More projections of cryptic drug use by people who use those drugs. The saying "To a hammer every problem looks like a nail" comes to mind.
More projections of cryptic drug use by people who use those drugs. The saying "To a hammer every problem looks like a nail" comes to mind.
Relationships in Steely Dan songs are commonly just that, relationships with people, though unhealthy ones. See, 'Rikki don't lose that number' which for decades was imagined to be slang for how to hide a joint when it always was just a song about hitting on a married woman who wanted nothing to do with Fagan (this was much later confirmed in an interview). See, 'Cousin Dupree' which is an infatuation, just with...
Relationships in Steely Dan songs are commonly just that, relationships with people, though unhealthy ones. See, 'Rikki don't lose that number' which for decades was imagined to be slang for how to hide a joint when it always was just a song about hitting on a married woman who wanted nothing to do with Fagan (this was much later confirmed in an interview). See, 'Cousin Dupree' which is an infatuation, just with a poor familiar (literally) choice. See, 'Gaucho' where the protagonist has a relationship looked down on by certain mafioso types. See, 'Do it again' where the protagonist repeats the same mistakes in life, to include loving a wild one that brings only sorrow. See, 'Don't take me alive' where a crazy guy murders his own father.
Gina is a crazy hottie, and anyone that has dated a knockout might relate, that looks and crazy can go hand in hand. Gina herself might have the drug problem in this scenario, but the lyrics themselves do not make that clear enough to say for certain. If the main character has any issue expressed in the story it is that he lacks the strength to make a break, or is weak and wants to keep the hottie around for some limited purposes but doesn't want her to stay around.
He might wish he could 'lose his lunch' with Gina.. ie, the situation makes him sick.
My interpretation:
My interpretation:
I try to change the formality (what is customary) and everything about it [, but] people [are] killing people for a reason [, since forever]. [Just think about yourself, ] you make mistakes [and then] you don't regret [them]. So [you can] make a conclusion, [why trying to change the formality would fail].
I try to change the formality (what is customary) and everything about it [, but] people [are] killing people for a reason [, since forever]. [Just think about yourself, ] you make mistakes [and then] you don't regret [them]. So [you can] make a conclusion, [why trying to change the formality would fail].
I think it's about unchangeable human nature. People will always resort to violence because of reasons they deem important.
I think it's about unchangeable human nature. People will always resort to violence because of reasons they deem important.
My favorite lyric is the last line of the second verse. It brings the verse full circle, tying together the real life “sitting right behind you” toward the the beginning with the metaphorical “sitting right behind you” at the end.
My favorite lyric is the last line of the second verse. It brings the verse full circle, tying together the real life “sitting right behind you” toward the the beginning with the metaphorical “sitting right behind you” at the end.
I hated every day of high school It's funny, I guess you did too Its funny how I never knew There I was sitting right behind you They wrote it in the local rag Death comes to the local fag I guess you finally stopped believing That any hope would ever find you Well I know that story, I was sitting right behind you...
I hated every day of high school It's funny, I guess you did too Its funny how I never knew There I was sitting right behind you They wrote it in the local rag Death comes to the local fag I guess you finally stopped believing That any hope would ever find you Well I know that story, I was sitting right behind you
As a Dartmouth undergrad steeped in the historical and literary underpinnings of Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks,” I’ve dug into every line of this song, tracing its echoes through poetry—classical, modern, and everything in between—while pinning it to the gritty context of Morrison’s life circa 1968. This isn’t just a song; it’s a tapestry of influences, from Belfast streets to Beat poets, with a nod to the ancients. Let’s break it down, line by line, with the rigor of someone who’s spent too many late nights in Baker-Berry Library cross-referencing everything.
