My continuing Glen Hansard sorrow led to the below recollection of Glenn meeting and jamming with the awesome if fearsome Van Morrison during a 50th birthday soiree. (Morrison was born on 8.31.45 so figure late August ’95.) Told sincerely and with vulnerability, the story has rich emotional flavor…a real “you are there” quality. Please listen to it. I love how Glen pronounces “Van”.
Van, of course, has been regarded for decades as a sullen, hair-trigger prick. But he’s been repeatedly forgiven by millions, myself among them.
Glen’s story led to immersing myself in “Carrickfergus,” an old Irish folk song that Morrison sang beautifully (arguably one of his all-time greatest) for Irish Heartbeat.
Although the song first popped commercially via the Clancy Brothers in 1964, the modern version stems from Dominic Behan, who published it in 1965. Behan relates that he learned the song from Peter O’Toole. In his book “Ireland Sings”, Behan gives three verses, the first and third of which came from O’Toole and a middle verse that he wrote himself.
