Van Morrison’s New Double Album Shows Clearly that He is No Friend of the Totalitarian State

[Re: “Eric Clapton: ‘I can’t sleep because of the pain...the vaccine took my immune system and just shook it around.’”]

By Jerry PDX
thursday, february 16, 2023 at 1:42:00 p.m. est

Eric Clapton isn’t the only musical heavyweight to come out as anti-vaxx. Van Morrison dedicated his two latest albums to attacking vaccine hysteria, cancel culture, and critiquing the powers that be in general. Check out some of the titles from “Latest Record Project,” a double album he put out in 2021:


Title

“Where Have All the Rebels Gone?”

“Psychoanalysts’ Ball”

“No Good Deed Goes Unpunished”

“Tried to Do the Right Thing”

“The Long Con”

“Thank God for the Blues”

“Big Lie”

“It Hurts Me, too”

“Only a Song”

“Diabolic Pressure”

“Deadbeat Saturday Night”

“Blue Funk”

“Double Agent”

“Double Bind”

“Love Should Come With a Warning”

“Breaking the Spell”

“Up County Down”

“Duper’s Delight”

“My Time After a While”

“He’s Not the Kingpin”

“Mistaken Identity”

“Stop Bitching, Do Somethin’”

“Western Man”

“They Own the Media”

“Why Are You on facebook?”

“Jealousy”

As the titles suggest, the album is basically an attack on the media and government lies about covid and public apathy in general. The reaction has been mixed, some people praising him, but the woke crowd predictably condemned him with some calling him a “racist,” because they thought his lyrics about money and greed were suggestive of anti-semitism.

I am a big fan of Van Morrison, his pre-2000’s work, that is. As a rock songwriter, he’s a true genius that ranks up there with Dylan and Lennon/McCartney, but after the 2000’s he seemed to lose his ability to write a great song and has been putting out musically mediocre albums now for over 20 years. But his willingness to go against the big lie is commendable, even if his music isn’t what it used to be.

His followup to Latest Record Project is called “What’s It Gonna Take,” a title that means exactly what it sounds. He’s not talking in more typical songwriter metaphor that doesn’t say it directly, he’s putting it out there...What is it going to take for things to finally change?


“They Own the Media”




You can hear Latest Record Project here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rnbGuzHw_k&list=PLSBWvYm8t6ubruQoOlGj52TI2Yhd2g3Tw

“What’s it Gonna Take” is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpQQYN21ZOg&list=PLS3PXesolJdfHZfh8ChPNLmFi2d4M3rR0

Those two lps are interesting for Van taking a righteous political stance but if you want to experience his musical genius when it was at its peak, check out his greatest hits below. My personal favs are “Into the Music,” “Moondance,” and “No Guru, No Method, No Teacher,” but any album before 2000 is worthwhile to hear the greatest musical genius to come out of Ireland. No, Sinead O'Conner doesn’t qualify.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcqnbem3WxA&list=PLFFNtnPXBuQ15AEmqMHs-d_gSt2InPABA

N.S.: I spent three miserable summers—1979, 1980, and 1986—working in a tourist trap called Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. At different times in different restaurants, I was a pot washer (“Hobart Engineer”), waiter, prep cook and manager.

At one point in 1979, my stepmother asked me, “Why did you come here, Nicholas?” To which my old man replied, “To see his old man.”

Stepmom was a stunning, shapely, new England Yankee whose old man had (according to the old man) been a CIA agent, and in his retirement got a sinecure as a columnist at The Christian Science Monitor.

Stepmom believed that IQ was a function of height, and could not respect any man who was shorter than her. (She treated my big sister, who was then three inches taller than me, with the greatest respect. But if you ask my sister who’s smarter, she’ll say that I am.) Then why did she marry a man two inches shorter than her? And I was shorter than him. Meanwhile, he was insecure about his intelligence, and would start arguments with me about things like the meanings of words. Thus, she once complained, “Lou, why are you arguing with your stupid son?”


For rich kids, the Vineyard was a place to make lots of money and/or have lots of easy sex.

One time in 1979, I almost drowned. Some friends and I who had worked the early shift at a tourist trap called “The Harborside” in Edgartown—a pretty, shapely, blonde waitress who was only 17 or 18, and who, I believe, was about to lose her virginity; a long-haired, 20-something, blonde cook and pothead named Chris, who was a nice guy, but who couldn’t take kitchen pressure, and who was about to take the waitress’ virginity; and a fat little Hobart of about 12 years of age—rode out on our bikes to go swimming at a fresh-water lake.

We all went to a diving platform about 30 feet out, from where my friends dove, and swam down to the deep water. I told them, “I’ll be along.”

After a few minutes of hearing the blonde laughing hysterically with Chris, and seeing the fat little Hobart bobbing up and down like a life buoy, I jumped in and paddled along for about 30 seconds, whereupon, I remembered, “I don’t know how to swim!”

I made a u-turn, splashed the water furiously for an indeterminate length of time, and made it back to the platform, where I lay, sucking wind for the better part of an hour, before heading home.

My “friends” never called out to me then, or later asked what had happened.

In any event, the following two Van Morrison records were unofficial anthems on the Vineyard.


“Moondance” (prime Morrison, 1970s, 2013 Remaster)




“Brown Eyed Girl” (prime Morrison, 1970s)