(From 6/5/2019) Van Morrison recorded this song with The Chieftans in 1995. This version appeared on the group’s album The Long Black Veil and earned a Grammy for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
For many years I thought this was just a typical, nice love song. Then someone told me to listen closer to the lyrics and I’d hear that it’s actually about Morrison’s love for God.
I did listen again – often – but still wasn’t too sure so I rooted around a bit further. When asked about the topic in a 2009 Q&A in Time magazine, Morrison said, “Religion is a kind of word game. It’s whatever it means to those individuals who are following that belief system. If you say something has got spirit or “I feel the spirit”, to me that would be more appropriate – spirit in the Aristotelian sense, that the mind and body and spirit are one thing. Which is different from religion.”
So I’m gonna go with that…
Reminder… You can click in the lower right of a YouTube video to make it full screen. Also, you can use the Posts menu item to filter news posts to a specific category – e.g. Music Videos – to just show those. Enjoy!
