Posted by If I were in my car, traveling solo, I would surely have this classic playing when, after a stretch through bad weather, I would find myself driving in the placid calm of a revealed nature.
Into The Mystic is an eclectic ballad of blues, folk and rock, the fifth track of Van Morrison’s Moondance album, 1970.
We were born before the wind
Also younger than the sun
Ere the bonnie boat was won as we sailed into the mystic
Hark, now hear the sailors cry
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic
Imagine a fantastic scenery, myths from old Greece and ancient Indian beliefs, a mystical story, nomadic and spiritual fairy tales, a traveling ship.
This is what Van Morrison paints, composes, and this is the closest to a poem you might hear on rock.
We were born before the wind, he says.
We’re younger than the sun.
He sings about a boat in navigation on the mystic, weeping sailors, he asks to smell the sea, and feel the sky, in this personal journey.
And while he sings, he is accompanied by a special kind of orchestra: guitar, bass, drums, sax and piano that, in a mixture of blues and rock, create a magic, a mystical aura, illuminating the mythological paths of Van Morrison.
And it is precisely when you reach the instrumental symphony, that polyphony that opens the sensory doors, that the instruments take off and Van Morrison screams like Joplin. He screams that he wants to rock the gypsy soul of a woman, just like the old days.
And when that foghorn blows I will be coming home
And when that foghorn blows I want to hear it
I don’t have to fear it
I want to rock your gypsy soul
Just like way back in the days of old
Then magnificently we will float into the mystic
In fact, what is more mystical than love? Which mysterious and indomitable force can exist, stronger than that?
Taming the gypsy soul of a woman and bringing her into a mystical vortex, this is the surreal ambition of Van Morrison.
And he speaks about horns and fog, about a return journey. Odyssey, myth, legend, tale.
This song is something new and something already heard. It is something that we all have inside: the sense of the mystic, a door, a portal.
It is like an ancient table, a granite tale, a poem. The myth of a nomadic soul that lets itself go in a spiritual elevation.
It’s love.
It’s spiritual lyric.
It’s dream.
It’s rock.
