Customer Reviews

When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is a strange, but ultimately very rewarding, extended meditation on listening to Van Morrison. My take on the book is that Marcus is not at all interested in writing a standard critical overview of Morrison's career, and it is mercifully not the "New Biography" treatment Van so rightly fears and detests. This book ignores chronology and completely upends the standard critical take on the Van Morrison discography (Marcus dismisses as completely worthless a full fifteen of the albums he considers). Instead, it is a book about a rarely glimpsed, alternate, and far more complex and forbidding, Van Morrison that may well be a creature of Marcus's own imagining. This Van Morrison is on a quest for moments of musical transcendence of a very specific sort; a kind of transcendence that is least likely to occur when Morrison is actually singing about transcendence in a more obvious way (hence the worthlessness of most of the 80s and 90s albums). For Marcus, the albums Astral Weeks, St. Dominic's Preview, The Healing Game, Into the Music, and Veedon Fleece, along with some scattered gems from Morrison's band Them, are most successful at delivering what the Van Morrison he hears (or would like to hear) can accomplish at his best. Though the judgments Marcus makes often seem highly idiosyncratic, it is nevertheless abundantly clear that he is writing from a lifetime of deep engagement with Morrison's music. That is what, on my view, makes this book well worth reading. The overall result of reading the book for me was to return to the music. And I have to admit that Marcus is definitely on to something in his refusal to follow the usual critical narrative on Morrison. The albums and songs highlighted here do seem to have a depth and resonance alongside which Morrison's more pedestrian output seems to pale in comparison.

Cranky is as cranky does, and that, more than anything, is as close as you'll ever get to assessing the directions of Van Morrison. On a good day, Van grouses in his music about something, on a bad day about everything. And that's OK, because amid all the malcontented ramblings, there's an artist who can sweep you away and fill you with a sense of, well, you know.
Marcus writes impressionistically about his love for and frustration with Morrison. And as some other reviews have noted, he'd have been well served with an editor who knew the music as well. So it goes. I would agree that there are very definite lines of sheer genious and rapturous inspiration and that the seeds of that are in Madame George. I would also agree that Van hits some dry patches where his Muse has turned off the lights, notably Common One, Period of Transition, and everything post One Night in San Francisco. But I would suggest that when Van wrapped a period of his career up with that SF concert, he did so because he had brought the journey from Belfast to SF to its artistic conclusion. Essaying the roots, soul and Irish influences of his career, the concert marked the end of a very significant trajectory. Embracing the Chieftains, John Lee Hooker and Georgie Fame, he finished what he began with Madame George.
While everything since seems like a rumble 'round the attic of his memories and influences, in a sort of artistic retirement, pottering about in the shed, he can rightly turn on any of us and ask
"Didn't I bring you a sense of wonder?"
Yes, you did, Van. Rave on.

What an insult to Van Morrison. Sparing, ooh, several hours one afternoon to dash off this first-thought dross, Greil Marcus dismisses decades of interesting work in a line or two. Incredible arrogance and, frankly, stupidity. I got this the same time as the Peter Mills book, Hymns To The Silence: Inside The Words and Music of Van Morrison which is 100 times the book that this is, full of insight and detailed analysis. In comparison, Marcus's book is too much of nothing. Ignore.

There is a great book about Van Morrison out there somewhere. This isn't it.

This is a book about Greil Marcus and documents another facet of his endless fascination with himself and a few of the relics (Dave Marsh, Lester Bangs, Jon Landau) from the pages of Creem and Rolling Stone a golden age from which we continue to fall.

I enjoy Marcus. He can turn a phrase and his descriptive powers can be hugely entertaining if more than a little self-absorbed.

That said this is a slight, lazy book. Marcus' discussion of Morrison's studio output (along with a few dates when Marcus caught him live in the Bay Area back in the 1970's) form the main topic here. The recordings from 1980 - 1996 are dismissed in a couple of paragraphs. Most of the work is Marcus explaining what he Marcus 'feels', and little about what he, Morrison actually does. But then that is a common complaint I have about rock 'jounalism' as practiced by this crowd. Fans first. Musicians not at all.

An observation.

Van Morrison is unique among major 'rock stars' in that he is a consummate musician. He plays any number of instruments, is well versed in musics from Leadbelly to Ornette Coleman to Bob Wills and composes, arranges and possesses one of the great voices of any age. Period. That said focusing on studio recordings doesn't give the casual reader into what Morrison is really capable of.

For that one should actually see a show then turn to the live recordings and indeed, one should have a look at the vast number of bootlegs out there which capture Morrison in concert in various bands at various times from the early 1970's up until June 2010. There is a vast body of work out there which paints an entirely different picture from the miniature Marcus presents in his tiny little book.

Listening to Morrison at Montreux 1980 or Essen 1982 or the Roxy 1978 give a slice of a performer really without equal in his field. The quality of his groups, the mingling of songs from different periods, the construction of tension and release in a set are all captured in these live recordings and they present a figure entirely more interesting Marcus describes.

But of course Van Morrison isn't really the subject of Marcus' book.

The rock critic and author Griel Marcus was interviewed on the Public Radio program "soundcheck" on May 5, two days ago. I just listened to the downloaded show. Based the on that intervew I warn anyone with an interest in Van Morrison to read ANYTHING BUT this book. The author's knowedge is weak on his subject. Maybe that's why he decided to write a book not about Van or his music, but about "his listening to Van Morrison." When he was asked why Van's performances were so uneven. (He is famously uneven in performance) Marcus answered "I can't really say." Well, let's start with the fact that Van sufferred for years and years from serious STAGEFRIGHT. Doesn't Marcus know this?

