Like Gustave Doré’s famous wood engraving The Saintly Throng in the Shape of a Rose, in which Dante and Beatrice behold a blinding vision of paradise, “Astral Weeks” is a gateway into a beatific zone, “way up in the heaven.” By the end, Morrison’s finds the “other side”: “In another time / In another place,” he whispers from his cosmic destination. On record, the song climbs and climbs, egged on by Richard Davis’ limbic, octave-leaping bass. It was just stunning, and I knew I wanted to work with him in that moment.” “My whole being was vibrating,” Merenstein later remembered in 2008. “If I ventured in the slipstream / Between the viaducts of your dreams,” he began. When it came time to audition some material for producer Lewis Merenstein at Ace Recording Studio in Boston, Morrison pulled out a tune he’d written around that “astral” theme. He’d been working on some paintings themed around astral projection, and they caught the singer’s eye he’d go on to translate the visuals into a song. –> Andy Gill ( The Ultimate Music Guide – Van Morrison)īack in 1966, Morrison visited the Belfast, Ireland, home of his friend, painter Cecil McCartney. Baroque folk-jazz classic in which romantic reminiscence and spiritual yearning combine for one of music’s cornerstone works, Astral Weeks is possibly the most sui generis album ever created, a work which continues to defy categorisation nearly half a century on, just as autumn was shading into winter back in 1968. It’s one of the most enigmatic, evocative opening lines in all of pop history, akin to Alice’s dive down the rabbit-hole in the way it serves as an indication of the enchantments to come through Astral Weeks. If I ventured in the slipstream, between the viaducts of your dreams… First performance: Octoin San Francisco, US.Warren Smith, Jr. – percussion, vibraphone.It’s one of those songs where you can see the light at the end of the tunnel and that’s basically what the song says.” Morrison told Steve Turner that he was working on the song back in Belfast in 1966 when he visited painter Cecil McCartney who had drawings on astral projection “and that’s why I called it “Astral Weeks”. I remember reading about you having to die to be born. Morrison described the song “Astral Weeks” as being: “like transforming energy, or going from one source to another with it being born again like a rebirth. John Payne, the flautist who had been working with Morrison, said it was the first time he had ever heard it, and that although the song may sound rehearsed it was actually captured from the only take.
On the first recording session for the album on 25 September 1968, this song was the last of four recorded for that date. The title song and opening track on the 1968 album Astral Weeks.
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