Van Morrison - Not Supposed to Break Down (1973)

Van Morrison released his seventh studio album, Hard Nose the Highway, in October 1973 through Warner Bros Records. His first fully self-produced album, it was the product of two batches of sessions, one during August and the other during October 1972. Well received critically, it saw the release of fan favorites such as "Warm Love", "Wild Children" and "Snow in San Anselmo", and odd song choices such as a cover of Kermit the Frog's "Bein' Green" and the traditional "Purple Heather". It didn't sell as well as some of its predecessors, as it didn't feature a clear-cut hit single as something like Moondance did, but it charted relatively well and kept Morrison on the good run of albums he was on in the mid-70s. However, immediately after finishing Hard Nose the Highway, he returned to the studio in November 1972, staying until March 1973 and recording seven new songs, nearly enough for a brand new studio album. With those songs in the can, he then spent most of 1973 touring the United States and Europe with the Caledonia Soul Orchestra, something immortalized on the It's Too Late to Stop Now live album. By the time October 1973 rolled around, those songs hadn't yet been released and Van already had a brand new batch of songs, inspired by a trip to his native Ireland. Feeling that it was the strongest collection of songs of the two, he scrapped the late '72 material and released what became known as Veedon Fleece instead, ending up with one of his most revered albums in the process. 

Van recorded an entire album's worth of songs in between the sessions for Hard Nose the Highway and Veedon Fleece which never saw the light of day. These "lost" November 1972/March 1973 sessions carried the same high quality as the great albums Van released during the 1970s, with several of their songs becoming live staples of his, which makes us wonder: why did he not release this album? To right this wrong, we will take all seven songs he recorded in those sessions, alongside others from other sessions in the same time period, and make a brand new album. Hard Nose the Highway outtakes are fair game, as they hail from only a couple of months prior, but anything before that is too early for inclusion. That, unfortunately, means "Wonderful Remark", from the Tupelo Honey sessions of 1971, won't make this reconstruction, but there are three other songs in the compilation that qualify, coming from September 1972. As far as what doesn't make the cut, the great "Sweet Sixteen" cannot be included, as it comes from a standalone April 1973 session after the parameters of this reconstruction, and features Jackie DeShannon on lead vocals, with songwriter Van relegated to backup. The same goes for two songs that were only performed live between May/June 1973: "I Paid the Price" and "No Way", from the It's Too Late to Stop Now box set, two very good songs but that came much too late for us, and thus cannot be included. With that out of the way, here's what our album looks like:

Not Supposed to Break Down (The Philosopher's Stone)

Laughing in the Wind (The Philosopher's Stone)

Madame Joy (The Philosopher's Stone)

Contemplation Rose (The Philosopher's Stone)

Don't Worry About Tomorrow (The Philosopher's Stone)

-

Try for Sleep (The Philosopher's Stone)

Lover's Prayer (The Philosopher's Stone)

Drumshanbo Hustle (The Philosopher's Stone)

Tell Me About Your Love (Back on Top Single)

There, There Child (The Philosopher's Stone)

Download link:
Van Morrison - Not Supposed to Break Down (1973)

Van Morrison performing live, sometime in early 1973.

The seven songs Van recorded between November 1972 and March 1973 are "Not Supposed to Break Down", "Contemplation Rose", "Don't Worry About Tomorrow", "Try for Sleep", "Lover's Prayer", and "Drumshanbo Hustle" from the Philosopher's Stone box set and "Tell Me About Your Love", released in the Back on Top CD single in 1999. Together, they clock in at a measly 37 minutes. Normally, that would be ok, but given that Van's albums in the 70s would be somewhere around the 40+ minute mark, that means we're a couple of songs short. What do we do now? Given that Morrison had a history of including outtakes on his albums ("Listen to the Lion" was recorded during the Tupelo Honey sessions, but became the centerpiece of St. Dominic's Preview), it would be an interesting idea to add leftovers from Hard Nose the Highway to our reconstruction. Luckily, there are three outtakes available to us: "There, There Child", "Laughing in the Wind" and "Madame Joy", all three fantastic songs that would make sensible inclusions to the album. "There There Child" was a setlist staple and "Laughing in the Wind" made occasional appearances during the Caledonia Soul Orchestra tour, which goes to show that even though Van shelved them, he still thought them worthy. Together, they would bring the album to ten songs and 48 minutes, a bit on the longer side but almost identical to Veedon Fleece, which means Van could at least consider doing something similar. With that, all that's left to do is sequencing.

Generally, we'll follow The Philosopher's Stone's sequence of these songs, as they were mostly put together on its sequence, and it was everybody's (myself included) first exposure to these songs, and it's hard to hear them any other way now. We'll only add "Tell Me About Your Love" in-between "Drumshanbo Hustle" and lead single "There, There Child", as there were other songs in between those two, and "Tell Me" manages to fill the gap nicely. When it comes to the album itself, it probably didn't come out because Van's hectic release schedule with Hard Nose the Highway, It's Too Late to Stop Now and Veedon Fleece coming out within six months of each other probably didn't allow space for another studio album to be released in between. If it did, this album would have probably come out in late 1973, four months after Hard Nose and two before Too Late, which only goes to show the insane pace with which Morrison was working at the time. The regular release cycle of album/tour/album simply couldn't keep up with him. As an album, this is every bit the equal of his other 70s release, fitting right in as if it was always meant to be there, being as essential as his other unreleased album, Mechanical Bliss. The cover was my own creation, just the title of one of the best songs on the record accompanied by a picture of him in 1973. It's a shame we couldn't get this extra chapter of Van's discography until much later, but here he again shows how reliable he is as an artist, not prone to failing or breaking down.

Sources:

- Clinton Heylin - Van Morrison: Can You Feel the Silence?