As a Dartmouth undergrad steeped in the historical and literary underpinnings of Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks,” I’ve dug into every line of this song, tracing its echoes through poetry—classical, modern, and everything in between—while pinning it to the gritty context of Morrison’s life circa 1968. This isn’t just a song; it’s a tapestry of influences, from Belfast streets to Beat poets, with a nod to the ancients. Let’s break it down, line by line, with the rigor of someone who’s spent too many late nights in Baker-Berry Library cross-referencing everything.
“If I...
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“If I ventured in the slipstream / Between the viaducts of your dream”
Right off the bat, Morrison drops us into a fluid, elusive space. “Slipstream” isn’t just a poetic flourish—it’s got roots in aerodynamics, a term for the air current behind a moving object, which by 1968 was creeping into counterculture lingo as a metaphor for riding life’s flow. Think Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1957), where motion and drift define existence—Morrison, fresh from Belfast and a stifling contract with Bang Records, was a wanderer too. “Viaducts” conjures industrial Belfast, its railway bridges a stark image from his youth, but also nods to W.B. Yeats’ The Tower (1928), where structures bridge the earthly and the mythic. The “dream” bit? That’s straight out of Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale (1819)—“fancy cannot cheat so well / As she is famed to do”—blurring reality and reverie.
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“Where immobile steel rims crack / And the ditch in the back roads stop”
Here’s where Morrison gets earthy. “Immobile steel rims” could be the rusted wheels of Belfast’s shipyards—think Harland & Wolff, where the Titanic was forged, a symbol of stalled progress by the ‘60s. Historically, Northern Ireland’s industrial decline was kicking in, and Morrison, born 1945, saw it firsthand. “Ditch in the back roads” feels like a memory of rural County Down, where he’d ramble as a kid. Poetically, this echoes Dylan Thomas’ Fern Hill (1945)—“down the rivers of the windfall light”—a pastoral nostalgia tinged with decay. The “crack” and “stop” halt the motion, like Eliot’s “still point” in Four Quartets (1943), hinting at a pause before transformation.
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“Could you find me? / Would you kiss my eyes? / And lay me down / In silence easy / To be born again / To be born again”
This is Morrison wrestling with intimacy and renewal. “Could you find me?” has a lost, plaintive ring—think Sappho’s Fragment 31 (c. 600 BCE), where the speaker’s yearning fractures under observation. “Kiss my eyes” is tender but odd—maybe a riff on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”), subverting romantic norms. “Lay me down / In silence easy” feels like a burial or a rebirth, tying to the Irish aisling tradition—vision poems of renewal, like Aogán Ó Rathaille’s 17th-century works. “To be born again” screams gospel, sure—Morrison’s Belfast was steeped in Protestant hymns—but also recalls Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence from Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883), a cycle of self-overcoming. He’s pleading for a reset after the chaos of 1967 New York.
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“From the far side of the ocean / If I put the wheels in motion”
Morrison’s transatlantic jump from Ireland to America in ‘67 looms large here. “Far side of the ocean” is literal—he’s in Boston now, recording this—but it’s also Homeric, straight out of The Odyssey (c. 1200 BCE), Odysseus longing across seas. “Wheels in motion” keeps the travel motif rolling, maybe echoing Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road” (1856)—“Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road.” Morrison’s escape from Bang Records’ pop machine was his own odyssey, and this line’s the spark of agency after stagnation.
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“And I stand with my own hand / Held out in the market place”
This shifts to defiance. “Stand with my own hand” is Morrison reclaiming control—historically, he’d just ditched Bert Berns’ commercial shackles. “Market place” could be Cambridge, MA, where he gigged in ‘68, but it’s also classical—think agora in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (c. 429 BCE), a public reckoning. Poetically, it’s got shades of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl (1956)—“I saw the best minds of my generation…starving hysterical naked”—a cry amid capitalism. He’s offering himself, raw and unscripted.
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“And you came / And I was lifted / Out of the emptiness and strife”
Enter the savior figure. “You came” is ambiguous—lover, muse, God?—but it’s got a Biblical echo, like Psalm 40: “He lifted me out of the slimy pit.” Morrison’s Pentecostal roots surface here. “Emptiness and strife” nails his 1967 nadir—penniless, dumped by Berns’ widow, dodging deportation. Poetically, it’s Rilke’s Duino Elegies (1923)—“Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angelic orders?”—a rescue from despair.
