Do you get Word magazine? In the current issue there's an interview with Van, which promises to show him opening up a bit, but in the end he plays the same wilfully uncomprehending role as usual. For example:
Q. Did you have any sense at all when you were writing and making Astral Weeks of what a phenomenon it would become?A. Well, a phenomenon in whose head? All that stuff is just third party. I don't know who's saying this stuff. I can only relate to what we're saying. I don't know what you mean by that. Who's saying it's a phenomenon… A phenomenon? I don't even know what that means.
Q. I suppose what I mean is that it seems to have become a permanent fixture on the list of the Top 10 Greatest Albums of all time.
A. I know certain people have got that angle on it. But I had no way of knowing that when I was making it. And I still don't know that. It just is what it is. And what it was at that time…
OK, well, he gets there in the end… Thanks to you, I already had this record by the time I saw it in the 1985 NME list of greatest albums — back when such lists were sparse enough actually to matter. I remember seeing two copies in the racks and choosing this one, with "Das Rock-Archiv" on the cover, because the front cover was more similar to your copy. It's got some daft sleevenotes on the back, too.
I can't really thank you enough for sitting me down, plying me with coffee and cigarettes, and going off about how the phrasing of the "breathe in, breathe out" section in Beside You mimicked the rhythms of breath.
Since then I've read Lester Bangs' review. I've read the theories about Madame George being a transvestite. (I see now the song even has its own dedicated Wikipedia entry.) I've heard people from Mark Radcliffe to Jeremy testify that, though they're big Van fans, they've never got Astral Weeks. And I've forgotten all the details. Because, well, you know, he's right: it just is what it is; and when that chugging bass line gets started the rest just drops away.
I'm glad to see the Wikipedia entry for the album says,
[Bassist Richard] Davis was perhaps the most pivotal instrumentalist during these sessions. "If you listen to the album, every tune is led by Richard and everybody followed Richard and Van's voice," says [producer] Merenstein. "I knew if I brought Richard in, he would put the bottom on to support what Van wanted to do vocally, or acoustically."
I've often thought that it was the bass that made it sound so distinctive.
 MusicBrainz entry for this album
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