Van morrison quotes

When it's not always raining there'll be days like this. When there's no one complaining there'll be days like this. When everything falls into place like the flick of a switch. Well my mama told me there'll be days like this.

I think we're going a bit too fast at the minute. The rate we're going is like we're going over the edge of the hill.

See the man on the TV with a phony smile. Bring you up, bring you down, he can turn your head around.

The fog of illusion, the fog of confusion is hanging all over the world.

I realized that what I was looking for was doing collaborations with other people - people who can play a ballad, rock, jazz. I was looking for more co-op type things than what I had been doing, which had been completely my own trip.

Every performance is different. That's the beauty of it.

The wild night is calling.

You learn to read the audiences after a while, and there are all different kinds of gigs.

Someone once described me as a maverick and that's what I would say. I'm a maverick not by choice but by conviction.

The way I was singing the songs was jazz

I was all caught up with identifying with certain things. They just weren't very stimulating things.

You come into my dreams from a whisper to a scream.

Don't lose the wonder in your eyes It's right there when you smile... If we go back, for a while Let me go back, for a while To that magic time

I write songs. Then I record them. And later, maybe I perform them on stage. That's what I do. That's my job. Simple.

Won't You guide me through the dark night of the soul That I may better understand Your way... Let me purify my thoughts and words and deeds That I may be a vehicle for Thee... Give me my rapture today.

We might think that we're really intellectual and we're going to check out the library to research the meaning every time somebody puts out a new record. It's still primitive stuff. It's the same now as it was at the beginning. It's no different now. Rock 'n' roll is spirit music-it's just coming through people.

Like I said, basically I'm a rocker. That's about it. Things that I've done away from that-branches that I've gotten into off of that - are just other streams, other things that I can do.

I'm talking about noise rock. I don't think that noise rock element belongs in jazz. It's not for me anyway; it just doesn't fit.

My responsibility is to fulfil what that natural thing is. The thing that I dislike about pop rock Top 40 music is that it's not natural.

When you start to analyze [rock 'n' roll], it's only because you don't understand it. You're just not connecting with it once you have to start analyzing it.

Laying underneath the stars Can be so much fun Especially when you're feeling good When you're with the one you love.

Ambition will take you And ride you too far and Conservatism bring you to boredom once more Sit down by the river And watch the stream flow Recall all the dreams That you once used to know The things you've forgotten That took you away To pastures not greener but meaner.

I've got love in my life, as well as trouble and strife.

I'm a working man in my prime cleaning windows.

I've never felt like I was born with a silver spoon at all, although I've felt like howling at the moon a lot of times!

When I started out in this business, I was a performer before I was a songwriter, I was a performer before I was recording. Performing is the roots. That's where it all came from. You didn't start out doing it because you wanted to make an album.

And I want to rock your gypsy soul Just like way back in the days of old And magnificently we will fold into the mystic

I've always listened to jazz or folk or blues. I was always listening to the prophets. I don't really go for...I don't know how to say anything about the singles scene without slamming people.

Let go into the mystery Let yourself go You've got to open up your heart That's all I know Trust what I say and do what you're told Baby, and all your dirt will turn Into gold.

You can call it nostalgia, I don't mind Standing on that windswept hillside Listening to the church bells chime Listen to the church bells chime In that magic time.

When heart is open, you will change just like a flower slowly opening.

Have I told you lately that I love you, have I told you lately there's no one above you. Fill my heart with gladness, take away all my sadness, ease my troubles, that's what you do.

I'm not a rock singer and I don't want to be a rock singer. I'm not interested. It doesn't seem to get across.

It's a marvelous night for a moondance!

A fantabulous night to make romance.

Smell the sea and feel the sky.

[Being alcoholic] you're either too high or you're too low. I mean, I was always looking for the bell to ring. I was always waiting for that bell.

It's all complete instinct and intuition, and that's extremely difficult to teach.

Singing is my profession - there is no plan B.

There's always got to be a struggle. What else is there? That's what life is made of. I don't know anything else. If there is, tell me about it.

I forgot that love existed, troubled in my mind. Heartache after heartache, worried all the time. I forgot that love existed Then I saw the light Everyone around me make everything alright.

Meet them halfway with love, peace, and persuasion, and expect them to rise for the occasion.

You have to understand a bit about the poetry of the blues to know where the references are coming from.

Skiffle was a name that was attached to what was, in essence, American folk music with a beat.

I was just getting tired of the image bullshit...that man of mystery trip and what have you. What's that all about?

