But in the condition I was in, it assumed at the time the quality of a beacon, a light on the far shores of the murk what's more, it was proof that there was something left to express artistically besides nihilism and destruction. I had no idea how to improve the situation and probably wouldn't have done anything about it if I had.Īstral Weeks would be the subject of this piece - i.e., the rock record with the most significance in my life so far - no matter how I'd been feeling when it came out. I spent endless days and nights sunk in an armchair in my bedroom, reading magazines, watching TV, listening to records, staring into space. My social contacts had dwindled to almost none the presence of other people made me nervous and paranoid. It was particularly important to me because the fall of 1968 was such a terrible time: I was a physical and mental wreck, nerves shredded and ghosts and spiders looming and squatting across the mind. Van Morrison's Astral Weeks was released ten years, almost to the day, before this was written.
