Van Morrison has a luxury problem: Too many songs to record
The restless Belfast belter of soulful stream-of-consciousness has recorded so much music that he has a backlog of songs still waiting to be released.
"There are new arrangements and projects that have just been sitting there gathering dust," Morrison says in an interview published on his website. "Distribution can only deal with so much at a time. It'd be difficult to get out two records a year. One is manageable."
His first original album in three years
With his latest album, "Remembering Now," Van Morrison is tackling some of the backlog with songs he recorded years ago.
One is the moody opening number "Down To Joy" which movie buffs should recognize as the Oscar-nominated track from the 2021 film "Belfast" by Kenneth Branagh.
"That was supposed to come out a long time ago — it's just priorities and timing," Morrison says.
The bluesy song is about Belfast, the musician's place of birth and home town in the north of Ireland. "This is who I am. This is where we are. Back in Belfast. This is how I started," he sings. "It's like you never left where you started from."
"Remembering Now" is his first album in three years to feature his own songs – for him, an extremely long hiatus. The veteran musician with the unmistakeable iconic voice presents a timeless mixture of pop, folk, soul, blues, jazz and country - trademark Van Morrison.
Trying to move past that anti-lockdown business
The new songs emerged parallel to the last albums, recorded during the Covid lockdowns. It was a period when Morrison stirred up controversy in his anger over some of the lockdown measures and restrictions imposed on public concerts.
"I was getting quite a lot of negative feedback during this period," Morrison said without going into details.
The "Brown Eyed Girl" singer faced backlash from some fans for questioning the government response to the pandemic, even singing in "No More Lockdown" that governments were "enslaving" the people.
At a time when the UK and Ireland were grappling with one of Europe's worst Covid-19 outbreaks and hundreds were dying every week, Morrison slammed lockdowns and concert limits justified by what he saw as "pseudo-science."
Morrison now appears to be trying to move past that period. "I just wanted to do something. And the musicians – we all wanted to do something that was going to be fun," he says.
Especially good listening are the melancholic "Haven't Lost My Sense Of Wonder" and the grooving soul number "Back To Writing Love Songs." The lyrics of "Every Time I See A River" is from songwriting legend Don Black ("Diamonds Are Forever", "No Matter What").
And on the topic of whether more music is coming after this, Morrison says: "There's always more music."
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