The Angry Young Them.

Today I thought I would revisit the very first album which Van Morrison made which is called The Angry Young Them from 1965 when he was in the group called Them. The title of the album is a play on words of  The Angry Young Men, a term applied to a group of working class British writers and playwrights of the late 50's and early sixties. They included such people as John Osbourne who wrote Look Back In Anger, Harold Pinter, John Braine, Alan Sillitoe, Arnold Wesker, Colin Wilson,and others.  Shelagh Delaney who wrote A Taste Of Honey is also associated with these writers. I think Them's manager Philip Solomon chose that name for the album to give Them a gritty hard image. I don't think they were particularly angry in a political sense but they could be quite confrontational in interviews.

The first song is Mystic Eyes. It must have been quite an experience for music fans at the Maritime Hotel in Belfast to have seen this song performed live. I think originally it was seven minutes long and evolved from a jam session in the studio with Van making the words up on the spur of the moment. The word mystic was to figure large in his subsequent career. The next track If You And I Could Be As Two opens with Van's spoken voice talking about autumn leaves being on the ground. This is another image that would crop up again much later in his career. Then it is Little Girl which is about watching a school girl on her way to school, which might not be acceptable these days, but you have to remember that Van was only a teenager himself when he wrote this song. It features the late great Pete Bardens on keyboards. He would re-emerge 13 years later on Vans Wavelength album. Pete was the only member of Them apart from Van to achieve huge success when he formed the band Camel and made the Snowgoose album. Just A Little Bit features  saxophone and keyboards and throaty vocals by Van. It was written by Rosco Gordon in 1959. I Gave My Love A Diamond' written by Bert Berns and Wes Farrell is next and Bert  played a major part in Vans future career. This is a great example of the British R & B sound of the sixties. Gloria is next, one of the greatest rock songs ever written. It brings Van's concerts to a rousing finale to this very day. You Just Can't Win is penned by Van and mentions his London haunts such as Camden Town and the Tottenham Court Road.

Go On Home Baby is another Berns/Farrell composition and Van sounds very much like Mick Jagger.  Don't Look Back  is a John Lee Hooker song that Van would continue to perform later in his career. I Like It Like That is a Van song and one of his lesser ones from this era in my opinion. I'm Gonna Dress In Black follows and this has quite an Animals sound to me. The keyboards remind me of Alan Price on House Of The Rising Sun. According to Wikipedia it was written by Gillon and Howe. I don't think i have heard the song by anybody else so  assume it is a Them original. Bright Lights/Big City was written by Jimmy Reed in 1961 and was also recorded by The Animals. My Little Baby' is the third Berns/Farrell song on the album. Get Your Kicks On Route 66 brings the album to a close.This Bobby Troup song was performed by nearly every band in the 60's,most famously by the Stones and Van still sings it occasionally when he is in the mood.

I think it is a shame that Them never made a live album when these songs could have been really stretched out and displayed the raw energy of this band. A year later Van would leave Them and begin his solo career. Who would have thought only three short years after this album came out that Van would enter a New York recording studio to make one the greatest albums of all time Astral Weeks.