And They Stood Upon The Lawn ...

Let yourself go  ... Like the guard on a platform Van's harp signals the journey's beginning. Revolving patterns on synth, piano and harp carry us to "within reach of the sun" via Faith, Alchemy and Ancient Greece. Into the mystery once more. Open up your heart, be joyous, dance, sing and give thanks. Be alive in the mystery and turn all your dirt into gold. Open up your heart to the one. That's all I know ...

Well this world is cruel with its twists and its turns ... A jaunty little number about the inevitability of death and the fact that there's nothing you can do about it.  You may as well dance. Which, with this tune thanks to Mr Pee Wee Ellis, is all too easy. Dance and smile and forget. But the fire's still in me and the passion it burns ...

Sing it in your name ... Shamanic Van. Back on the corner again with call and response. A solo sax which takes you right, right, right up and then falls away leaving you deep down into doo-wop backing vocals and the call and response, up, up and up with gathering intensity as the repetition sets in, the horns swirl and that circular, trance inducing, elevation begins. Round and round, over and over. deeper and deeper, higher and higher. Healed. Sing it. Sublime live version with everyone in blistering form. An incendiary solo from Leo Green. The official video (different take) Sing the healing game ...

How the truth shone ... A beautiful devotional hymn. Feels like all my questions have been answered when I listen to Van on this. His phrasing, particularly during the first two verses, is exceptional here.  The timing of each line varies but is somehow perfect each time. Sometimes I listen to Van and wonder where his voice comes from, this is one of those tracks. A beautiful live version And my questions all were answered ...

I see my freedom from across the way ... One of the most uplifting songs in Van's canon.  Delicate piano and the lightest of touches on the kit is all that sits under Van initially, before horns and gospel voices (featuring Cissy Houston) converge to cleanse the spirit and push away the gloom. So good it should be available on prescription. A lovely live version from 2002 And my heart is still ...

Like a whirling dervish ... A wonderful, circular, meditative song concerning function not form.  The song itself exemplifies the meaning of the track. Never more clearly than in the famous "blah, blah, blah ..." section, devoid of form there is only the function of the sound.  Elevation. Layer upon layer.  Round and round. Like a whirling dervish. You'll find the spiritual ... Stretching time ...

Dump the jute ... The struggle to dump the burdens we carry, the crosses we bear, to pare back the layers of aggregated defences and habits, to reveal our true selves, a hard and painful journey through the burning ground. Purification. Van and the band turned this into meditative revelation live.   Witness And I lift the veil ...

But it is not so with me ... A revolutionary text of tremendous power by William Blake, first set to music by Mike Westbrook and here by Van.  Still of relevance today.  Let the slave grinding at the mill run out into the field Let him look up into the heavens and laugh in the bright air Let the enchained soul shut up in darkness and in sighing Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years Rose and look out, his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open And let his wife and children return from the oppressor's scourge They look behind at every step and believe it is a dream Singing, the sun has left his blackness and has found a fresher morning And the fair moon rejoices in the clear and cloudless night For empire is no more And now the lion and wolf shall cease For everything that lives is holy For everything that lives is holy For everything that lives is holy For everything that lives is holy What is the pr...

Raining in the forest ... As soon as this song starts, I start to smile because I know what's coming. Magic. A dash of plucked strings, a turn of phrase and Van just turning it on, transforming a lovely song into something so much more.  I have no idea how it happens. It just does. The song shuffles into consciousness with Van urging us to get "away from the city" to where you can hear the "voice of the silence." As soon as that hits you know it could be in the air.  Van is in some kind of declarative mood and the hints are there, silence, truth, bells, voices singing but lulled as we are by the soft strings and mandolin it isn't until deep into the song when it is "Raining in the forest just enough to magnetise the leaves" that the magic comes down.  I can't explain what happens, a combination of the plucked strings echoing the raindrops as they fall and Van opening up with that voice of his, I don't understand.  I m...

Tonight beneath the silvery moon ... Go out tonight once the cool of the evening has descended. Look up into the infinite night sky. Press play.  You will understand the oneness. Rave on John Donne, rave on thy holy fool Down through the weeks of ages In the moss borne dark dank pools Rave on, down through the industrial revolution Empiricism, the atomic and nuclear age Rave on down through corridors Rave on words on printed page Rave on Walt Whitman, nose down in wet grass Rave on fill the senses On nature's bright green shady path Rave on Omar Khayyam, Rave on Kahlil Gibran Oh, what sweet wine we drinketh The celebration will be held We will partake the wine and break the holy bread Rave on, let a man come out of Ireland Rave on Mr Yeats Rave on down through thy Holy Rosey Cross Rave on down through theosophy and the Golden Dawn Rave on through the writing "A Vision" Rave on, rave on, rave on, rave o...

After all we're only human ... More of a spell than song with so many incantations, souls enraptured, heavenly songs, of being in the garden, wet with rain and golden autumn days. The natural, mythical and spiritual woven together to form a tapestry which transports the listener away from the temporal. The delicate instrumentation at once embellishes the story and heightens the vision.   Van references freedom from attachment as the means to enlightenment and a release from the cycle of life and death but despite that being a life long pursuit he would rather come back to a suffering existence, if it meant that he and his love could be together. A love he believes they have experienced many times before such is its depth. A love that has the power to rejuvenate old souls. A love worth turning away from the eternal presence to experience once again.  Only Van. Breathe it in. We were standing in the kingdom And we stood by the mansion gate We stood e...

