The late great Lester Bangs said this album was written at a time when Morrison's girlfriend was dying of tuberculosis. There is some kind of free form, stream of consciousness throughout the album though. This song is the last on the album and it's about her dying. The rapid thumping at the end could be the sound of a coffin being nailed shut or, and this what I prefer to think, it could be a bird taking flight. The name of the album "Astral Weeks", I believe, is about those days of looking at the stars and knowing that they, at the very least, are permanent. All else might be transitory but the stars remain. I imagine him smoking out on a porch, fulminating and looking at the stars because he wouldn't smoke in the house with her lungs so compromised. Kind of a William Carlos Williams thing.
The late great Lester Bangs said this album was written at a time when Morrison's girlfriend was dying of tuberculosis. There is some kind of free form, stream of consciousness throughout the album though. This song is the last on the album and it's about her dying. The rapid thumping at the end could be the sound of a coffin being nailed shut or, and this what I prefer to think, it could be a bird taking flight. The name of the album "Astral Weeks", I believe, is about those days of looking at the stars and knowing that they, at the very least, are permanent. All else might be transitory but the stars remain. I imagine him smoking out on a porch, fulminating and looking at the stars because he wouldn't smoke in the house with her lungs so compromised. Kind of a William Carlos Williams thing.