^~~Is It Real...^~~

      Ah, Saturday Night. About to head out to a few haunts, hopefully to run into the other Musketeers to see if there's any more news on Doctor J's recently-hospitalized cohort. Am also psyching myself up a bit, trying to think a bit more positively than I'm initially inclined to think. Listening to Van Morrison's magnificent live version of "Rave On, John Donne," which adds to the original song immensely: with Mark Isham's flute trilling up and down and acting as if it were a percussion instrument and even the respondent to the lead voice's calls, with terrific drum and cymbals work texturing it all, with Van's voice at its saxophonic best, the song absolutely rolls. The lyrics, simple enough in themselves, match the music perfectly, providing the kind of affirmation that feels like gazing into the gloriously-dizzying firmament:

Tonight, 'neath the silvery moon, tonight
Tonight, 'neath the silvery moon, tonight
And the leaves shake out of the trees
And the cool summer breeze
And the people passing in the street
And everybody that you meet

Tonight, you will understand the Oneness
Tonight, you will understand the One
Tonight, 'neath the silvery moon, tonight
Tonight, let it all begin, tonight
You will understand the Oneness, the Oneness, the Oneness....

Is it real, what you sang about in your song?
Is it real, what you sang about in your song?
I said, Come back, baby, can we talk it over
One more time, tonight...

Van's a master of that rare skill of using repetition to engender many meanings, such that after hearing the song, the words "tonight" and "Oneness" (which is sometimes phrased with a muffle to sound like "wonder") seem absolutely beautiful, and the phrases "'neath the silvery moon" and "leaves shake out of the trees" much more resonant their strictly textual representation. There's something almost confidence-inspiring about the delivery of all this, basically the second movement of the song, about six minutes of a nine minute song. It's all pure Anglo-gospel riff, pure "get-your-spirit-moving" stuff. (This version of the song is from Live At The Grand Opera House Belfast, but it's also on The Best of Van Morrison Volume Two.) There's something wonderfully buttressing to this sort of music. I remember years ago psyching myself up to defend for my Modern comp, and standing outside the building in which the defense was to be held, and fending off panic and self-negation by grooving outside to Van's live version of Caravan from the Pagan Streams bootleg. I'm sure I must have looked like a savant, my head bopping as Van's shouting "Get Up! Get Up! Stand on the scene! Like a SAX machine!" It was marevellous, though. Went in, free of butterflies, and kicked some serious ass. According to one of the profs on the committee, another prof said it was the best defense she'd ever sat on in that field. Go figure. Why am I writing this? I'm not entirely sure. Maybe I'm just writing it to explain something to myself, and perhaps to excuse me listening to "Rave On" a few more times before I head out. Or perhaps I want to have at least some seed of affirmation planted before I have to heard more bad news. But perhaps not. Tonight, 'neath the silvery moon, tonight... Rave on.