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Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s
Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Easily among Van Morrison's least successful albums, Common One is probably also his least understood. Arriving in the wake of the far more concise, focused Into the Music, this 1980 project found Morrison making a sweeping left turn toward the open-ended, jazz-fueled vamps and spiritual questing of his impressionistic classic, Astral Weeks, 12 years earlier. The disc contains only six songs, several woefully uneven, and fans of his tautly constructed, soul-inflected '70s work could only scratch their heads, yet the heightened horn colorations and pre-industrial imagery of the opener, "In Haunts of Ancient Peace," are a signpost to Morrison's thematic preoccupations in the decade to follow. Even more seminal is "Summertime in England," which sets sail for the "Astral" plane and stays largely on course thanks to the horn section of Mark Isham and Pee Wee Ellis, and Morrison's own hallucinatory incantation to his bardic precursors. Without these brave journeys, Morrison's soul-searching '80s trips would have sounded far different. --Sam Sutherland
Product Description
Unavailable in the U.S.! 2008 digitally remastered and expanded edition of this album from the Rock icon featuring two bonus tracks: alternate takes of 'Haunt's Of Ancient Peace' and 'When Heart Is Open'. Originally released in 1980, Common One again baffled the critics with its meditative, Jazz-influenced spiritual style, helped by Mark Isham's atmospheric trumpet and Pee Wee Ellis on saxophone. At the heart of the album are two remarkable, 15-minute epics: 'Summertime in England', with its beautiful strings and stream-of-consciousness lyrics and 'When Heart Is Open', - with its subtle horns echoing Miles Davis's 'In a Silent Way', creating a serene, enthralling atmosphere. The album also features two of Van's most soulful tracks of the period: 'Wild Honey' and 'Satisfied'. Universal.
--This text refers to an alternate
Audio CD
edition.
Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My Personal Favorite CD Ever,
By
This review is from: Common One (Audio CD)
Not only is 'Common One' my favorite CD of Van the Man's more than three dozen original releases, for my time and money it's the greatest album of all time. I've listened to it thousands of times, and it kept getting better and better for the first several hundred. Now, it just holds steady at timeless greatness. There have been times in my life when I have laid on my floor, listening to it on headphones, tears streaming down my face at its beauty. For me, parts of this album are like getting a glimpse of God. It's not for everybody. Some people I've made tapes for from it haven't liked it, called it boring and overlong. But others have been just as deeply moved as I. It's certainly not the place to start for the conventional music listener trying to be introduced to Van Morrison. Begin with "Moondance," "Into the Music" or "Enlightenment" for that. Unique in its day and unique today, 'Common One' is just short of an hour long. Most of the songs are of slower tempo, several clock in at more than 15 minutes, and none are shorter than five. The lyrics are introspective and sometimes a little goofy, but the band (particularly sax man Pee Wee Ellis) is crackerjack and the singing is that of a soulful virtuoso. The horn break in "Satisfied" is the single greatest two minutes in music for me, ever. The way the epic "Summertime in England" repeatedly changes gears and conjures up images of everything from a sensual red robed lover to stoned British poets to a "suffering so fine" Jesus Christ is mesmerizing and captivating. The entire album is evocative and romantic, and Van's singing is at its best. It's not an album that will knock you out the first time, most likely, because its charms are subtle before they become profound. But 'Common One' has helped me through some hard times and made me appreciate the good ones even more. It's sustained my faith in God when I've had doubts. It has music that has reached into the very core of my soul and nurtured it, encouraged it, elevated it. There are very few creative works, in any field, that I would call transcendent. Even The Clash's relentlessly magnificent 'London Calling,' probably my 2nd favorite album ever, and a release that changed my life even more than 'Common One,' can't come close to the otherworldly pleasure I've drawn from this work of art. Again, it's not for everybody. If you're not on a certain wavelength (so to speak), you might think it's mostly a meandering, self-indulgent mess (though nobody I know has ever been able to turn their nose up at "Satisfied"). But you might also find it's a CD you'll keep playing for the rest of your life.
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Further Into the Mystic,
By MacTonite (Desolation Row) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Common One (Audio CD)
It may be blasphemy, but I like Common One more than Into the Music. Pee Wee Ellis and Mark Isham are given free reign to explore here, yet David Hayes and Peter van Hooke (one of Van's better rhythm sections) keep things grounded in the groove. Van himself is riveting. Electric Miles fans will dig "When Heart is Open", which hypnotically riffs over "It's About That Time/In a Silent Way". If you want to expand your horizons beyond "Brown-Eyed Girl" and "Domino", and find Van's outings from the last decade rather hollow and "phoned in", give Common One a try.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For the Hard Core Van Fans...,
By geller@littongcs.com (Santa Barbara) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Common One (Audio CD)
If Veedon Fleece is the best Van album (and I would argue it is), then "Summertime In England" from Common One, is possibly the best of all Van's songs. It is an intense song. I listen to it a couple times a year at the most. The vocals are unbelievable...and the lyrics are powerful. It is a mixture of suffering, and bliss. As Van puts it: 'high in the art of suffering....and the suffering so fine'. New fans should really listen to Veedon Fleece (for a couple years) before taking this last, and final step.
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