Latest Van Morrison Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• When I started out in this business, I was a performer before I was a songwriter, I was a performer before I was recording. Performing is the roots. That's where it all came from. You didn't start out doing it because you wanted to make an album.

  Van Morrison

  Roots, Albums, Performing

  The Ritchie Yorke Project Interview, ritchieyorke.com. April 21, 2015.

• Performing was the natural thing originally and the rest of it [records and so on] is just like offshoots of that. That's how I see it anyway.

  Van Morrison

  Records, Natural, Performing

  Interview with Ritchie Yorke, ritchieyorke.com. April 21.

• [Touring] is not necessarily a priority. It's just a part of who I am as a performer. That's obviously why I'm doing it; why I'm in this business is part of me has to perform.

  Van Morrison

  Who I Am, Priorities, Touring

  Source: ritchieyorke.com

• Once you start to analyze it [Joyous Sound], you've completely lost it. That one just came.

  Van Morrison

  Sound, Lost, Joyous

  Source: ritchieyorke.com

• Heavy Connection is just basically about psychic stuff...it's kind of about connections that you're not normally making. It's like a fate number where you're making psychic connections that you're not really aware of but they're there.

  Van Morrison

  Fate, Psychics, Numbers

  Source: ritchieyorke.com

• The Eternal Kansas City song came from a dream sequence. It was actually kind of weird. I had this dream about a Kansas City type of thing while I was up at Stevie Winwood's place near Cheltenham, in Britain. I went into this small town and I was walking along and this dream thing was still in my head.

  Van Morrison

  Dream, Song, Cities

  Source: ritchieyorke.com

• Joyous Sound evolved from a gospel influence. Actually it evolved out of sitting at a piano and just picking out a riff, a gospel type riff. It just seemed to come joyously-something about the song, about living in another place of joyous sounds. I'm not quite sure-that's one I'm trying to analyze. It just came out.

  Van Morrison

  Song, Piano, Trying

  Source: ritchieyorke.com

• [You Got To Make It Through The World] it's kind of a survival song. Survival is what's happening and it's basically a song about that.

  Van Morrison

  Song, Survival, World

  Source: ritchieyorke.com

• Any artist is an instrument-and that's exactly why you can't do it all the time. You can only do it when it's happening, when it's coming through. No matter how much you may want to do it, if it's not happening then it's simply not happening.

  Van Morrison

  Artist, May, Want

  The Ritchie Yorke Project Interview, ritchieyorke.com. April 21, 2015.

• What was happening with me, with the album [A Period of Transition], with the people who took the pictures, the record company, everything, getting a new manager [Harvey Goldsmith]-it was all saying a period of transition to me so that was the title choice. It says what it is and obviously nobody is going to analyze that. It's exactly what it is.

  Van Morrison

  People, Choices, Titles

  Source: ritchieyorke.com

• That song [You Got To Make It Through The World] came from a vibe I picked up from an old blues singer named Bo Carter. My lady was making a film as a thesis for U.C.L.A. and she wanted me to write a song to depict this character. The movie had something to do with bootlegging and stuff like that. I found this Bo Carter record and he was just saying something about making it to the woods or something like that.

  Van Morrison

  Song, Writing, Character

  Source: ritchieyorke.com

• If you want to put your rock 'n' roll into mythology, [A Period of Transition] is from the Daddy Cool school.

  Van Morrison

  School, Rocks, Daddy

  Source: ritchieyorke.com

• Like I said, basically I'm a rocker. That's about it. Things that I've done away from that-branches that I've gotten into off of that - are just other streams, other things that I can do.

  Van Morrison

  Done, Branches, Said

  The Ritchie Yorke Project Interview, ritchieyorke.com. April 21, 2015.

• What I really like to do is just do the twist!

  Van Morrison

  Twists

  The Ritchie Yorke Project Interview, ritchieyorke.com. April 21, 2015.

• I think intellectualization is what's killing most people.

  Van Morrison

  Thinking, People, Killing

  The Ritchie Yorke Project Interview, ritchieyorke.com. April 21, 2015.

• It's real difficult to pin down directions. I just want to do collaboration-tape stuff.

  Van Morrison

  Real, Collaboration, Tape

  The Ritchie Yorke Project Interview, ritchieyorke.com. April 21, 2015.

• There's a realization that you have to do something but you just can't do it all the time.

  Van Morrison

  Realization

  Interview with Ritchie Yorke, ritchieyorke.com. April 21.

• I think we're going a bit too fast at the minute. The rate we're going is like we're going over the edge of the hill.

  Van Morrison

  Thinking, Hills, Minutes

  Interview with Ritchie Yorke, ritchieyorke.com. April 21.

• It's not that big a mystery about types. It's not even that big a mystery why so many people are picking up on things now. It's like we were talking about the primitive thing before and all that. Nothing has really changed much. The things that have changed are like we're on the noon now. There are more buildings now. But we're still basically two monkeys sitting here.

  Van Morrison

  Two, Talking, People

  Interview with Ritchie Yorke, ritchieyorke.com. April 21.

• [Jean-Paul] Sartre was a throwback to the existential period. I'm not really so much into that these days. I went through a period of going over things and looking at them again to see what they were. But I'm into psychiatry type things. I'm into philosophy. I'm into that sort of thing.

  Van Morrison

  Philosophy, Existential, Type

  Source: ritchieyorke.com

• I think I opened up an area with Astral Weeks that hit a lot of peoples' nerves. But you can't really say that they're my favorite songs.

  Van Morrison

  Song, Thinking, Nerves

  The Ritchie Yorke Project Interview, ritchieyorke.com. April 21, 2015.

• Somebody's going to hear a song that will key in a nerve or something in their experience that represents their own vision. And the next person is going to see it completely different. So even what it means to me is probably irrelevant. It's totally irrelevant. What matters is what it means to each person listening to it.

  Van Morrison

  Song, Mean, What Matters

  The Ritchie Yorke Project Interview, ritchieyorke.com. April 21, 2015.

• J.P. Donleavy - now he's one writer I am consistent with. He's written books that I can definitely connect with. He has amazing insights which other people missed out on. Even with his descriptions of Northern Ireland.

  Van Morrison

  Book, People, Description

  The Ritchie Yorke Project Interview, ritchieyorke.com. April 21, 2015.

• I don't like to wonder about it-I just like to do it. That's what I mean about the image stuff and all that. There's far too much emphasis being placed on that kind of stuff... the whole emphasis on what does it mean? Everybody has their own particular vision.

  Van Morrison

  Mean, Vision, Doe

  The Ritchie Yorke Project Interview, ritchieyorke.com. March 21, 2015.

• I also like to do physical things. I like swimming a lot. I like traveling. Not touring traveling but just plain traveling. I also read a lot. Reading takes up most of my time.

  Van Morrison

  Reading, Swimming, Touring

  The Ritchie Yorke Project Interview, ritchieyorke.com. April 21, 2015.