Stories of Standards: “Moondance” by Van Morrison

Tune in weekday mornings for Stories of Standards to hear our favorite versions of “Moondance.” Rodney Franks presents Stories of Standards Monday through Friday at 7:50 and 8:50 a.m. starting Monday, June 3!

Stories of Standards is sponsored by ListenUp – If you love music, you’ll love ListenUp.

“Moondance” (1970) by Van Morrison (Sir George Ivan Morrison), is Van Morrison’s favorite song and one he most frequently performs in concert. Regarded as his most successful jazz compositions, Morrison has said “With ‘Moondance’ I wrote the melody first. I played the melody on a soprano sax and I knew I had a song so I wrote lyrics to go with the melody. That’s the way I wrote that one. I don’t really have any words to particularly describe the song, sophisticated is probably the word I’m looking for. For me, ‘Moondance’ is a sophisticated song. Frank Sinatra wouldn’t be out of place singing that.” “Moondance” was listed as #226 in Rolling Stone magazine’s December 2004 feature “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” (#226) and is listed among The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

Sir George Ivan Morrison was born 31 August 1945 in Bloomfield, Belfast, Northern Ireland and as a teenager played instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone for local show bands. In the mid 1960s as the lead singer for the the Northern Irish band “Them” he recorded the classic “Gloria”. His solo career began with “Brown Eyed Girl” in 1967. He won the 1994 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, is in both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2016 he was knighted for services to the music industry and to tourism in Northern Ireland. Fans refer to him as “Van the Man”.