Composition
The songs on this album recall various stages of Morrison's life. "Kingdom Hall" reflected back to his childhood in Belfast when he attended services with his mother, a practicing Jehovah's Witness at one time. "Checking It Out" is about a relationship going wrong and being rescued by "guides and spirits along the way". "Natalia", "Venice USA" and "Lifetimes" are love songs. "Wavelength" recalled fond memories of his adolescence, listening to the Voice of America. The next track incorporates two songs Morrison had written in the early 1970s, "Santa Fe" written with Jackie DeShannon in 1973, Morrison's first ever collaboration to appear on an album and "Beautiful Obsession", which was first played during one of his concerts in 1971. However, a studio version of the song is not known to have been recorded during that period. "Hungry For Your Love" appeared in the hit movie An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) and has become one of the more enduringly popular songs on the album along with "Wavelength". Morrison plays electric piano on "Hungry For Your Love" accompanied by Herbie Armstrong's acoustic guitar. Morrison included "Hungry For Your Love" on his compilation album Van Morrison at the Movies - Soundtrack Hits (2007). "Take it Where You Find It" ends the album and according to Scott Floman is a "quietly epic love letter to America that gets better and better as it goes along (the song is nearly 9 minutes long). Simply put this song, which I'd rank among Van's all-time best, makes me want to lock arms with someone, anyone, and commence in a slowly swaying sing along..."
Read more about this topic: Wavelength (album)
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“Give a scientist a problem and he will probably provide a solution; historians and sociologists, by contrast, can offer only opinions. Ask a dozen chemists the composition of an organic compound such as methane, and within a short time all twelve will have come up with the same solution of CH4. Ask, however, a dozen economists or sociologists to provide policies to reduce unemployment or the level of crime and twelve widely differing opinions are likely to be offered.”
—Derek Gjertsen, British scientist, author. Science and Philosophy: Past and Present, ch. 3, Penguin (1989)
“It is my PRIDE, my damn’d, native, unconquerable Pride, that plunges me into Distraction. You must know that 19-20th of my Composition is Pride. I must either live a Slave, a Servant; to have no Will of my own, no Sentiments of my own which I may freely declare as such;Mor DIE—perplexing alternative!”
—Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770)
“Vices enter into the composition of virtues as poisons into the composition of certain medicines. Prudence and common sense mix them together, and make excellent use of them against the misfortunes that attend human life.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)