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“There you go / Movin’ across the water now”
This is elusive— “you” gliding away? It’s got a mythic vibe, like the Irish Tuatha Dé Danann crossing seas in Lebor Gabála Érenn (c. 11th century). “Water” ties back to the ocean, but also 1968’s cultural currents—think Woodstock vibes brewing. Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” (1916) lurks here—“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood”—a figure drifting off on their own path.
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“And you breathe in / You breathe out”
Simple, but loaded. Breath’s a life force—think Genesis 2:7, God breathing into Adam—but also meditative, like Zen poets Bashō (17th century) fixating on the moment. Morrison’s jazz leanings—think Coltrane’s A Love Supreme (1965)—pulse here, inhale-exhale as rhythm. It’s grounding after the lift-off.
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“In another time / In another place”
Time bends. This could be Morrison’s Belfast childhood, or a lover’s memory, but it’s also Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 CE)—shifting realms, fluid identities. Historically, 1968’s upheaval (MLK, RFK, Paris riots) makes “another time” a collective ache. Charles Olson’s Maximus Poems (1960) play with place and memory this way too—Morrison’s tapping a modernist vein.
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“And I will never grow so old again / And I will walk and talk / In gardens all wet with rain”
The payoff. “Never grow so old again” flips Dylan’s “Forever Young” (1974, but floating in ‘60s ethos)—it’s eternal youth, but darker, like Keats’ “Bright Star” (1819), frozen vitality. “Gardens all wet with rain” is Edenic—Genesis again—but also Irish, like Seamus Heaney’s boggy landscapes (pre-North, but germinating). It’s Morrison picturing peace after strife, a nod to Belfast’s damp green.
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Conclusion
This undergrad sees “Astral Weeks” as Morrison’s kaleidoscope—personal history (Belfast, Bang Records), literary ghosts (Yeats to Ginsberg), and 1968’s restless air, all smashed together. It’s not tidy; it’s a howl of survival and wonder, stitched with threads from Homer to the Beats. I’d title my term paper “Slipstreams and Steel: Van Morrison’s Lyric Cartography”—and I’d ace it.
‘Spider Silk’ lyrically speaks with its own vengeance. Spiders use their silk to make webs as adhesive traps to catch, entangle & restrain prey. Seems this Spider here - she has many a traps laid out awaiting those would be victims.
‘Spider Silk’ lyrically speaks with its own vengeance. Spiders use their silk to make webs as adhesive traps to catch, entangle & restrain prey. Seems this Spider here - she has many a traps laid out awaiting those would be victims.
I gotta say I always thought some of the lyrics were something else. Most disappointing: I always thought "howling old owl" was actually "prowling around," which would avoid the awkward double use of "howl" and allowed me to picture a young Reggie, or perhaps Bernie, crawling through the woods with a big butterfly net.
I gotta say I always thought some of the lyrics were something else. Most disappointing: I always thought "howling old owl" was actually "prowling around," which would avoid the awkward double use of "howl" and allowed me to picture a young Reggie, or perhaps Bernie, crawling through the woods with a big butterfly net.
this was one of my moms favorites she was an addict and a month after my uncle was murdered she od’d in a motel bathtub since her death everyone acts like they cared so much.. this song always reminds me of her and how everything happened. she was so beautiful her funeral was just like the song.. like an art show and everyone really was starting to love her more. ITS SO WRONG
this was one of my moms favorites she was an addict and a month after my uncle was murdered she od’d in a motel bathtub since her death everyone acts like they cared so much.. this song always reminds me of her and how everything happened. she was so beautiful her funeral was just like the song.. like an art show and everyone really was starting to love her more. ITS SO WRONG
This song is about the Wreck of the Adonis, which is located about an hour north of where Ween were staying when they were recording this song during production of The Mollusk. Dean has a captain's license and leads fishing trips in the area.
