These are the Days
Mar 26th, 2009 by oldfogey
Van Morrison’s 1989 album ‘Avalon Sunset’ is not, it seems, generally regarded as one of his best and tends to get overlooked. I think part of the reason for this is that, like his earlier, and much less worthy, ‘Inarticulate Speech of the Heart’, the theme of religion runs throughout. The opening song, ‘Whenever God Shines His Light’, a duet with Cliff Richard, is the most well known and was issued as a single at the time. I guess the presence of Cliff and his Born-Again Christianism was a bit hard to take for Van Morrison fans. But, though the God theme is there it is not typical of the rest of the album.
The last four songs on the album - ‘Whenever God Shines His Light’, ‘Orangefield’ (a return to the Ireland of his childhood), ‘Daring Night’ and ‘These are the Days’ - are, in my opinion, among the best he has ever done.
The lyrics of ‘These are the Days’ are a bit pretentious, with its religious reference to the ‘one great magician turned water into wine’. But this doesn’t matter much. Van Morrison is best when he is at his most improvisatory, and here he is. Particularly towards the end, when, after the song is sung, he and the female backing group vocalise wordlessly – “na, na, na, na” – female wailing above him gospel fashion.
UPDATE: I have been requested by Web Sherrif to delete the link to this track. The album can be found here.
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