The Influence of Jack Kerouac on Van Morrison

Van reads On The Road.

It was exactly 100 years ago today on March 12, 1922, that one of the most influential writers of the 20^th century Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts USA. I am sure there will be lots of events in Lowell, all over the world, on the internet and in the media to mark this occasion. As my small contribution to celebrating Jack’s life I thought I would rewrite, revise, update and hopefully improve a little piece I wrote many years ago about the influence of Jack on Van Morrison because in my life Jack has been my favourite writer, and Van my favourite musician. I discovered the work of both around the same time, which would be about 1974. All through the 70s and 80s I would eagerly read Jack’s novels to see where his adventures on the road with Neal Cassady would take him next, with as much enjoyment as looking forward to seeing where Van’s next album would take him on his spiritual and musical quest. I think I identified with their work because it touched something in my Celtic soul, for they were both Celts as well. Although Jack was born to French-Canadian parents, he could trace his ancestors back to Brittany, Cornwall, and Ireland. Van as you know comes from an Irish-Scots Celtic lineage. For me, from a family from County Mayo in Ireland it was like being part of a Celtic triangle. 

Jack’s books stirred in me the same emotions as I found in Van’s music. They both seemed like mad Celtic mystical poets on a journey to try and make sense of this crazy world with all its sadness and beauty. They have both helped me realise that there is an underlying universal presence in our existence, and you can feel It, if only for a few fleeting moments at a time. I think Van was introduced to Jack’s books by one of his window cleaning pals, because as you know Van mentions Dharma Bums and On The Road in his song Cleaning Windows from 1982. I can imagine Van reading a dog-eared Giant Pan paperback copy of On The Road in his lunch break while eating a Paris bun and swigging lemonade. Later, in 1994 in his great song On Hyndford Street Van recalls reading The Dharma Bums ‘over and over again’. The Dharma Bums concerns Jack’s adventures into Zen Buddhism with Gary Snyder, and his efforts to achieve transcendence, which is something Van would certainly relate to because he has strived for transcendence through his music. In Buddhism, dharma is the universal truth common to all individuals. In Van’s song Stepping Out Queen he sings, ‘Well you go through the drama, And you work in the dharma’.  

Van has never lost his interest in Beat literature. Like Jack, Van loved the ‘fabulous white city of San Francisco on her eleven mystic hills, and goldenness in the late afternoon of time’. In 2018 he visited the Beat Museum in San Francisco, and has mentioned the Beat writers, City Lights bookshop, The Bay and North Beach in two of his best songs of recent years In Tiburon and Up On Broadway. ‘Across the bay in San Francisco, Where city lights and Ferlinghetti stay, North Beach alleyways and cafés, Kerouac and Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Neal Cassady all held sway’. Van must have been delighted when City Lights who published books by Jack and  other Beat writers published the American editions of his books of lyrics Lit Up Inside and Keep Er Lit.

One of my favourite passages in On The Road is when Dean and Sal (Jack & Neal) go to dig Slim Gaillard in a Frisco club. Slim takes it down so low you can hear the birds singing in the trees outside. Dean exclaims, “Sal, Slim knows time”. I have known Van do that. Even in the vastness of the Royal Albert Hall Van has brought the music down so low you could almost hear a pin drop. I was lucky enough to see Slim Gaillard myself in 1987. Two years later in 1989 Van and Slim collaborated in a BBC Arena documentary where Van read from On The Road and Slim played his bongos and recited. It was truly memorable. (See video below} Van and Jack both seem quite fond of certain words, such as Visions, Visions Of Cody, Visions Of Gerard, Childlike Vision, Beautiful Vision. Or Angels, Desolation Angels, Angel Of Imagination, Contacting My Angel. When Jack was only four years old his brother Gerard died aged nine from rheumatic fever. For the rest of his life Jack saw Gerard as his Holy Guardian Angel which is an image Van has often used as well. 

Jack admired and was influenced by James Joyce, as was Van. Jack often wrote in a Stream of consciousness style which was pure Joycean. Books such as Visions Of Cody almost read like Ulysses by Joyce. Many Van songs such as Take Me Back or albums like Astral Weeks could be described as stream of consciousness. Jack described this style as Spontaneous Bop Prosedy. Bop or Bebop as you probably know is a form of jazz music, and Jack and Van were both heavily into jazz. Van’s instruments include saxophone, guitar, harmonica, and piano. Jack played just one instrument The typewriter, which was holy as Allen Ginsberg said.. Wake Up was the title of a book by Jack about Buddhism. At the end of Van’s song Enlightenment he exclaims Wake Up! I bet he got that idea from Jack.

Van at the Beat Museum.

I could go on and on about Alan Watts and Rimbaud and lots of other links between Jack and Van, but I’m getting tired now at nearly old angel midnight.  It’s a long hard road daddio. I’ll try and bring this to a close. With both Jack and Van, it was always being Now because life is holy and every moment is precious and precious time is slipping away. Van and Jack are both Beat or Beatific. Well, it’s getting late, just a little, so I'll let Jack have the last word. 

The evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, .....The End.