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| Astral Weeks | 
 enlarge | Artist: Van Morrison
Label: Warner Bros / Wea
Category: Music
List Price: $11.98
Buy New: $7.27
You Save: $4.71 (39%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $5.93
Avg. Customer Rating:  (245 reviews)
Sales Rank: 981
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.9 x 0.5
MPN: 1768
UPC: 075992717625
EAN: 0075992717625
ASIN: B000002KAT
Release Date: October 25, 1990
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Ah, some of the astral-Celtic sound June 5, 2008
It's hard to think of Van as an introverted mystic, but this is where it all started. Yea, he had a first life as a Belfast bluesman and some time on Bang records when he produced one of the great pop singles of all timee, but this documents Van's summer of guitar. If you don't study this album, you're not a Van fan. As a matter of fact, find it on vinyl and digest it in twenty minute doses of mysticism.
Essential.
 Beautiful, Soothing, Soaring, Healing May 18, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
A friend recommended this to me, knowing I was Irish, a Dylan fan, and contemptuous of contemporary popular music. So I bought it, half expecting the radio Van Morrison of "Brown Eyed Girl", "Moondance", "And It Stoned Me", "Crazy Love", "Domino", "Wild Night".
And at first I hated it.
I hated jazz and I hated hippies too. I was much more in tune with Shane McGowan's punk rock sensibilities than Van's bittersweet reveries. There were moments of the title track I could get and I thought "Sweet Thing" was a nice song. But that was it. The repititions were driving me crazy. After the eighth or ninth "dry your eye for Madame George" I said, "to hell with you, Van" and took the CD out of the player.
The CD gathered dust on my shelf for a while. I don't remember why or when I started listening again. I just know that I was listening at a dark period in my life. I was homesick, there was a failed romance that had me heartbroken, there was the death of a friend at a young age by his own hand. There was too much of the drink and the drink was actually making me feel worse instead of the way it used to make me feel. In short, I wasn't ready for adulthood but adulthood was at the door, whether I was ready or not.
There's a part in the song "Astral Weeks"
"Could you find me,
would you kiss my eyes
and lay me down
in silence easy
to be born again"
that reminded me of the way I'd been with the girl I was still pining over, my first real love. And that part of the song to this day still gets me near to weeping. Well, misty eyed at least. In black and white it doesn't quite get it all, Van's voice, that lovely bass playing, the vibes, the strings, the quiet, gentle guitar. At the time I thought I was torturing myself with it, listening to it over and over again and when he'd say those words I'd think of lying with her and holding and kissing her and remembering that that was over now. I thought I was torturing myself with the song, but in a way I was healing myself as well. I needed to feel that pain. I needed somebody to put that into words and music and Van had done that.
I started "really listening" to the rest of the album as well. Van's voice of course, and as a guitarist myself I'm always interested in good guitar playing. But I think it was when I finally began to listen for the bass lines that I really began to appreciate just how beautiful the music on this CD is. I almost never listen to the bass in bands . The only other bassist I can think of who is that important to a band's sound is John Entwhistle of the Who, and this bass player is the exact opposite of Entwhistle. Entwhistle sounds like a jet engine roaring past your ear. Richard Davis on the other hand is playing accoustic the entire CD. But there is just something so delicate, fluid and expressive about his bass lines. Richard Davis is the unsung hero of this album. People forget him because Van is up there front and center with his voice, guitar and words, but without Richard Davis, "Astral Weeks" isn't "Astral Weeks."
Somewhere along the line I began to "get" Madame George as well. I finally figured out that the song was about a lonely old drag queen, who likes to play dominoes, get high, and listen to music with a bunch of young boys, and they're willing to hang out with him as long as he sends them to the shops for cigarettes with a little of his money and lets them listen to his records and get high on whatever the hell it is he drops out the window. I'm not sure if the cops really are coming through the door for him or if it's just paranoia, but the cops are mentioned. One can imagine what Lou Reed or Nick Cave might have done with the setup. But Van's song is about a glance. When the narrator, another school kid, glances into the eyes of "Madame George" and suddenly realizes that this is a person, a human being not a monster, not a freak. And he has to leave and never come back. In black print on a white page, it sounds sordid and depressing, I realize, but on the CD you have Van's haunting voice and the music and it's beautiful somehow. Transcendant somehow. Transcendant enough to make an avowed hippy-hater use the word transcendant and mean it. I can't really explain it, you'll have to feel it yourself to understand.
I think what this CD is about is leaving home, and leaving childhood.
And looking back at it ALL --- the beauty, the love, the pain, the joy, the sadness, the ugliness, the horror. And loving it all. And missing it all. And saying goodbye to it all and not getting trapped there, but still remembering, even though it hurts so much sometimes.
Then again, maybe the CD isn't about any of that at all, but that's what it's about to me.
Highly recommended to those of you out there who "ain't nothing but a stranger in this world."
Peace be with you.
A poet sings May 18, 2008
First the LP then the CD, now the upload. The music remains relevant and compelling.
When Amazon put this album download on sale for under$2, I could not resist.
A premier masterwork March 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It was 1977. My brother bought me this album (on vinyl) for Christmas. Just sort of...of the cuff.
It changed my world. This was not nostalgia. I didn't even think about the release date. I dropped the needle and there it was. Perfection. Whatever that is.
This record will change your life.
An album you live in and experience February 8, 2008
I almost don't want to explore any of Van's other work because of the one-two knockout of this and Moondance. They perfectly compliment each other and show a musician and songwriter moving from one style to another and remaining distinctive. Most of the songs are pondering, winding, elegant, and slow. The only song that isn't is "the way young lovers do." It's a short tracklist with a number of long songs, but if you have the patience to actually listen to the music and live with it, you'll see that it's all beautiful with great songs, no filler, no fair, or even decent songs, just great ones. They also aren't songs (largely) of the radio variety so it may take some time to appreciate if you aren't into stuff this speed (uhum uhum, new york dolls?) This album isn't full of pop songs, so for that you can go somewhere else, but for those who can see the obvious value in it, will an album that's much more rewarding than many pop masterpieces.
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