Van the Man was tired of floating in space it was time to dance. But before any of that could happen, Morrison would need to fire everyone who had helped him create his 1968 masterpiece, Astral Weeks.

The album would solidify Van Morrison as an FM radio mainstay, act as a midwife for the burgeoning genre of “soft rock,” and help usher in the ’70s in America, where the beautiful hippie couples of the late ’60s would soundtrack their developing newfound domestic comfort with the sweet sounds of Morrison’s mystical love-anthems. Somehow, in defiance of conventional wisdom, it all works. The new songs would, of course, be informed by dreams and visions a casual fan of the record might be surprised if you told them that the tracks on Morrison’s 1970 LP Moondance contained instances of young boys experiencing religious ecstasy merely by sipping water or a recounted dream in which singer Ray Charles is gunned down in public, only to get up and declare he’s A-OK. Under distinct pressures and backed into a corner, Morrison did what he did best: deliver the goods while remaining his unmistakably eccentric self. Outside of these industry demands, Morrison was also about to become a father, his wife Janet Planet was then pregnant with their first and only child. As his piano player at the time Jef Labes noted, “I think Warners had pretty much told him, ‘You have one more chance.’” But nine-minute, three-chord jams backed by jazz players don’t often become radio hits, and Morrison knew that what he now needed was to generate material that would be played over the airwaves. had successfully purchased his Bang Records contract from mobbed-up charlatans on the edge of the music industry, and his surprising acoustic rebirth in Astral Weeks had been breathlessly noticed by some critics, even if you could barely find a copy in a record store.

Sure, some signs of positive change were afoot: Warner Bros. The unceremonious Astral Weeks promotional tour was unfolding with the kind of dues-paying, shit-eating milestones that the Belfast singer had sadly become accustomed to in the previous few years. The kids answered his question with more talking. “Will you shut the fuck up and listen?” Van Morrison asked the crowd of chatty teenyboppers gathered at the Whisky A Go Go in Los Angeles in February 1969.

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