Here Comes the Man

"Well, they told me to come on over


I made my way to New York


And they tried to have me deported


Stop me from getting work


Blacklisted me all over


They were vicious and they were mean


They were big time operators


Baby, on the music business scene."

- Van Morrison, "Big Time Operators"

It is well documented that Bing Crosby was a ferocious father who beat his sons and enstilled years of depression into his entire family. Yet every December, hundreds of thousands of Americans put on White Christmas and lose themselves in the magic of the season to Crosby's swooning voice "roasting chestnuts" and "dreaming of a white Christmas." It is safe to say that many are completely oblivious to the fact that Crosby liked to use his sons like a chain-hung Everlast bag. I ask you then, do people really care about the man behind the music? Especially when the music is so good?

Thursday was St. Patrick's Day and BreakThru Radio has dedicated all things this week to the Emerald Isle. To do my part, I want to try to expose the truth behind a rumor regarding an Irish musician that only some of you young listeners may have heard, few of you may actually know more than a few songs by, and most of you probably won't have a clue who I am talking about: Van Morrison. (I realize I am not giving BTR's listeners much credit here. My editor already scolded me, and in all fairness, he is right to do so. I just find it infuriating when people find out I am a huge Van Morrison fan and start whistling the melody to "Brown Eyed Girl". It's like thinking The Beatles stopped recording after "Love Me Do".) Here is what one music blogger has to say about 'Van the Man': "Van Morrison is a cantankerous, paranoid asshole who thinks everyone is stealing his ideas." Okay, that is pretty much to the point; but is it true? Well, as a staunch Van Morrison fan of over 15 years, owner of 33 Van albums, three DVDs, having read two biographies on the man, and seeing him perform over five times, I can pretty much confirm that from everything I have seen and learned--yep, the guy is a real Irish prick!

But who cares?

Like so many great artists before him, Van Morrison is a victim of being identified with only one or two pieces of his work--most commonly "Brown Eyed Girl" and then maybe "Gloria" or "Moondance", or perhaps "Baby Please Don't Go" (which, ironically enough, is a song he did not even write but adapted from American bluesman, John

Lee Hooker). Understandably, Morrison gets very annoyed at the banal expectations of his more pedestrian fans to perform those specific 'hits' from fifty years ago. I was once at one show in Toronto where Van opened up with "Tupelo Honey" and immediately followed, without break, into "Brown Eyed Girl." Knowing these Morrison-identifiers are usually saved for the encore, I was both shocked and pleased at his decision to get the crap out so early. When "Brown Eyed Girl" ended, Van looked aimlessly to the side of the stage, took a sip from a nearby glass, and announced something to the effect of: "Now that we got that shit outta the way, we can get on with the real show." Half the audience cheered as the rest sat dumbfounded, understanding neither the man's accent nor the truthful pleasure in his jest.

(Interluding anecdote: The song "Brown Eyed Girl" was originally written, recorded and titled as "Brown-Skinned Girl" by Van Morrison in March of 1966. Morrison begrudgingly had to change the lyrics because of the implied content. The song, "an exuberant combination of R&B and pop with a nostalgic lyric celebrating the euphoria of young love,"[1] was a little too risqué of a topic [inter-racial relations] for 1966 and Morrison lost his will to fight Producer Bert Berns' insistence on "radio playability.")

Van Morrison's attitude towards life and his music is a combination of his own eccentricity and abuse at the hands of the industry. For an only child growing up in the civil unrest of Belfast during the middle decades of the twentieth century, Van had an astonishing talent and obsession for American music (specifically the Delta Blues). He became insistent on 'making it in America' after breaking from his founding band, Them (who were known for their macho and pugnacious attitude towards the burgeoning 'pop' industry) because of their less-than-shared vision of musical competence.

In 1966, Van made the move to New York City where he was quickly picked up by Producer Berns of Bang Records (a partner of Atlantic). As a ruthless businessman eager to feed off the new Irish talent behind Them's success, Burns quickly recorded Van's new single and soon-to-be US Top 10 hit "Brown Eyed Girl" (1966). Upon arriving in New York, Morrison recorded a number of singles for Berns who robbed him of the royalties through a deceptive contract and sent him packing back to Ireland flat broke. Even worse, Berns coerced Morrison into signing a "five-year publishing deal for a non-recoupable advance of $500." It was a deal Morrison would never emotionally recover from, later describing the arrangement as "professional suicide."[1]

Already fragile because of his extraordinary quirkiness and lack of social skills, Morrison's opinion of the music industry was ruined for life, and with good cause. What makes Morrison so admirable is the way in which he channeled that anger and hatred into fifty years of amazing albums. Watch this video, recorded in Canada in 2008, to get a sense of Morrison's continued disdain for "the record industry" still, forty-four years later:

It is a fair statement to presume that anyone who is a serious Van Morrison fan is most likely aware of his reputation around the industry; both within musician circles and fans alike. A review of one of Morrison's more recent unauthorized biographies, (one I have not read) titled Can You Feel the Silence (2003), remarks how the biographer "makes no bones" about Morrison's "even-handed manner," claiming that "Morrison may have made much more great music than bad, but it always comes with the caveat that Van the Man is essentially difficult and nasty." Biographer Clinton Heylin immediately sets the tone to his book, opening with a Morrison quote on himself; "'Hello darlin', I never said I was a nice guy.'" Yet, the response I usually like to give to the one in one hundred people who know Van's legendary temper is, "Who cares? Do you know anything about his music beyond five popular songs from the Sixties? The man is a musical genius."

Sir Harold Nicolson, the British writer, diplomat, and politician, once said of the Irish: "The Irish do not want anyone to wish them well; they want everyone to wish their enemies ill." This may be what best sums up Van Morrison: a young Irish musician burned early on in the ugly corporate world of American record labels who is unlikely to forgive and certain to never forget. Again, though, I ask: "Who cares?"

Van Morrison is a man about music and can do without the rest of the bullshit. In one interview, he remarked how image, identity, and name mean nothing. "Can you play?" is all he asks of anyone. In Van's world, either you can or you can't. That's it. No questions asked. The circus of frenzy that attaches itself to the music industry is what makes Morrison so miserable, and in return, so crass.

'Just shut up and play,' is his mantra. And everything from the breaking down of his songs to an attempt to understand the motive behind each metaphor inflates irritation. Van Morrison will be the first to tell anyone that nothing else matters but the music:

"'No, no, no, because, it's not about me,' Morrison said with a vehemence that didn't sound defensive--as his denials, of anything, so often do. 'It's totally fictional. These are short stories, in musical form--put together of composites, of conversations I heard, things I saw, and movies, newspapers, books, and comes out as stories. That's it,' he said, though already his tone had shifted to that of utter wonder that people won't accept this. 'There's no more.'"[3]

[1] Rogan, Johnny. Van Morrison: No Surrender (London: Vintage Books, 2006) Pg. 199.
[2] ibid.
[3]Marcus, Greil. When That Rough Goes Riding (New York: Public Affairs, 2010) Pg. 140.