Van Morrison
Van Morrison
Sir George Ivan "Van" Morrison, OBEis a Northern Irish singer, songwriter and musician. He has received six Grammy Awards, the 1994 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, and has been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2016 he was knighted for his musical achievements and his services to tourism and charitable causes in Northern Ireland...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth31 August 1945
CityBelfast, Northern Ireland
It was really strange for me when I started to play concerts in America where the audiences were all sitting down.
Being famous was extremely disappointing for me. When I became famous it was a complete drag and it is still a complete drag.
Every performance is different. That's the beauty of it.
Basically I got an insight into what it really was through Alcoholics Anonymous. One day the switchboard lit up and I saw where it was all going. I saw what alcohol could do to people and I saw that it wasn't a good thing anymore. Plus I wasn't a teenager anymore myself.
My thinking musically has always been more advanced - it is difficult to get it down onto paper sometimes, even now.
I always record far more than I can use. There's probably twice as much recorded as comes out.
My ambition when I started out was to play two or three gigs a week. And that's what I'm doing.
When I first started drinking, everybody was doing it. That was before they discovered marijuana and all that. It was the late 50s, early 60s - it was the beginnings of the rock 'n' roll era. The main drink was like wine. And even that was a romantic throwback to something.
Shivers up and down my spine It's a feeling so divine Let me go back for a while Got to go back for a while To that magic time...
I think Paul McGuinness and U2 created the Irish music industry. It certainly wasn't there before that.
I'm a working man in my prime cleaning windows.
[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.
All the girls walk by dressed up for each other, and the boys do the boogie woogie on the corner of the street.
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.