Irish Mythen | Into the Mystic.

Van Morrison's Best Songs 1964-1967.

Yesterday afternoon my kitchen was filled with the sound of The Complete Them 1964-67 which is a 3-CD set that I bought in 2015. The reason for playing it was that I remembered that a few weeks ago I said I would write a piece about Van Morrison’s best songs of the 1960’s, (Pre-Astral Weeks) and then promptly forgot about it until yesterday. This set contains everything Them recorded, album tracks, singles, B-sides, demos, radio sessions and rarities., 69 tracks in all. I’m not going to attempt to talk about all of these songs, but I’ll tell you my favourites. 

There are four different versions of Here Comes The Night on these CDs. Written by Bert Berns,, it has to be one of my favourite songs of the Them era. I had a great time yesterday singing along with it and pretending to play the guitar. It came within a whisker of giving Van his only UK number one single when it reached number 2 in 1965. It was only the Rolling Stones that kept it off the top spot. I have shared a video below of Them performing at the NME Poll Winners Concert in 65. That historic performance is the only known footage of Them playing complete songs live. There are other Them videos, but the band are miming in those. 

I have to include Baby Please Don’t Go written by Joe Williams because it is a brilliant version of a great song, and it gave Them their first taste of success. Their management made a big mistake in my view because they put Gloria on the flip side. Gloria is a rock & roll classic and I’m sure if it was the A side it would have got to number one in the UK charts and established Them alongside The Stones and The Animals as one of the top R & B bands. It was also written by Van which would have made his name more widely known as an emerging songwriter. Another song which has the frenetic energy of punk rock 12 years ahead of its time, and some great harmonica playing is Mystic Eyes. A favourite song of mine is My Lonely Sad Eyes. I only started to realise what a great song it is after discovering the fabulous cover version by Maria McKee. 

A song that I also think should have been released as a single is Them’s version of Bob Dylan’s It’s All Over Now Baby Blue. It has to be one of the greatest covers of a Dylan song ever. In the sixties and seventies everybody was having hits with Dylan songs. The Byrds, Manfred Mann, Fairport Convention to name but three. Them should have done so as well. I must also mention Friday’s Child from the Them era which I also think is a great Van composition. If Them hadn’t kept changing their line-up every ten minutes and made wiser decisions I think they would be remembered as one of the greatest bands, but sadly by mid-1966 they had imploded.

I think some fans must see the post Them pre–Astral Weeks period as the wilderness years, but Van wrote and recorded some great songs during this time. Impatient with waiting for a record contract Van moved to the USA to be reunited with Janet Planet and signed a deal with Bert Berns and his Bang label. When you join a record company called Bang what could possibly go wrong? Van’s first album as a solo artist was called Blowin’ Your Mind!. Van didn’t even know that it was being released and when he saw the cover design, he almost threw up. Bert Berns released it to cash in on the success of Brown Eyed Girl which is one of the most perfect pop songs ever recorded and must have made Van’s name known to millions of people around the world. Due to the dodgy contract that Van hastily signed he never received the financial rewards that the song should have brought him. Just the royalties from that one song would have made him a millionaire many times over. However, I bet a lot of concert tickets have been sold over the years to people hoping to hear Brown Eyed Girl. 

Another song that I always like listening to, and think is almost as catchy as Brown Eyed Girl is Spanish Rose. Van is usually associated with R & B, Soul, Blues, and jazz influences, but he has written some great pop songs as well. I Love You (The Smile You Smile) is another very catchy song. By contrast, the blues influence T.B. Sheets is a harrowing, disturbing song about death and guilt. I don’t think anyone could write a song like this without it being quasi-autobiographical. Although I appreciate its greatness, sometimes I find it difficult to listen to. A song I do like from the Bang era which I think is one of Van’s most underrated is Joe Harper Saturday Morning. Lyrically I think it shows the direction he was taking towards Astral Weeks.

Finally, Van escaped from the nightmare of his contract with Bang and signed with Warner Brothers. One fateful late summer evening on 25 September,1968 he arrived at Century Sound Studios in New York to begin recording what was to become arguably the greatest album ever made. From the raw primitive sound of Them only three years before, Van had made a quantum leap to becoming one of the greatest solo artists in the world and now his career could really begin. So, what are my favourite ten Van recordings pre-Astral Weeks? I might change my mind tomorrow, but today I would say in reverse order.

10^th….Mystic Eyes.

9^th….Friday’s Child.

8^th….Spanish Rose.

7^th….Baby Please Don’t Go.

6^th….Joe Harper Saturday Morning.

5^th….My Lonely Sad Eyes.

4^th….Here Comes The Night.

3^rd….Gloria.

2^nd….It’s All Over Now Baby Blue.

In 1st place. Congratulations to BROWN EYED GIRL Van Morrison’s best song from 1964 to 1967.