This song is about the Wreck of the Adonis, which is located about an hour north of where Ween were staying when they were recording this song during production of The Mollusk. Dean has a captain's license and leads fishing trips in the area.
Fun facts: In 1964 when the song was released, Honda had become the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles, and "thongs" were what are now called "flip flops" and not ass-revealing swimwear. I'm guessing that the inclusion of these items in the lyric were Mike Love's main contribution. Great song.
Fun facts: In 1964 when the song was released, Honda had become the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles, and "thongs" were what are now called "flip flops" and not ass-revealing swimwear. I'm guessing that the inclusion of these items in the lyric were Mike Love's main contribution. Great song.
As a Dartmouth undergrad steeped in the historical and literary underpinnings of Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks,” I’ve dug into every line of this song, tracing its echoes through poetry—classical, modern, and everything in between—while pinning it to the gritty context of Morrison’s life circa 1968. This isn’t just a song; it’s a tapestry of influences, from Belfast streets to Beat poets, with a nod to the ancients. Let’s break it down, line by line, with the rigor of someone who’s spent too many late nights in Baker-Berry Library cross-referencing everything.
As a Dartmouth undergrad steeped in the historical and literary underpinnings of Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks,” I’ve dug into every line of this song, tracing its echoes through poetry—classical, modern, and everything in between—while pinning it to the gritty context of Morrison’s life circa 1968. This isn’t just a song; it’s a tapestry of influences, from Belfast streets to Beat poets, with a nod to the ancients. Let’s break it down, line by line, with the rigor of someone who’s spent too many late nights in Baker-Berry Library cross-referencing everything.
“If I...
/>
“If I ventured in the slipstream / Between the viaducts of your dream”
Right off the bat, Morrison drops us into a fluid, elusive space. “Slipstream” isn’t just a poetic flourish—it’s got roots in aerodynamics, a term for the air current behind a moving object, which by 1968 was creeping into counterculture lingo as a metaphor for riding life’s flow. Think Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1957), where motion and drift define existence—Morrison, fresh from Belfast and a stifling contract with Bang Records, was a wanderer too. “Viaducts” conjures industrial Belfast, its railway bridges a stark image from his youth, but also nods to W.B. Yeats’ The Tower (1928), where structures bridge the earthly and the mythic. The “dream” bit? That’s straight out of Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale (1819)—“fancy cannot cheat so well / As she is famed to do”—blurring reality and reverie.
/>
“Where immobile steel rims crack / And the ditch in the back roads stop”
Here’s where Morrison gets earthy. “Immobile steel rims” could be the rusted wheels of Belfast’s shipyards—think Harland & Wolff, where the Titanic was forged, a symbol of stalled progress by the ‘60s. Historically, Northern Ireland’s industrial decline was kicking in, and Morrison, born 1945, saw it firsthand. “Ditch in the back roads” feels like a memory of rural County Down, where he’d ramble as a kid. Poetically, this echoes Dylan Thomas’ Fern Hill (1945)—“down the rivers of the windfall light”—a pastoral nostalgia tinged with decay. The “crack” and “stop” halt the motion, like Eliot’s “still point” in Four Quartets (1943), hinting at a pause before transformation.
/>
“Could you find me? / Would you kiss my eyes? / And lay me down / In silence easy / To be born again / To be born again”
This is Morrison wrestling with intimacy and renewal. “Could you find me?” has a lost, plaintive ring—think Sappho’s Fragment 31 (c. 600 BCE), where the speaker’s yearning fractures under observation. “Kiss my eyes” is tender but odd—maybe a riff on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”), subverting romantic norms. “Lay me down / In silence easy” feels like a burial or a rebirth, tying to the Irish aisling tradition—vision poems of renewal, like Aogán Ó Rathaille’s 17th-century works. “To be born again” screams gospel, sure—Morrison’s Belfast was steeped in Protestant hymns—but also recalls Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence from Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883), a cycle of self-overcoming. He’s pleading for a reset after the chaos of 1967 New York.
