Today I have been trying to not dwell on the dreadful news from Ukraine. Hopefully the situation won’t be as bad as we fear. I have been listening to Van Morrison to feel spiritually uplifted by some great music. I have been going through his recordings since 2000 and choosing my favourite songs. It passes the time on a grim day like this. I think Van got off to quite a bad start to this millennium when he released You Win Again with Linda Gail Lewis in 2000. Although it has its moments, I don’t think there is a single song from that album that I would put in my top twenty songs. Down The Road from 2002 was a vast improvement, maybe a bit uneven, but containing some excellent songs. My favourite track is definitely Fast Train.
What’s Wrong With This Picture? From 2003 is one of Van’s lesser albums in my opinion, but it does include Little Village which is a classic, especially when performed live. I think that Magic Time from 2005 is arguably Van’s finest album of this millennium and I would include Stranded, Celtic New Year and Just Like Greta in my top twenty. Pay The Devil is Van’s very enjoyable Country album from 2006. It is nearly all cover versions and I like most of them, but I think only Till I Gain Control Again written by Rodney Crowell deserves to be on this list. There are several very worthy songs on the 2008 album Keep It Simple and I think the title song and Behind The Ritual are qualified to be included. It was to be four years until the next studio album Born To Sing, No Plan B and a lot of fans were disappointed. It’s hard for me to decide on a favourite track, but I think I’ll choose Retreat And View.
Duets, Re-Working The Catalogue came out in 2015 and contained some great collaborations with other artists. I think Carrying A Torch with Claire Teal is my favourite because of seeing them perform it live on a couple of occasions. Keep Me Singing from 2016 is one of Van’s best of recent years and Memory Lane, Holy Guardian Angel and In Tiburon are my favourite songs on this album. I hated the cover of 2017s Roll With The Punches, but it contains some great songs, of which Transformation is a personal favourite. I don’t think I would include any songs from Versatile or You’re Driving Me Crazy both from 2018, but I would include Ain’t Gonna Moan No More and Spirit Will Provide from The Prophet Speaks, also from Van’s busy year of 2018.
Three Chords And The Truth in 2019 was almost as good an album as Keep Me Singing in my opinion, and I would include Dark Night Of The Soul and Up On Broadway on my list. Finally, Latest Record Project Vol 1 was a very controversial release in 2021, but although I think this album is too long there are some great songs of which personally, I think Psychoanalysts Ball and Dupers Delight deserve to be included.
I bet I have overlooked some great songs, and tomorrow I
might think, “Oh no, why didn’t I include ….”. Never mind, I only did it to
cheer myself up. So, what do I think are Van’s top 5 songs of this millennium?
I would put them in this reverse order-
In 5th place…Just Like Greta.
In 4th place… Little Village
In 3rd place… Memory Lane
In 2nd place… Behind The Ritual
In 1st place… Congratulations to Celtic New Year.! Van's best song of the millennium.
4 comments:
Without any doubt, I totally agree with you in "Celtic New Year" like best song of 2000's.
The rest of my top ten is "Memory Lane", "Out In The Cold Again", "Dark Night Of The Soul","Stranded", "Holy Guardian Angel", "Fast Train","Blue And Green", "March Winds In February" and "Little Village". Enough coincidence.
Nevertheless, only the first six songs is it so in my one hundred top.
Thanks, Pat by a great, great list and, of course, the blog.
Hi Carneham,
Thank you very much for your feedback. I'm glad we agree on a lot of the songs.
All the best,
Pat.
I was so glad to come across this as I have been listening to a lot of Van's more recent albums and pondering the same question. I agree with most of your choices and have saved them as a playlist. The additions I would like to include are "Every time I See a River", "Fame Will Eat the Soul" and "Tried To Do The Right Thing" but not sure what I would drop if I could only have 20. I love reading your blog, please keep it up!
Hi Teignmouth Fan,
It's great to hear from you again. Thanks for reading my blog and leaving comments.I'm glad we agree on most of the songs. I might do Van's best songs of other decades soon, on days when I can't think of anything else to write about.
All the best
Pat.
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