Even today, skiffle is a defining part of my music. If I get the opportunity to just have a jam, skiffle is what I love to play. – Van Morrison
There’s always got to be a struggle. What else is there? That’s what life is made of. I don’t know anything else. If there is, tell me about it. – Van Morrison
My records do not require a lot of thought of ‘What is this?’ and ‘What is that?’ That would be too contrived for me. – Van Morrison
When I started you were more in touch with the people you were playing to. There wasn’t the distance or the separation that there is now. – Van Morrison
You can’t stay the same. If you’re a musician and a singer, you have to change, that’s the way it works. – Van Morrison
I learnt from Armstrong on the early recordings that you never sang a song the same way twice. – Van Morrison
A lot of people who were writing when I came through originally as a singer-songwriter have disappeared. – Van Morrison
A famous person to themselves, they don’t get up in the morning and think, I’m famous. I’m not famous to me. Famous is a perception. – Van Morrison
I went back to Belfast and started a club, the Maritime. No one had thought about doing a blues club, so I was the first. – Van Morrison
These days politics, religion, media seem to get all mixed up. Television became the new religion a long time back and the media has taken over. – Van Morrison
I write songs. Then, I record them. And, later, maybe I perform them on stage. That’s what I do. That’s my job. Simple. – Van Morrison
When I started studying tenor saxophone as a kid in Belfast, I did so with a guy named George Cassidy, who was also a big inspiration. – Van Morrison
Being famous was extremely disappointing for me. When I became famous it was a complete drag and it is still a complete drag. – Van Morrison
You take stuff from different places, and sometimes you stick a line in because it rhymes, not because it makes sense. – Van Morrison
For a long time, I couldn’t actually deal with playing concerts; it was a totally alien concept to me, ’cause I was used to playing in clubs and dance halls. – Van Morrison
My ambition when I started out was to play two or three gigs a week. And that’s what I’m doing. – Van Morrison
I always record far more than I can use. There’s probably twice as much recorded as comes out. – Van Morrison
