Listening to Van Morrison

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This book, though, is not so much a defence of the Doors as a celebration of what the group – and, by extension the 60s – represented. In one of the most thought-provoking chapters, titled "The Doors in the So-Called Sixties", Marcus writes: "The Sixties are most generously described as a time when people took part – when they stepped out of themselves and acted in public, as people who didn't know what would happen next, but who were sure that acts of true risk and fear would produce something different from what they had been raised to take for granted." I think about this scenario sometimes: Morrison went into hiding in the mid-’70s, after the public and the press cruelly dismissed the sublime Veedon Fleece as a self-indulgent collection of impenetrable dirges. He laid low in Northern California and tried to get his drinking under control. Recording sessions in 1975 produced some worthwhile and lively numbers — like the self-explanatory “Naked in the Jungle” — but he chose not to put them out. Instead, according to Turner, he read obsessively about Jungian psychiatry and Celtic history, and studied under a so-called “tension expert” to help him release his own considerable inner strain. But the most egregious of these thieves, in Morrison’s mind, was Bruce Springsteen. “For years people have been saying to me — you know, nudge, nudge — have you heard this guy Springsteen?” Morrison griped to The New Age in 1985, right when Born in the U.S.A. was at its most ubiquitous. “And he’s definitely ripped me off … [and] I feel pissed off now that I know about it.”

Does he himself intellectually ponder other artists or writers? Morrison contemplates the idea for a moment. “Uhhhh, maybe,” he says. Might he care to name them? “No.” ‘It’s just music’ Unless otherwise stated, morrisonsislistening.co.uk and/or its licensors own the intellectual property rights for all material on morrisonsislistening.co.uk. All intellectual property rights are reserved. You may access this from morrisonsislistening.co.uk for your own personal use subjected to restrictions set in these terms and conditions. You must not: Anybody’s identity has to, in retail, follow the customers but also resonate with what customers always trusted about a retailer. From time to time any retailer can find itself distracted… and it then benefits [them] to listen very hard to consumers and work on those values that customers respect and enjoy,” he said.

Greil Marcus does not do succinct or detached. He is passionate, scholarly and deadly serious, sometimes to the point of unconscious self-parody, about the music he loves, whether it be the young Van Morrison or an obscure punk group such as the Mekons. In some ways, this makes him the perfect writer to take on board the Doors's contested legacy. Songs are nothing more than what they offer us in our present circumstances. Morrison plundered the geography of romance in his songs, vividly played out in the streets of London, Dublin, the rolling hills around Belfast and the fleeting vision of a lover moving just beyond reach. Review your visit and rate your Morrisons store service to customers, goods, employees, climate, cleanliness, etc. The response on election night to these sentiments was unmistakeable. And Scott Morrison, just over a year after he declared himself open to a quota system, has presided over a campaign that cut the number of Liberal female MPs in the house of representatives from 13 to 6. Morrison is one of the largest companies of food and grocery in the UK. Over 400 stores are available for people and can be easily found online.

In the middle of a pandemic you reach for those things that consumers value and colleagues believe are the right things to do. David Potts, Morrisons

Protests have focused on Morrisons, Asda, Aldi and Lidl which currently do not have agreements with dairy suppliers to pay a price above the cost of production for milk. Other supermarkets including Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and the Co-op do – according to the National Farmers Union. No Guru, No Method, No Teacher came out in 1986, 18 years after Morrison’s magnum opus, and about two months shy of his 41st birthday. If you only know Van Morrison from Astral Weeks, the juxtaposition might be startling. On the cover of Astral Weeks, Van resembles a wood nymph in the midst of an intense religious experience; on the cover of No Guru, he looks like a no-nonsense English professor at an exclusive East Coast liberal arts college, or a no-nonsense TV detective portrayed by no-nonsense character actor Bill Camp. Let’s just say that by then he had ventured far beyond the slipstream, and well past the viaducts of your dream. Speaking to Marketing Week on a call following the company’s results announcement this morning, Potts said the supermarket has implemented a “customer listening programme” run by the marketing team to help it understand what customers value about the brand and how it can improve. It includes March Winds in February – a sublime example of Morrison songwriting – plus a duet with the Righteous Brothers’ Bill Medley and contributions from Jay Berliner, the guitarist who appeared on 1968’s beloved Astral Weeks. Answer – Joining the Morrisons Listens group seems to be entirely optional. However, there are certain conditions that must be met before you may take part in the MorrisonsListens survey. To join, you must be over 18 and a citizen or permanent resident of either Gibraltar or the United Kingdom.