Marcus critized Van for not always wanting to play his most song popular songs in concert. There was a period this was true and it was certainly his right as an artist. But it's hard to make this stick if you listen to three of Van's very finest releases, which are live albums, each released ten years after the previous: Ut's Too Late To Stop Now (1974), Live from the Belfast Opera House (1984) and A Night in San Francisco (1994),

Morrison first wrote and recorded "Gloria" and "Here Comes the Night" as lead singer of THEM in 1965 (at 20). i His first solo album contained "Brown Eyed Girl." His third was "Moondance." In between he created an album that still connot be pigeonholed named "Astral Weeks." This recording sold fifteen THOUSAND copies the year of release. Twenty years later it had sold several million copies and was named of the fifth best rock and roll ablum ever recorded by Rolling Stone Magazine. Since that time Van has released 36 additional original recordings (leaving out "bestofs"). He has been incredibly prolific, a troubador never at rest and always searching intellectually and musically. By the way, Van has been dubbedhe the best while blues singer in the world again and again. But no real reference to this vocal instrument by Mr. Marcus. Oh, well.

I like John Shaeffer (host) and listen often to soundcheck. On this occasion he was simply out his depth...uniformed and unprepared, relying only on Marcus' opinions to frame his questions. And questions like "what has he done lately betray his lack of preparation.

I am a huge fan of Van. I think he is the only person I have ever heard who truly could sing the names in a phonebook and make it worth listening.

The author is a huge fan as well.

Unfortunately, there isn't much in the book of any value to anyone beyond the author. The other reviews - from 1 to 5 stars - are all accurate. It's a question of taste how much you want to read his free-associating impressions about listening to about twenty of Van's songs -- when the author does not evidence much knowledge of music itself (I don't recall a single note, chord or other muscial concept being identified in here). If that is your cup of tea, buy the book. But that's all there is.

Btw, if you like anything from 1980's Common One through 1995's Days Like This (the latter of which I quite like), you're ignorant, from his perspective. They're not even worth discussing. Shovelware.

I was glad I bought this used.

Greil Marcus's When That Rough God Goes Riding (Public Affairs 2010) assesses the Irish singer-songwriter's career, but Marcus can come off as professorially severe, dismissing entire decades of Morrison's output. He does much the same thing in his judgment of Bob Dylan's post-Sixties output. Of course it's possible to apply the same critical yardstick to the cultural critic's production. In my view Marcus was never so good as he was with his first book of essays, Mystery Train. That doesn't mean that the subsequent work is without interest whatsoever.

Marcus and critic Lester Bangs tend to be uncharitable about the domestic bliss of Morrison's Tupelo Honey period. "Van Morrison never came this close to looking life square in the face again . . . In Astral Weeks and 'T.B. Sheets' he confronted enough for any man's lifetime." But Bangs also concedes that "desolation, hurt, and anguish" are hardly the sum of the album, or life.

Marcus is more dismissive. It's as if he expected Morrison to continue to explore Astral Weeks' condition of extremity even though such tightrope dancing on the edge led Bob Dylan to heroin addiction and contemplations of suicide. Professor Marcus in particular is fixated on canon development; for that reason, he rejects the easy, sensual rewards of Van's later albums.

See my essay on Van Morrison,"Transcendent Radio," on

[...]

If you like someone trying to articulate what a certain artist or musician does to their imagination then you might enjoy the flights of fantasy in this book. It was mildly interesting reading.. But to say the album "The Healing Game" was some great piece of work is woefully off the mark. And I agree with the other reviews that some of Van's better late career work is totally ignored or dismissed. Like many later Dylan releases, there are always a few nuggets hidden in poorly conceived albums....

Is this the book to start with an understanding of Van Morrison? No way. But it hits at something central in Morrison's music, the reaching for something else that may not even be there -- the phantom in the music that conjures more than the words and music and endless humming ever can. The best of Morrison's music, like Irish tales, wait on some force or form to appear and create some other meaning, to conjure some other reality.

Greil Marcus is no stranger to the arcane and the inexplicable in pop and rock culture. "When That Rough God Goes Riding" is his foray into the Morrison mysteries and, if you're up for it, a cross-cultural romp of influences, judgments, and fractured emotional responses to Van's work. Is it too much? Yes, and not enough, too. Its thick, wild and wooly theorizing is more a product of Marcus's love of Van's music than any rational trip through Morrison's catalogue. Fans will understand.

Abandoning a linear narrative opens the book to complaints of Marcus's personal obsession, messy and strained connections, and sheer confusion. But the writer's approach-of-tangents gets to the core of why Morrison's music has an appeal more to individuals than a mass audience: at the music's best, it's a vision. (One can imagine the mystical, yearning Yeats attempting to fill stadium seats, decades of touring behind his work.) Whether Morrison himself intends it so, in this age of Beiber and Gaga it's a wonder his music still makes it to the marketplace at all.

Having enjoyed Marcus's writings on Dylan - and being a long standing Van fan - I found this book to be thin, lacking in inspiration and not worth the cover price. There is a good central idea - about that mystical sound that Van gets in his throat - and some useful pointers to rare recordings and Van covers. But there's very little depth. And, having followed, thrilled to and treasured many of Van's albums after "Into the Music", and up to "Days Like This" at least, I'm aestheticly offended on Van's behalf that more than a decade's worth of often beautiful music is dismissed as of no interest.

In the end, perhaps, there's no substitute for listening to the Man himself. As for Mr Marcus, I strongly recommend "The Old Weird America" and his writings on Dylan instead.