Hymns to the Silence: Inside The Words and Music of Van Morrison

"It's a critical study, not a biography."says Peter Mills who teaches at the School of Cultural Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University of his latest book, Hymns To The Silence: Inside The Words and Music of Van Morrison. While books on Van have never been discussed on this blog, I feel this book deserves recognition for focusing strictly on Van's incredible body of work.

The book takes several intriguing angles. It looks at Morrison as a writer: specifically as an Irish writer, who has recorded musical settings of Yeats poems, collaborated with Seamus Heaney, Paul Durcan and Gerald Dawe, and who regularly drops quotes from James Joyce and Samuel Beckett into his live performances. It looks at him as a singer, at how he uses his voice as an interpretive instrument. And there are in-depth chapters on his use of mythology, on his stage performances, and on his continuing fascination with America and its musical forms.

Hymns to the Silence is a detailed investigative study of Van Morrison’s remarkable career. Mills engages with his subject in a fresh and accessible style – often challenging the received wisdom. He looks at Morrison as a songwriter and specifically as an Irish writer, yet one who has worked primarily with American musical forms. Key themes and motifs are examined, as well as the ideas of place, home and exile and Morrison’s periodic use of through-composition in major case studies of four of his best-regarded albums. Each section is full of detailed scrutiny and illuminating examples drawn from right across his recording and stage career, including his 2009 return to Astral Weeks. The book is also studded with fresh and original quotes from people who know about the music, including Maria McKee, Kevin Rowland, Kate Rusby, Ben Sidran, and Fiachra Trench.

If you love Van's music, then you will treasure this great book.

Available at Amazon.com