Beside You

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“Beside You”
Song by Van Morrison
Album Astral Weeks
Released November 1968
Recorded September 25, 1968
Genre Folk Rock
Length 5:10
Label Warner Bros. Records
Writer Van Morrison
Composer Van Morrison
Producer Lewis Merenstein
Astral Weeks track listing
  1. "Astral Weeks"
  2. "Beside You"
  3. "Sweet Thing"
  4. "Cyprus Avenue"
  5. "The Way Young Lovers Do"
  6. "Madame George"
  7. "Ballerina"
  8. "Slim Slow Slider"

"Beside You" is the second track on the 1968 album Astral Weeks by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. Van Morrison remarked on this song: 'Beside You' is "the kind of song that you'd sing to a kid or somebody you love. It's basically a love song, just a song about being spiritually beside somebody." The child that would have inspired the song was his adopted son by Janet, his wife at that time. It is sung with a "hushed wonder" and in it the singer transfers the visions of his own childhood to his son.[1]

Jack Lynch wrote in 1983:[2]

The opening image of Little Jimmy shows a child sneaking out of his home, escaping to adventure and a childlike ritual rendezvous. Broken Arrow, possibly his fantasy figure, beckons — innocence led by imagination on the road to experience.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Hinton, Celtic Crossroads, p. 96
  2. ^ Heylin, Can You Feel the Silence?, p.14

[edit] References

  • Heylin, Clinton (2003). Can You Feel the Silence? Van Morrison: A New Biography, Chicago Review Press ISBN 1-55652-542-7
  • Hinton, Brian (1997). Celtic Crossroads: The Art of Van Morrison, Sanctuary, ISBN 1-86074169X

[edit] External links