This is it ... Van celebrating where he is, back in Ireland (despite recording this track in NYC) having travelled far (all the way to California and the Palomar mountain range and observatory), hiding away in the studio, laying down the tracks so fresh they're still wet, with absolute freedom to drift in song. You can't fail to hear how much this all means, his impassioned vocal is among the finest he has ever laid down. Open hearted and open throated, you feel it right inside. He's gone. In the cul de sac, so smooth I look down Be less sure sir And take your rest It's been much too long  Since we drifted in song Lay it down wet In this hide away Oh I travelled far To the nearest star And met Palomar, mar, mar, And we don't care just who you know  It's who you are And when they all go home Down the cobblestones You can double back (this is it) To a cul de sac Oh I travelled far The nearest star And M...

Standing on the highest hill with a sense of wonder ... Pictures painted once again of the glory of natural creation in this deeply moving psalm. Van and companion, once more down in Avalon, as "suffering long time angels," the wonder revealed, by the beauty which surrounds them, that everything was made in God.  A revelation which returns a sense of lost innocence.  There is also a feeling of frustration contained within the title that this is still something not yet achieved, that despite the knowledge being accepted it is all too easy to be distracted. This God is a presence in which all things are created "down through the history of time." One that "is and was in the beginning and evermore shall be." The pilgrimage route of "turning down the old and bringing up the new" is a highly personal one as "you've got to do it your own way."  The lyrics and melody wonderfully complimented by a passionate solo from Georgie Fame....

Let me go down to the water ... This song resonated with me the first time I heard it as a young man on the first disc of the original Greatest Hits. It gave voice to the feeling that there was so much 'more' and if I could only make a breakthrough, take a step over some 'threshold' then things would fall into place, make some kind of sense.  The remarkable thing about this song, propelled along as it is by the tsking of the high-hat and those insistent horns, is that it still resonates to this day even now when I am so much older. It still feels like I'm on a threshold, possibly we're always and eternally on a threshold. The darkness still exists to be consumed and I'm still waiting for the dawn to end the night. Singing the song of ages until it comes.  I'm a dweller on the threshold And I'm waiting at the door And I'm standing in the darkness I don't want to wait no more I have seen without perceiving I hav...

Out of everything nothing remains the same ... Van's off to the mountain top getting away from the rat race to be still and listen to his 'quiet friend.'  It's a withdrawal from the world and its cycle of constant repetitive change to be with the unchanging eternal. There the blue skies will be 'shining' while the earthly empires turn to rust again. Prior to going he doesn't seem convinced, only thinking it 'might do ... some good." Post instrumental break, the experience itself was clearly meaningful as it won't be long before he comes back again. I always find this song tremendously uplifting with an almost cleansing quality to it as well as a little touch of calypso, of course that may just be me. See you in the clouds. Well I'm taking some time with my quiet friend Well I'm taking some time on my own Well I'm making some plans for my getaway There'll be blue skies shining up above When I'm clou...

"There’s just the truth now ..." A seemingly slight song that turns into something quite different due to the subtle details in the lyrics and Van’s open hearted delivery.  Separated from his lover and missing her, they are connected by more than the phone line, she has become part of him and everything they have gone through has stripped away pretences to leave only truth.   Each small verse has a final line that takes the simplicity of the preceding three lines and adds depth to the entire structure. Van allows space into the song as tension and release when he pauses for additional bars, before the second chorus of “I’ve got such a lot of love” hits, with increased potency.  Despite the tenderness on display there is a vivid undercurrent of carnality.  We finish with Van hitting on an idiosyncratic detail, the wonderful exclamation of “I love you in buckskin!” The repetition of “I love you, I love you I love you,” to the point where the words b...

"Can you hear that sound?" Mark Isham's ringing trumpet lifts us away from mundane matters as Toni Marcus' strings elevate to the realms of dreamt romantic love. The clarity of the playing by the musicians on this track amplifies the purity of Van's own declaration told through this tale from the "days of yore." The three part solo section seems to echo the early stages of  romance, the initial heart skipping swoon before the excitement of reciprocity and finally seduction itself to the sound of Pee Wee's tenor saxophone but all of this virtuosity only leads to the true climax of the song.   The moment when it is transformed from fantasy to reality as Van changes from outwardly describing the troubadours, to setting himself in their place "lift your window high, turn your lamp down low, oh baby don't you know? I love you so." and the questioning of whether she hears that sound, "Do you hear that sound? Do you dig that sound...

"Enchanted and spellbound, in the silence they lingered..." One of the most beautiful songs Van has given us.  A deep, deep nature song which enhances and even surpasses that from which it springs.  I am rarely closer to the silence than when I am immersed in nature, as such this is always a very moving song, to be taken away and placed where "the birds were silent, as they listened for the heavenly music." The masterful structure helps that transportation. A simple acoustic strum underneath Van's vocal is all that is needed to begin the journey. The introduction of a piano and its melody echoes the river as it "plays the song" and takes us deeper towards our encounter with the "Great God Pan." Brian Kennedy adds his beatific harmonies behind Van as another layer is added to the swell. Uilleann pipes join the instrumentation, reminding us of Pan despite his departure and the forgetting of the meeting, the vanishing of the vision. Tr...

"And if you get it right this time, you won't have to come back again and if you get it right this time there's no need to explain." What a promise that is. The instrumentation is at once delicate, precise and transcendent; witness the horns that seem to announce the opening of the gates of the Palace, the balm of the gathered choir, Platania's guitar which pierces and embroiders; all provide the air on which Van's voice soars. Beyond personal resonance there are so many questions. What is the Palace of The Lord? I f not the obvious, perhaps a performance or work space, a state of mind or being? Who are the masters and what were the prayers they instilled? Are these the poets and their poems from the 'place you carried your books?" What was the Kingdom that "had been found?" Does this demonstrate the closeness and depth of the relationship between Van and Dylan? Formed when Van was giving Dylan "protection from the lonelines...