the nonsensical approach of the whole record, we can derive some kind of meaning from it.
This isn’t the only song that references a man called George on the album, as you also have ‘Dum Dum George’ and ‘Goodbye George’. In Van Morrison’s strange and improvised state, he drew on this name a lot, and many believe it’s a reference to the label’s producer and associate, George ‘Shadow’ Morton. Whether or not that’s true remains to be seen, but that doesn’t stop the lyrics from being all the more weird.