I also like to do physical things. I like swimming a lot. I like traveling. Not touring traveling but just plain traveling. I also read a lot. Reading takes up most of my time.

[Jean-Paul] Sartre was a throwback to the existential period. I'm not really so much into that these days. I went through a period of going over things and looking at them again to see what they were. But I'm into psychiatry type things. I'm into philosophy. I'm into that sort of thing.

If my heart could do my thinking, would my brain begin to feel?

I shall drive my chariot down your street and cry hey it's me.

I understood jazz, I understood how it worked. That's what I apply to everything.

I don't think nostalgia has to be negative.

Oh won't you stay Stay a while with your own ones Don't ever stray Stray so far from your own ones 'Cause the world is so cold Don't care nothing for your soul That you share with your own ones.

If you want to put your rock 'n' roll into mythology, [A Period of Transition] is from the Daddy Cool school.

When you perform live, it's a different trip - it's different energy. I just felt a conflict between both of the trips. I was trying to evaluate what it meant for me to be a singer/songwriter and what that whole thing all meant.

These are the days of the endless summer, these are the days, the time is now. There is no past, there's only future, there's only here, there's only now.

Once you start to analyze it [Joyous Sound], you've completely lost it. That one just came.

In deep confusion, in great despair, when I reach out for him, he is there. When I am lonely as I can be, then I know God shines his light on me.

Go up to the mountain, go up to the glen, where silence will touch you, and heartbreak will mend.

Let go into the mystery. Let yourself go. And when you open up your heart, you get everything you need. Baby there's a way and a mystic road. You've got to have some faith to carry on, you've got to open up your heart to the Son.

Common one, my illuminated one, oh my high in the art of suffering. Take a walk with me.

I've been in America for almost ten years. I've had many parts of the American experience. I've been all over this country and seen many different parts of it. It's just that I'm not an American. I've never become an American. I'm talking about the whole thing-psychologically, citizenship, the whole trip. Of course I've definitely been influenced by America-I'm definitely influenced by the music and the culture.

I deliberately try not to cater for the commercial market, so I can't see myself in competition, you know, with second or third generation rock stars.

I just need somewhere to dump all my negativity.

In order to win you must be prepared to lose sometime. And leave one or two cards showing.

At the end of the day, we should give thanks and pray, to the one, to the one.

If you live the life you love, you get the blessing from above.

Well, it's a marvelous night for a Moondance With the stars up above in your eyes... And I'm trying to please to the calling Of your heart-strings that they play soft and low And all the night's magic seems to whisper and hush And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush... One more Moondance with you in the moonlight On a magic night

You can't stay the same. If you're a musician and a singer, you have to change, that's the way it works.

I just wanted to have a look at my whole musical career, get right back to when I started and why I started doing it in the first place.

And I shall watch the ferry boats, and they'll get high, on a bluer ocean against tomorrow's sky. and i will never grow so old again, and i will walk and talk, in gardens all wet with rain.

Let your soul and spirit fly.

I like to see people reaching back for the roots and for the reason why. Not intellectually, but just for the gut feeling of what it's all about.

What I really like to do is just do the twist!

Jazz comes from a tradition where it swings. Swing was the main ingredient of jazz. And once it loses the swing...well, that's it.

Once in a blue moon someone like you comes along.

I never bought the commercial thing, at any stage of the game.

The summer breeze was blowing on your face Within your violet you treasure your summery words And as the shiver from my neck down to my spine Ignited me in daylight and nature in the garden

Leave your thoughtlessness behind you then you may begin to understand. Clear the emptiness around you with the waving of your hand.

In the media, a reviewer has his personal vision but it's passed along to a million readers or whatever. He might think that this particular song sounds like Jo Blow. Or like a Bo Diddley record that he heard six years ago. But the artist who made the record may never have even heard the Bo Diddley song. We all respond differently.

I had my eyes closed in the dark, I sighed a million sighs, I told a million lies, to myself, to myself.

The Eternal Kansas City song came from a dream sequence. It was actually kind of weird. I had this dream about a Kansas City type of thing while I was up at Stevie Winwood's place near Cheltenham, in Britain. I went into this small town and I was walking along and this dream thing was still in my head.

There's a realization that you have to do something but you just can't do it all the time.

The trip had become boring. It wasn't exciting anymore to totally be a singer/songwriter because it wasn't working for me.

I'm a dweller of the threshold and I'm waiting at the door, and I'm standing in the darkness, I don't want to wait no more.

