That troubled troubadour expects an audience once more. Van Morrison and his twee little covers project rattle on and present another decimation of a classic track. Moving on Skiffle has neither the charm nor clarity of contemporary covers experiences. Bruce Springsteen marked it as the first time he had relied solely on himself as a frontman, and Bob Dylan consistently draws from the American songbook as a way of touching deeper with the roots of his music. Morrison does it, unexplainably and rigidly. Either to capitalise on the success or to truly try and move the genre. Moving on Skiffle has little chance of that and recent single This Loving Light of Mine is as flatlining as it gets for the Astral Weeks legend. Blinking and flickering that light may be for Morrison, his voice is his reliant tool, absent here and muffled by poor mixing.
Drowned out by skiffle beats and backing singers, Morrison finds his vocal intrusions cut short in the cutting room and mixing arena. This Loving Light of Mine has the usual run for a track Harry Dixon Loes may have a claim to writing. That is unconfirmed. What is true though is the legacy of the track, the diction simple and cutting through as an effective march for the Civil Rights movement. Legacy like that is neither hit at nor appreciated by Morrison’s vacant presence here. What does Morrison offer here that other editions of this track do not? Vocal defences cannot be levelled here, where Morrison sounds quiet and droning. His preacher-like frontman attitude here comes off as clumsy and quiet, the “amen” elongation presenting little in the way of quality.
With the benefit of hindsight, This Loving Light of Mine makes the previous singles objectively listenable. At least Morrison, whose voice has never wavered over decades in the industry, was at the forefront. For the repetition of This Loving Light of Mine to work it needs a strong core. That is not found in Morrison, whose passion for this song is absent. Mixing is the great difficulty of this track. Balancing several instruments, from the soppy piano to the shaking mundanities of percussion, This Loving Light of Mine is a scrambled affair that cannot give the leading man his spotlight-grabbing wishes. Even then he does little to assemble himself as the crashing waves of drumming come for him and the barely audible guitar work that whines and cries under a snooze-inducing skiffle standard.
Morrison has failed to gauge the plausible simplicity but powerful concept behind This Loving Light of Mine. A track that sounds much more fun to make than it does on delivery. Why take a bloated version of This Loving Light of Mine, where Morrison is barely audible and croaking through in stark contrast to the strong vocal presence elsewhere in recent singles, when Bruce Springsteen and Sam Cooke have already covered this patch? Morrison’s recent works have always been surplus to requirement, but he has maintained his voice. It is tragic, then, that he uses it to provide one in a series of empty, jabbering tracks. One constant for This Loving Light of Mine is that the length, that three-minute standard, was perfect. Throwing in a few more “amen” shouts and a mid-song piano solo that comes as forgettable as the rest of these Morrison singles, does little to define a new route for an important original.
Discover more from Cult Following
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Wow.
You’re a bit harsh on the legend this is Van.
It’s his version, before you bashed him did you interview him to find out what sound he was going for?
I find this album to be one of his better ones in recent years.
Ewan, good luck to you as a writer.
To ask an artist what they mean by way of their writing or adaption of a song is, I feel, insulting to the artist. It is all laid out on the track, or at the very least it should be. I’d argue that asking me to interview Van Morrison solely to figure out what he was doing on This Loving Light of Mine before reviewing a cover track of a gospel song, is a bit of heavy-lifting that is neither needed nor warranted for any reviewer. Should I give Bob Dylan a call to ask about his bootleg tapes?
Van Morrison’s latest album isn’t out yet. I have a soft spot for his early works (Astral Weeks is and always will be a moving favourite), I cannot stand for so-called “legacy acts” phoning it in when we see the likes of Dylan, Neil Young and Marianne Faithfull continue to impress, improve and hone their craft.
I appreciate your well wishes Frank, thank you.
Ewan, you are a miseryguts. I’ve just listened to several tracks from “Moving On Skiffle” and I will get to the rest betimes. Tears of joy pour down my face. Van the Man is back, as good as ever. Van has always tried to incorporate into his oeuvre everything that has ever meant anything to him. Who would have thought that, at this late stage in his life, he would get back to THIS and revitalize it? Oh joy!
Ralph I’m so glad you enjoyed the album! Also, I think miseryguts is the nicest reply I’ve had to my work that’s stellar. I feel Van does that without Skiffle covers! Although I have spent much of the last few weeks working through Bob Dylan’s American Songbook.