Music critics have always agreed on Van Morrison, from rightly and repeatedly labeling him a genius over the last half-century to declaring him dark and dangerous last week.
The Belfast-born bandleader was brilliant when recording a seemingly endless string of masterpieces from 1968’s Astral Weeks to 2018’s The Prophet Speaks. Now, there is a new universal consensus: He must be ridiculed, marginalized, and silenced.
The 75-year-old legend’s new album, Latest Record Project, Vol. 1, dropped last week, and the critics for whom he has always had unabashed disdain were triggered. Why? His inimitable voice is still the “otherworldly musical instrument” it was as recently as 2016. The bluesy tunes remain catchy and evocative. Morrison has always worked with the best musicians in the business.
It’s the lyrics, of course. After a full year of railing against the COVID-19 lockdowns and the inability to perform outdoor concerts (a position to which “the science” seems to be coming around), Morrison’s distrust of the media, the government, and all those he suspects of driving an Orwellian narrative has hardened. He’s turned his well-chronicled cantankerousness on the social media thought police and control-freak bureaucrats.
“I’m not telling people what to do or think, the government is doing a great job of that already,” Morrison said in a statement last year. “It’s about freedom of choice, I believe people should have the right to think for themselves.”
Apparently, that’s what passes for blasphemy these days. If you thought rock ‘n’ roll was rooted in rebellion against the establishment, you should know that this is no longer your generation. Speaking truth to power doesn’t include denouncing groupthink censorship, economy-destroying lockdowns, or soul-numbing socialism.
One can see the hive-minded, Vitamin D-deficient music critics, double-masked and alone in their apartments, their tongue-clucking giving way to full-blown outrage as Morrison delivers such outrageous lines as “they control the media,” “stop listening to mainstream media junk,” “you’re too lazy to go out and work,” and “stop b—-ing, do something.” It’s not in the lyrics, but they are certain he is dog-whistling about antisemitism, Q-Anon, and Stormfront.
Could it simply be that a musical genius with the soul of a poet and a voice like Tupelo honey is as sick as so many others over being locked down, lied to, manipulated, and mocked? It’s bad enough that we’ve reached the point in which it takes a septuagenarian legend to remind us of what protest music sounds like. It’s embarrassing that so many critics miss the point.
Perhaps Morrison, who sings “nowadays you have to be careful of everything you say” in a track called “Mind Control,” should have obeyed his own counsel. On the other hand, “Why Are You on Facebook?” isn’t just a good song — it’s a great question.
