In that sense, Van Morrison opened the door for myself and other young men and women to think that ‘work’ wasn’t the only way forward, that there was a different kind of work and you could do it on the stage or with a pen. It was the possibilities Them generated that were so important. They broke the sound barriers of what was often an uptight, class-bound society. By the late 1960s, when Them had broken up, Van Morrison was really on his way out because he’d gone over to the States. We lost sight of him, but then he produced the album that everybody recognises and identifies as being so extraordinary – Astral Weeks. The thing to remember is that Belfast was on the cusp of a whole series of changes. The Civil Rights movement was up and going.
A lot of friends had left Belfast and were now in London or had disappeared elsewhere. When Astral Weeks came out, there were just a few of us still around. To listen to that album, which was a huge poetic shift away from the raucous energies of Them, and pointed in another direction too – towards poetry. For the mood poem that is Astral Weeks – I mean the entire album, but particularly ‘Beside You’ – was so revealing. Here was this strong voice and strong personality that could also move across into something so much more lyrical and moody. That was a big shift too. You can be a Belfast guy and you can still be lyrical.
It seems silly now, but the extent to which Morrison had moved into another mode, another mood, shocked people. Then, of course, the curtain fell with the beginning of the Troubles and by about 1970 it seemed as if Astral Weeks, Them and all that were light years away.
My feeling now is that Morrison’s music ‘disappeared’ because the immediacy of what was happening in Belfast (the terrorism, the darkness) overtook us. We seemed to lose out; the ‘gang’ drifted apart; we went our different ways. I went to college in Coleraine and then eventually moved out of the North altogether, to Galway.
The joy, the pleasure and the energy that Morrison embodied went underground as the heavy political charge of the 1970s took over. It was only later that I heard ‘Listen to the Lion’ from the magnificent It’s Too Late to Stop Now, a double album of his tour with the Caledonian Soul Orchestra. What you had was an artist who could lift the roof and bring together these different forms of music. You had the energy of the voice, the dynamic quality of it, and that marked an entire period for me. That was Van Morrison, doing his thing and not being compromised by ‘pop’. You had the feeling that he was going to produce something quite different.
We had a strong sense of being from Belfast. We didn’t really have a sense of being ‘Irish’ as such. When you think about it, great bands used to come to Belfast – John Mayall, Hendrix, Cream, The Small Faces and Pink Floyd. We didn’t have to go to them. In a way, we were almost arrogant about music. The standards we were used to were phenomenal, so it created the expectation that everything else had to measure up. We really had such a marvellous experience in Belfast. Occasionally you’d get some old fella shouting something at you, and there was always a little bit of tension on the periphery, but we had a wonderful time and it lasted until about 1970 – the dancing, the music, the parties, being able to move throughout Belfast freely. By 1972, that had gone, more or less. When I returned home from Galway, the music seemed to have disappeared underground. It felt like we were old men talking about a period thirty years before, rather than only a few years before. There had definitely been a shift.
The Troubles put into quarantine those kinds of energies, but maybe they are resurfacing now. I don’t know. I can’t stress enough the importance of Morrison’s presence in the clubs and the kind of example he set when he moved away from Belfast. I think he ran out of space in Belfast. He’d done all he wanted to do there and he had to go somewhere else.
Perhaps it’s not sufficiently recognised that it was a huge step for someone to take in those days – a tremendously courageous thing to do – to move from Belfast and head over to New York, not knowing what was going to happen. That was a remarkable achievement. It’s okay now, moving here, there and everywhere; there are huge resources available now. But in 1966, 1967, 1968, that was a big achievement, and of course it paid off, because without the move you probably wouldn’t have had Astral Weeks. He had been writing some of those lyrics in Belfast, but you wouldn’t have had the quality of that magnificent album without the shift and the risk of moving to America and the taking-on of extraordinary respon-sibilities for such a young man. By the late 1970s there were other clubs in the districts, in local neigh- bourhoods where people went, but the notion of Belfast itself as open and available had gone. The violence had put paid to that. I remember walking through the city one night – it would’ve been about 1972 or 1973 – and it was like walking through a ghost town. We’re forgetting these things and maybe it’s no bad thing. The pubs shut at about 6 or 7pm, the cinemas were closed and the buses stopped early. It was like walking through a city at war with itself. People withdrew into their own districts and then, inside their own districts, back into their own homes; they didn’t look out. It was bleak.
During the 1980s, I’d been writing poems in Galway. I remember the sense that I wanted to write about where I’d come from, but I wasn’t too sure how to go about it. Then Morrison’s example kicked in very strongly. The fact that he’d written about the places, streets and avenues of Belfast that I myself knew helped me. It was as if a light went on and I found myself writing a whole sequence of poems about Belfast. I probably wouldn’t have written those without Van Morrison, who had made it possible to write about his own place. It’s difficult to think now about the extent to which Belfast had been perceived as being ‘anti-art’, that you couldn’t write poems out of that place. Yet here was this guy who was singing songs and making music, hymns to the Belfast that I knew well.
I published The Lundys Letter (1985), and in that there are a number of poems about Belfast and its environs. I think it’s very much down to Van Morrison’s example, along with one or two poets whose work I greatly admired, namely Derek Mahon and Michael Longley. What strikes me about his music and influence is his ability to move in and out of different forms. He tapped into a form of expression which drew on poets like William Blake, and at the same time brought together some of the American Beat poets. There’s a freedom in what he does, and that’s exhilarating for a poet. We can get stuck on very narrow gauges, but Morrison’s ability to blend, mix and draw on different kinds of energy and generate writing out of his own self was ‘empowering’, as they say. It was enabling and striking.
Towards the end of the 1980s, Van Morrison was planning a programme on poetry and music and I was involved. We travelled around east Belfast, going to Orangefield – the school that both Van and I had attended. Being with him around that almost ‘sacred’ environment – the streams, the mountains, the hillside, the whole area – was exciting. I also realised the extent to which he was an artist who had a strong commitment to the place, but also to a particular vision. It wasn’t as if he was just documenting this area. He had a powerful sense of how ordinary life is suffused with the spirit of place and, besides the fun that we had, it was intriguing to be with him as he walked through this neighbourhood that he had done so much to praise in his music. Van Morrison’s voice is distinct and unique. It’s like having a presence that is unmovable. And that’s refreshing in this day and age, when people market themselves and put themselves into little slots and niches. Morrison is himself; he does exactly what he wants to do and he’s totally committed to that.
The sense you had in Belfast in the 1950s was that everybody had to be in his or her own place; everything was correct; things were in their spot. Music was the way to break out of that; there was a strong feeling that you could escape that control. This was what I loved about it. By the mid-1960s, Van Morrison, Them and others were breaking through and transgressing, just by the sheer energy of their voices and music. Van Morrison’s music will live for ever. There are so many magnificent albums, from Astral Weeks to the present. Morrison’s music will always ‘be there’ for one basic reason – that he sets out on a journey and he makes a bold statement. The music is not constrained. You can move backwards and forwards through all these different artistic forms: that’s an important lesson, and a fantastic example for future generations.
TWO
Coming into Belfast