What happened to Van Morrison? The fall from eccentric genius to conspiracy theorist [View all]

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https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-05-10/van-morrison-latest-record-project-antisemitism-coronavirus

Outside of the circles of his most dedicated fans, the arrival of a Van Morrison album in the 21st century has not been a news event. That trend stopped last week, however, when Morrison, 75, released “Latest Record Project, Vol. 1,” a 28-track double album that includes eyebrow-raising song titles such as “Where Have All the Rebels Gone,” “Why Are You on Facebook?” and “Stop Bitching, Do Something.” This album is now very much news: Variety published a list of “The 10 Craziest Lyrics” from the record, while the Jerusalem Post rounded up all of the claims of anti-Semitism implied in his song called “They Own the Media” and other lyrics scattered throughout.

This turn toward the alt-right didn’t come out of nowhere. Broadly speaking, Morrison’s career arc looks something like this: He went from being a brash teenage wunderkind with his band Them, to a promising young solo artist (“Brown Eyed Girl”), to a moody, soulful poet casually creating masterpieces (“Astral Weeks” and “Moondance”), to a middle-aged curmudgeon showcasing occasional moments of brilliance (“Common One”), until he slowly devolved into a boozy-uncle type, cranking out boilerplate blues LPs while leaning on his earlier legacy to fill concert halls.

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More recently, the global coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing prohibition of live concerts appear to have shocked and infuriated the singer. In August 2020, Morrison published a screed on his official website explaining that he needed to get his “band up and running and out of the doldrums. … We need to be playing to full capacity audiences going forward.” In a subsequently deleted message, he went further, denouncing the validity of the science behind social distancing and quarantine. “I call on my fellow singers, musicians, writers, producers, promoters and others in the industry to fight with me on this. Come forward, stand up, fight the pseudo-science and speak up.”

Back in the fall of 2020, Morrison announced three topical singles protesting COVID-19 restrictions plus a petition to end the temporary ban on live concerts. In one of these songs, “No More Lockdown,” he crooned about scientists “making up crooked facts,” labeling the perpetrators of these measures “fascist bullies.” In an unprecedented turn of events, the songs became cause for Northern Ireland’s health minister, Robin Swann, to pen an op-ed for Rolling Stone, calling Morrison’s new lyrics “dangerous” and a great comfort to “the tinfoil hat brigade who crusade against masks and vaccines and think this is all a huge global plot to remove freedoms.”

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-05-10/van-morrison-latest-record-project-antisemitism-coronavirus