Where do we find the ultimate beauty in this 1980 song from Van Morrison’s classic Common One album?
That’s a hard question.
Is it in the reassuring structure of the song, the composer’s mighty artifices?
That’s a soft maybe.
The soothing orchestration is wind-driven and friendly, reminding us of the most comforting moments in Britannia’s Ralph Vaughan Williams aesthetic…
But with Morrison’s jazzy vocal liberations, it could just as easily be said that “Summertime”’s beauty plays best in its’ playful freedom from structure.
If you’re new to Van Nation listen closely, there’s much to love and astound here in George Ivan Morrison’s improvised vocal jumps and stretches and yawps. Of all Van lines, “It ain’t why why why why why why why, it just is” is the mantra I have repeated most often to myself.
There are also treats to enjoy and lessons to be learned in the inspired sax of Pee Wee Ellis.
Morrison name checks some romantic poets, Mahalia Jackson, Jesus and St. John. The lyrics go to upper crust England and then to poverty-stricken American gospel. There’s a lot going on here, geographically, mentally, aesthetically and usually joyously.
A simple way to put this would be to say that this song is about the mix of all of those things, but that’s not it either, at least not completely. It’s about the mix, sure, but the beauty is in the struggle. The historical and cultural struggle to fit those half dozen or so privileged insider UK poets and one American persecuted outsider gospel singer into the same studio with the inscrutable Van Morrison and have something listenable come out. The singer and the listener are asked to push the envelope of sanity– something both parties do willingly– and still enjoy worthwhile communication. The result is sublime, rapturous, and so far (45 years) long remembered.
So where is the transcendence in all this?
When Van Morrison starts creating, embers of religiosity ignite. Bless his soul, there are plenty of metaphysical hints in this song and on all of Common One.
Mahalia Jackson in the lyrics assures us The Almighty is in this song. And SHE is in the struggle as well.
Quibblers and dropped hat atheists who banish God at the first sign of human hypocrisy have never read the Bible. The Revealed Word is lousy with human struggles shaming outward holiness: Eve eats forbidden fruit at the prompting of a talking, penis-shaped animal, Cain kills Abel over jealousy and worship styles, Joseph’s brothers toss him pitward and sell him slavery way, King David’s loyal general Uriah winds up dead because his wife was hot as balls…
If sacred text can be believed, and I think it should, there’s ample evidence God sees the eventual good in situations that come up as initially bad, and if turning bad into good is the essence of struggle, then the Deity is present and active in THE STRUGGLE, and in all individual struggles, from gargantuan to minuscule.
So enjoy the sacred and beautiful struggle while it lasts.
It won’t be long.
And enjoy this song.
It is quite long.
