Word: morrisons
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Even Bob Dylan, Morrison's only serious rival as a prickly, personal songwriter, has enjoyed bouts of superstardom during his perpetual period of transition. Morrison, whether singing on the bright side of the road or deep from the heart of his dark and beautiful vision, does not hold out a helping hand to an audience. Reaching down into himself seems more important to him than reaching...
...extends himself only to express himself. Alone among rock's great figures -- and even in that company he is one of the greatest -- Morrison is adamantly inward. And unique. Although he freely crosses musical boundaries -- R. and B., Celtic melodies, jazz, rave-up rock, hymns, down-and-dirty blues -- he can unfailingly be found in the same strange place: on his own wavelength...
...anyone interested in getting serious about Morrison (no casual listeners need apply), his new set can be heartily recommended as a good way to start an obsession. Hymns focuses and redefines Morrison's themes over his long career, rather like a museum retrospective already in progress. It dips deep into autobiography, spiritual speculation and blues mythology for its themes...
There are moments when Morrison can inflect a lyric like Mose Allison, other times when he can spin out a blues line like John Lee Hooker. It's a daft and reckless mix, but Morrison makes it work through sheer force of spirit, what he once called, in a memorable song, the "inarticulate speech of the heart." His rhythms are irresistible, his lyrics like an amalgam of Yeats, Kerouac and Chuck Berry. The Irish tenor John McCormack said what distinguishes an important voice from a good one is the indescribable but crucial quality that he termed "the yarrrrragh." The yarrrrragh...
...hear Morrison courting this muse in the Pentecostal growls and incantations of Listen to the Lion on his 1972 album Saint Dominic's Preview, or personifying it on his new album in Village Idiot, whose protagonist "wears his overcoat in the summer/ And short sleeves in the winter time" but who is nourished by some secret spiritual serenity: "Don't you know he's onto something . . . / Sometimes he looks so happy/ As he goes strolling...