Glad Tidings (song)

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“Glad Tidings”
Song by Van Morrison
Album Moondance
Released February 1970
Genre R & B/Country rock
Length 3:42
Label Warner Bros. Records
Writer Van Morrison
Composer Van Morrison
Producer Van Morrison and Lewis Merenstein
Moondance track listing
  1. "And It Stoned Me"
  2. "Moondance"
  3. "Crazy Love"
  4. "Caravan"
  5. "Into the Mystic"
  6. "Come Running"
  7. "These Dreams of You"
  8. "Brand New Day"
  9. "Everyone"
  10. "Glad Tidings"

"Glad Tidings" is the tenth and final song on Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison's best known album, Moondance that was released in 1970.

Van Morrison on the writing of the song:[1]

"Glad Tidings" is about a period of time in which I was living in New York. A friend of mine wrote me a letter from London and he'd written on the envelope 'Glad Tidings from London'. So I wrote 'Glad Tidings' from New York - and that's where I got the idea.

Brian Hinton, in reviewing the song notes that "Glad Tidings" seemed to be addressing some of the issues that Morrison had experienced a few years before with Bert Berns and the record label Bang Records: "businessmen talking in numbers, people who interrupt 'when you're in trances', strangers who 'make demands'.... even the opening line and closing line, 'and they'll lay you down low and easy' , could be either about murder or an act of love."[2]

"Glad Tidings" was used on "All Due Respect", the final episode of the fifth season The Sopranos. In a review of that last episode The Star Ledger states: "The episode's use of Van Morrison's "Glad Tidings" as a recurring motif was a classic example of the show's attention to detail. Moments before buckshot hit Blundetto, we heard the verse that opened with "And we'll send you glad tidings from New York" and closed with "Hope that you will come in right on time."[3]

Contents

[edit] Personnel on original recording

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Hinton, Celtic Crossroads, p. 110-111
  2. ^ Hinton, Celtic Crossroads, p. 111
  3. ^ 'Sopranos' finale: One hit, bottom of the fifth. Star-Ledger. Retrieved on 2007-08-11.

[edit] References

  • Hinton, Brian (1997). Celtic Crossroads: The Art of Van Morrison, Sanctuary, ISBN 1-86074169X

[edit] External links