The Places of Van Morrison’s Songwriting

Venturing in the Slipstream

Geoff Munns

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Paperback

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English

Routledge
26 August 2024

Theory of music & musicology; Folk & traditional music; Individual composers & musicians, bands & groups; Musical scores, lyrics & libretti

Series: Routledge Studies in Popular Music

What can we learn about Van Morrison’s life and work as a songwriter through his songs? This book looks closely at the lyrics and music from a selection of his songs. Some are very well-known - ‘Brown Eyed Girl’, ‘Cleaning Windows’ and ‘The Healing Game’. Others are less familiar.

Through these songs the book offers insights into some of the most important ideas that the songwriter has explored across his five-decade plus career, starting from the Them period and extending through his solo albums. These readings show how thinking about Morrison’s use of place provides a specific lens that contributes to a greater understanding of his art. The songs are organized into chapters that reflect many of the important places in Morrison’s work as he ventured professionally and imaginatively away from the places of his upbringing towards a wider musical world. These places are in city streetscapes and country landscapes – in home places of streets and ditches, in the enclosed spaces of rooms, in the expansive reaches of the natural world, in indeterminate and specific foreign lands. A picture emerges of the journey that Van Morrison details through his songs, one that sees him first wandering as a boy through his East Belfast haunts, and then venturing out to a wider world away from this local place.

By: Geoff Munns
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 360g
ISBN: 9781032253954
ISBN 10: 1032253959
Series: Routledge Studies in Popular Music
Pages: 180
Publication Date: 26 August 2024
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Geoff Munns is Adjunct Associate Professor with the School of Education, University of Western Sydney. He has been a schoolteacher, school principal, a teaching academic and a university researcher. His recent doctorate explored the use of place in Van Morrison’s songwriting.