Van Morrison named the era when good music died: “Haven’t heard any”
Most people have their own opinion on when music stopped being good. For Van Morrison, finding inspiration becomes harder the further you venture away from one specific era.
When Don McLean referred to “the day the music died” in ‘American Pie’, he was talking about the events that unfolded in 1959. However, people have since had their own views on when music stopped being good, using the phrase “the day the music died” as a loose term for the specific moment in time when things took a turn for the worse.
For some, nothing good came after the counterculture movement of the 1960s. And with names in the mix like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, The Kinks, The Doors, and so on, it’s no wonder that people still regard it as the golden age of music. For others, on the other hand, the 1970s were when things kicked up a notch, with bands like Fleetwood Mac, Blondie, Talking Heads, and many others signalling a new era where it was all about new wave genre-blending in rock.
When we think of the day the music died – the real one, in 1959 – it’s sometimes about the cultural events around the tragedy and in the build-up that linger the most. And it’s the same with many so-called “best” eras of music, with names so crucial to the landscape of music that, without them, greatness simply can’t exist. Of course, when we look at that specific occurrence, it’s with regard to Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and The Big Bopper.
But it’s also a culmination of other factors that make it one of the most significant moments in history, like how some believe it sparked the beginnings of the British invasion, with many British acts following suit into what others regard as the greatest era for music. It’s similar for most other legendary acts who went on to influence an entire generation of musicians – their waning impact (or passing) isn’t the singular event of the death of music itself, but the ways their pinnacle will never be achieved by another living soul.
For Van Morrison, this person was John Lee Hooker, the otherworldly guitarist that Tom Petty and countless others saw as “transcendental”. Whenever he’s in need of inspiration, the jazz musician always brings him back from the threshold of despair. Beyond that, Morrison once said that he believed that good music generally dwindled after the 1970s, because nothing gave him that same sense of awe in the same way, pushing him back into the cycle of listening to the things he already knew.
As he admitted to Paul Du Noyer in 1997, “I find I have to keep going back, because I don’t find the same sort of…I haven’t heard any music for a long time that’s been as inspiring. I think in every field there hasn’t been anything new from maybe the ’70s. In jazz as well.”
He went on, “I have to keep going back to find inspiration. I just go back to the blues. Mainly that. […] The whole thing is non-intellectual. It resonates, you know? That’s all I can put it down to. It’s soul music, or whatever.”
