Van Morrison, Keep It Simple, Revisited.

There wasn’t anything on the telly worth watching for me last night, so I was listening to music. I haven’t played much Van Morrison recently and didn’t buy two of his last three albums, but I still think he has the finest back catalogue of anyone in popular music. I put on Keep It Simple from 2008. This is what I said about it at the time it was released.....‘My copy of Keep It Simple arrived and I eagerly opened the package. The cover of the CD was blue showing that it’s a blues influenced album like Veedon Fleece is a green showing Irish influence. The album opens with How Can A Poor Boy which I thought was a bit boring in the same way that Going Down Geneva was quite a disappointing opening track on the Back On Top album. The religious imagery reminded me a bit of They Sold Me Out on Magic Time. School Of Hard Knocks I didn't care for either although the song is livened up by the guitar of Mick Green. 

The next track Entrainment is a vast improvement. The band was stripped back to just four with Van playing ukulele, an instrument mostly associated in Britain with George Formby who partially inspired Van's song Cleaning Windows. Van said of the track, "Entrainment is when you connect with the music. Entrainment is really what I'm getting at in the music. It's kind of when you're in the present moment - you're here - with no past or future." Don't Go To Night Clubs Any More is derived from Duke Ellington's Don't Get Out Much Any More Van doffed his hat to Duke in another song in recent years when he mentioned It Don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. Mose Allison and Georgie Fame get a mention and John Allair plays some great organ. 

Lover Come Back is much better with a sort of 50's feel to it, reminding me a bit of some of the songs on The Healing Game. The intro sounds quite haunting. Cindy Cashdollar plays on this track as opposed to Sarah Jory on steel guitar which suggests to me that the album was recorded in various locations when Van had spare time between gigs. The clickity clack of the train is reminiscent of the clicking clacking of the high heeled shoes, harking back to Astral Weeks again. The title track Keep It Simple is great. It is stripped down to keep it simple with just five players including Van on his ukelele and Geriant Watkins on accordion. When Van sings 'You gotta keep it simple and that's that' reminds me of when he used to say ‘It ain't why it just is'. I also really liked End Of The Land which featured some nice organ and guitar and is quite Dylanesque. I wish this song was longer. I thought maybe in concert he would stretch it out a bit but it never happened. Van's songs always grow and take on new life when sung live. Little Village was a good example of this. I'm still not sure if I like Song Of Home. This featured Sarah on Banjo, and the lyrics are quite banal. It is quite catchy though. No Thing is my least favourite song on the album. Soul in contrast is very positive and uplifting. 

The best is saved till last, Behind The Ritual is a Van classic. (See video below) I did wonder where Van met Sally in the alley and a friend of mine told me that Sneaking Sally Through The Alley is an Allan Toussaint song that Lee Dorsey recorded. When Van says that behind the ritual of the drinking there is the spiritual reminds me of going to the pub with my friends for happy hour and we sit out the back and talk a lot of old nonsense and blah blah blah. In the lyrics Van sings, ‘Spin and turning in the alley, spin and turning in the alley. Like a Whirling Dervish in the alley, drinking that wine’. Dervishes are part of a peaceful Islamic sect called the Sufis. You might have heard of the great Sufi poet Rumi. He wrote poems about drinking wine which are often understood as an allegory of a Sufi yearning for union with God.  Perhaps Van read Rumi and that’s what he means by ‘Behind the ritual is the spiritual’.  Whatever Van meant, I think Behind The Ritual is one of his best songs of this millennium and although Keep It Simple isn’t one of his greatest albums by any means I think it stands up very well indeed against some of his more recent offerings.