"No one then following Van expected such a statement."

Let down and hanging around

Late last month, Rolling Stone premiered one of the four bonus tracks—the first take of "Beside You"—that will be featured on the upcoming reissue of Astral Weeks. Yesterday, Uncut offered an exclusive peek of the much-anticipated extended version of "Slim Slow Slider."

And my is it underwhelming. There's aimless instrumentation, Van flatly singing a few words from what may or may not be an old Protestant church ditty, and absolutely zero of the beautiful solemnity for which the original is renowned. Thank you, but no.

A first step

No future can be charted without a starting point. For Van Morrison, it was a song recorded in the spring of 1967. It was done in just two takes; even so, upon completion, the artist—the exile—abruptly collapsed in on himself. "He was just torn apart," said the session's sound engineer. "He was sitting on the floor in a heap like a wrung-out dishcloth, completely spent emotionally."

The song is a labyrinthine journey into the heart of what moves us, what sustains us, what remains with us, and, perhaps most crucial of all, what dies with us. There's an unparalleled desperation, a need to convey these feelings and emotions before they lose their purity and vitality, before they fade like a photograph left out in the sun. At nearly 10 minutes in length, the song conflates old genres and births new ones: Belfast Blues, Ginger-Haired Soul, Deathbed Folk. "T.B. Sheets" is the first step on the tangled path to Astral Weeks.

Strange days indeed

I listened to Quintet's Astral Weeks ~Strange Days From Another Star~. It delivered the same feeling I get when watching my children spend 10 hours climbing on furniture, cartwheeling down stairs, doing somersaults on the ceiling, swan-diving off top bunks, and perfecting the skill of sprinting full throttle while screaming at top volume: I was simultaneously jealous of and fatigued by their inexhaustible energy.

Upon the album's completion, I was overcome with this urge to complete an act both audacious and liberating. Like if it was a weekday afternoon and I was driving home from my place of employment, I would have taken off my socks and work shoes, flung them out the car window, and joyfully worked the pedals with my bare feet.