/>
“From the far side of the ocean / If I put the wheels in motion”
Morrison’s transatlantic jump from Ireland to America in ‘67 looms large here. “Far side of the ocean” is literal—he’s in Boston now, recording this—but it’s also Homeric, straight out of The Odyssey (c. 1200 BCE), Odysseus longing across seas. “Wheels in motion” keeps the travel motif rolling, maybe echoing Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road” (1856)—“Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road.” Morrison’s escape from Bang Records’ pop machine was his own odyssey, and this line’s the spark of agency after stagnation.
/>
“And I stand with my own hand / Held out in the market place”
This shifts to defiance. “Stand with my own hand” is Morrison reclaiming control—historically, he’d just ditched Bert Berns’ commercial shackles. “Market place” could be Cambridge, MA, where he gigged in ‘68, but it’s also classical—think agora in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (c. 429 BCE), a public reckoning. Poetically, it’s got shades of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl (1956)—“I saw the best minds of my generation…starving hysterical naked”—a cry amid capitalism. He’s offering himself, raw and unscripted.
/>
“And you came / And I was lifted / Out of the emptiness and strife”
Enter the savior figure. “You came” is ambiguous—lover, muse, God?—but it’s got a Biblical echo, like Psalm 40: “He lifted me out of the slimy pit.” Morrison’s Pentecostal roots surface here. “Emptiness and strife” nails his 1967 nadir—penniless, dumped by Berns’ widow, dodging deportation. Poetically, it’s Rilke’s Duino Elegies (1923)—“Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angelic orders?”—a rescue from despair.
/>
“There you go / Movin’ across the water now”
This is elusive— “you” gliding away? It’s got a mythic vibe, like the Irish Tuatha Dé Danann crossing seas in Lebor Gabála Érenn (c. 11th century). “Water” ties back to the ocean, but also 1968’s cultural currents—think Woodstock vibes brewing. Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” (1916) lurks here—“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood”—a figure drifting off on their own path.
/>
“And you breathe in / You breathe out”
Simple, but loaded. Breath’s a life force—think Genesis 2:7, God breathing into Adam—but also meditative, like Zen poets Bashō (17th century) fixating on the moment. Morrison’s jazz leanings—think Coltrane’s A Love Supreme (1965)—pulse here, inhale-exhale as rhythm. It’s grounding after the lift-off.
/>
“In another time / In another place”
Time bends. This could be Morrison’s Belfast childhood, or a lover’s memory, but it’s also Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 CE)—shifting realms, fluid identities. Historically, 1968’s upheaval (MLK, RFK, Paris riots) makes “another time” a collective ache. Charles Olson’s Maximus Poems (1960) play with place and memory this way too—Morrison’s tapping a modernist vein.
/>
“And I will never grow so old again / And I will walk and talk / In gardens all wet with rain”
The payoff. “Never grow so old again” flips Dylan’s “Forever Young” (1974, but floating in ‘60s ethos)—it’s eternal youth, but darker, like Keats’ “Bright Star” (1819), frozen vitality. “Gardens all wet with rain” is Edenic—Genesis again—but also Irish, like Seamus Heaney’s boggy landscapes (pre-North, but germinating). It’s Morrison picturing peace after strife, a nod to Belfast’s damp green.
/>
Conclusion
This undergrad sees “Astral Weeks” as Morrison’s kaleidoscope—personal history (Belfast, Bang Records), literary ghosts (Yeats to Ginsberg), and 1968’s restless air, all smashed together. It’s not tidy; it’s a howl of survival and wonder, stitched with threads from Homer to the Beats. I’d title my term paper “Slipstreams and Steel: Van Morrison’s Lyric Cartography”—and I’d ace it.