Happy Anniversary, Van Morrison’s Moondance
44 years ago today, Van Morrison released Moondance, an album which – coming as it did on the heels of 1968’s not-entirely-commercial Astral Weeks – served to remind listeners that Morrison could offer songs that were easily accessible to mainstream listeners while still experimenting within different musical genres.
Written in Morrison’s mountaintop home on the outskirts of Woodstock, New York, Moondance was the first album where the singer/songwriter took a production credit, something which came about only because – as he was quoted in Ritchie Yorke’s 1975 book Into the Mystic – “no one knew what I was looking for except me, so I just did it."
Whether by coincidence or design, the album’s first – and, for more than half a decade, only – single, “Come Running,” served as a nice bridge between Morrison’s previous album and his latest one, as it had actually been demoed during the Astral Weeks sessions, but it only just barely cracked the top 40. (That’s not an exaggeration: it topped out at #39.) In the long run, it was actually the single’s B-side that’s had the longer lifespan: “Crazy Love” has gone on to be covered by – among others – Bryan Ferry, Aaron Neville and Robbie Robertson, Michael Bolton, and Brian Kennedy, and Morrison has revisited the song as a duet on a few notable occasions, including versions sung with Ray Charles and Bob Dylan.
By the way, if you’re wondering about that “more than half a decade” comment a moment ago, the title track of Moondance has become such an AOR radio staple that it may be a little surprising for some to find that it wasn’t actually released as a single until 1977…although even after doing further research, we still can’t for the life of us figure out why it was released as a single in 1977. (If anyone can offer insight into this seemingly arbitrary decision, we’re all ears.) In 2009, the magazine Performing Songwriter – citing the fansite Ivan.Vanomatic.de – found that “Moondance” was the most-performed song in Morrison’s live repertoire, having been included in his set lists over a thousand times at that point, and given that the nearest competition (“Gloria”) was nearly 200 plays behind it, it’s doubtful that’s going to drop to second place anytime soon.
Although there were no other singles from the album, just about every track from Moondance has turned into a fan favorite as a result of pulling heavy radio airplay, scoring inclusion on one or more Morrison best-of collections, being covered by another artist, or – in the unique case of “Caravan” – being lip-synced by Dr. Johnny Fever in an episode of WKRP in Cincinnati. (Okay, so maybe more people remember it for Morrison’s performance of the song in The Last Waltz. We all have our own unique reference points.)
Last year, Rhino released a five-disc deluxe edition of Moondance, featuring the original album, three discs of alternate takes, outtakes, and remixes, and a Blu-Ray Audio disc featuring high-resolution 48K 24 bit PCM stereo and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound audio of the original album. That may be a bit of overkill if you’re not an obsessive fan, but, damn, does it sound good. For now, though, you can just give the first four discs a spin via Spotify. If you’re a fan who hasn’t listened to it in awhile, we’re betting it won’t take long for you to renew your crazy love for this classic album.
