The Pastoral Symphony Gone Mystical

Van Morrison’s 1968 album Astral Weeks has been among my favorite records for several years now. I’ve written about it once before, but I gave it a spin the other night and was inspired to write about it again. It’s one of those albums that offer a little something new every time you listen to it.

The opening track, “Astral Weeks,” is my favorite. I don’t know that a more mystically serene song has ever been recorded. Where to start—

Let’s start with the instrumentation: guitar, double bass, flute, vibraphone, and strings. The plucked bass provides an understated, bouncy energy, playing syncopated rhythms under the steady eighth note strumming of the acoustic guitar. But it’s hard to describe the effect of this song’s orchestration in technical fashion. The overall effect seems very natural—i.e. of nature—to me. It’s as if you recorded the sounds of an idyllic, pastoral scene, at sunrise or sunset or some other clichéd moment, and somehow transcribed them for this small collection of instruments. A modern-day “Pastoral” Symphony.

In this scene, Van Morrison plays the shaman, voice swirling in the center, pulling nature’s energies towards him as the song approaches its gentle climax, pulling you into it. And then his incantations gradually grow softer, finally reaching a whisper as the song fades away into the afterglow. Most of the lyrics don’t seem to make any logical sense. But Van ends every chorus with the words “to be born again,” and these words just seem to fit. It is a song of rebirth. And the song fades away in such gradual fashion that it allows you to come back down into reality with an easy landing.

Well, this got a bit weird. What can I say, it’s a song that’s hard to describe in anything other than a pseudo-spiritual way. Additionally, it’s one of the best recordings ever made. You heard it here.

Van Morrison – Astral Weeks (YSI) (filesavr)