Poem: In My Dreams Van Morrison Is Dead And That Doesn’t Make Me A Good Person But My Dreams Have A Wonderful Soundtrack
Just a silly fantasy...
Just lately, I’ve started fantasising about the idea that in a parallel universe, Van Morrison blew his brains out in 1980. He had just released 1979’s Into The Music, and 1980’s Common One would be the first posthumous release in August of that sad, sad year. We’d get 1982’s Beautiful Vision and no more. No cruise-ship jazz-lite, no songs about vaccines and Facebook, no collaborations with Eric Clapton. Just 15 years of magic. The man singing in his own language just after inventing it. Those big bellows of Caledonian soul music, and that deep soul-cry that searches for a home outside the metre of most music but nestles into the bosom of his ideal of rhythm and blues.
Bigger than Dylan, better than Lennon, fewer faux-pas than Stevie Wonder or Joni Mitchell or Willie Nelson. And only a few complaints of him being rude backstage, and a tricky interviewee. Big deal. We would have all that glorious music. And the sadness of there being no more. No chance to fall from grace, to stumble down the rails, to rail against the world without ever acknowledging the privilege of his position.
Van Morrison. Dead at 35. He blew minds. And we miss him.
I want this. I want this more than any “Comeback”. I want him to have died in a fire, or by his own hand. I want only the best from him. And none of the worst. And this is not my finest moment. I know that. This is not my Veedon Fleece. This is not my Astral Weeks. This is Too Long In Exile. This is Days Like This
Hey, It’s Too Late To Stop Now…