Hymns to the Silence: Inside the Words and Music of Van Morrison Review

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Hymns to the Silence: Inside the Words and Music of Van Morrison ReviewHymns To The Silence; inside the words and music of Van Morrison by Peter Mills and published by Continuum is nearly 450 pages (no photos) of analysis of the soul. First of all, this is NOT a discography, you won't find track by track and guest musicians lists here. There's some interesting facts - such as "Bulbs" - that great R&B song that sort of sticks out of the "Veedon Fleece" album in a great, but weird way - was actually a song from a couple of years earlier, than Warner Brothers forced Van to include, because they didn't hear a `single' when Van turned the record in the first time. But mainly the `facts' are - what books and authors and traditional songs Van has borrowed from to write his classics.
There's much discussion of Van's vocal phrasing - for me, it's one of the things that makes Van great. The way that about 3/4ths of the way into "And It Stoned Me" - you can hear his voice rise and raise, take a major leap forward with passion - Van is really feeling it now.
The book is not written in any chronological order, but divided into sections that focus on specific things. The first chapter explores how much `America' has played into Van's persona - jazz, blues, country, and the myth of the west - sure Van settled in Boston and then Woodstock, but ultimately it was California and the Bay Area in particular where Van found some sort of `peace.' In fact when Astral Weeks was first released, 2/3rds of what that album sold, all sold within 100 miles of San Francisco, so it was obvious that the Bay Area "got his message."
The next chapter dives into Van's Irish heritage - and if anyone thinks that is simple, well then, explain to me in 50 words or less what are the religious, social, and political problems in Ireland over the past century? Other chapters; separate and divide Van as a songwriter, as a singer, as musician, as a performer - the difference between his live and studio performances.
At his best, Van's studio recordings are basically live - like "Summertime in England" - and Van continually reworks those epics - if you haven't experienced a 20 minute "Summertime" or a 15 minute "Cypress Avenue" - you haven't experienced Van. Towards the end of the book, Mills begins to take on specific songs and albums apart. Along the way, Mills peppers the text with a couple of one-off quotes from the Man himself (who of course has little to say about his own art) and in a couple of cases, he was able to get current and former Van sidemen to tell their story. Van, like Sinatra was, is notoriously guarded of his associates - if a Van connected musician talks to the press, he might find himself out of a job.
There are 18 pages on `Veedon Fleece" alone! By now you're getting worried, you're thinking is this some kind of academic blow-hard prose ala' Greil Marcus disastrous attempt last year to squeeze Van's creative juices into Marcus' pop culture aesthetic, where Marcus made lame attempts to compare Van's songs with the movie "The World According to Garp" and a `long jump record' set at the 1968 Olympics. No, it's not. Like Paul Williams' Dylan books, this book will not only inspire you, but force you to dig out your "Into the Music" LP and realize that "Full Force Gale" will certainly lift you up again. Read this book and the healing will begin.
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