Memories, how they linger in the twilight and in the wee small hours sometimes just before dawn.

I never, ever said that I was a nice guy.

I think intellectualization is what's killing most people.

You can't stop us on the road to freedom, you can't stop us cause our eyes can see.

I just wanted to stop and try to get some perspective. [ A Period of Transition] it was just a matter of wanting to review the whole thing...to try and get some relationship to what I was doing.

Men come, men go, all things remain in God.

The point of jazz is, you do something and then you go on.

There's an angel that's watching right over you All your trials have not been in vain Won't you lift your head up to the starry night Finding strength in the things that remain.

I don't like to wonder about it-I just like to do it. That's what I mean about the image stuff and all that. There's far too much emphasis being placed on that kind of stuff... the whole emphasis on what does it mean? Everybody has their own particular vision.

Making love in the green grass behind the stadium with you my brown eyed girl.

I thought of collaborating with other people which still might happen at this point. It might not. I was just trying to break the cycle because I had gotten to a point where I was definitely sure that I was on the wrong track after about 16 years.

You've got to separate the singer and the songs.

I'd much prefer to hear somebody like Ed Thigpen [drummer with New York session group Stuff, and featured on innumerable hits] take a solo. I mean, that's what it is. I'd much rather hear that than the jazz/rock thing because it's blowing an aspect of jazz that I really like...the level where you can snap your fingers to it and you can groove to it. You can do anything to it.

You gotta fight every day to keep mediocrity at bay.

Don't want to discuss it, I think it's time for a change You may get disgusted, some think that I'm strange In that case I'll go underground, get some heavy rest Never have to worry, about what is worst and what is best.

When you hear the music ringin' in your soul And you feel it in your heart and it grows and grows And it comes from the backstreet rock & roll and the healing has begun...

There is no black-and-white situation. It's all part of life. Highs, lows, middles.

There's always stress involved in any genre or art form, there's always going to be a struggle. If there's no struggle, you wouldn't do anything. What are you going do? Retire?

If you're a pop singer, you don't need to evolve. You just get a set together, have some hit songs and play them over and over.

These days politics, religion, media seem to get all mixed up. Television became the new religion a long time back and the media has taken over.

I haven't really heard much that's impressed me the way it was when I first heard Ray Charles or somebody like that. That was really an impression.

Sartre said that hell is other people, I believe that most of them are

The blues - there's no black and white - it's the truth.

I didn't know what some of the stuff on Astral Weeks was about until years later.

[You Got To Make It Through The World] it's kind of a survival song. Survival is what's happening and it's basically a song about that.

Men saw the stars at the edge of the sea They thought great thoughts about liberty Poets wrote down words that did fit Writers wrote books Thinkers thought about it.

I write songs. Then I record them. And later, maybe I perform them on stage. That's what I do. That's my job. Simple. I don't feel comfortable doing interviews. My profession is music, and writing songs. I like to do it, but I hate to talk about it...Music is spiritual. The music business is not. Being famous was extremely disappointing for me. When I became famous it was a complete drag and it is still a complete drag.

Sometimes you do know where the ideas are coming from and sometimes you don't. You might get a song coming through that you just don't know about.

I'd come to the point where I wasn't really putting out creatively. I didn't seem to have anything to say in that period of time after the '74 tour. There was nothing definite that I wanted to record.

Spiritual hunger and spiritual thirst But you got to change it On the inside first To be satisfied

[Jazz musicians] couldn't cut rock. I had to be more limited and specific about what I was doing.

If you're putting somebody down, you're doing it because you're just seeing a part of yourself that you don't like. That's all that is.

Do you remember the time darlin' when everything made more sense in the world? Oh I remember, I remember... when life made more sense... Take me back, take me back, take me way back... to when life made more sense.

Hark, now hear the sailors cry, smell the sea, and feel the sky let your soul & spirit fly, into the mystic.

Hearing the blues changed my life.

Music is spiritual. The music business is not.

No guru, no method, no teacher, just you and I and nature, and the father in the garden.

Way across the country where the hillside mountains glide, the dynamo of your smile caressed the barefoot virgin child.

Love of the simple is all that I need, I've no time for schism or lovers of greed.

I find it extremely difficult talking about my songs because there's so many different things that can make a song come together.

Skiffle was blues featuring a washboard and acoustic instruments. It encompassed blues, with elements of folk, jazz, and, at times, American country-and-western music.