Van Morrison - "On Hyndford Street"

Number 125 Hyndford Street, in east Belfast, doesn’t look like the cradle of a lifetime’s dreams, memories and associations. It’s a tiny, blank-faced two-up-two-down terrace house, no different from any of the other red-brick homes alongside it. That’s apart from the discreet plaque beside the front door, which announces that Van Morrison was born here on August 31st, 1945.

His father, George, was an electrician at the nearby Harland and Wolff shipyard; more significantly, George was also a keen collector of jazz and blues records, which he bought from a man called Solly Lipsitz, who owned Atlantic Records on High Street.

Over his songwriting career Morrison has returned again and again, in spirit, to his childhood home and its nearby streets, rivers and parks, and these places have never lost their hold on his imagination.

                  "On Hyndford Street"
                                                         Big hand for the band":
                                                         Dave Keary (Guitar)
                                                         Paul Moore (Bass)
                                                         Paul Moran (Keyboards)
                                                         Bobby Ruggiero (Drums)
                                                         Dana Masters (Vocals)

                          "On Hyndford Street"

Take me back, take me way, way, way back
On Hyndford Street
Where you could feel the silence at half past eleven
On long summer nights
As the wireless played Radio Luxembourg
And the voices whispered across Beechie River
In the quietness as we sank into restful slumber in the silence
And carried on dreaming, in God
And walks up Cherry Valley from North Road Bridge, railway line
On sunny summer afternoons
Picking apples from the side of the tracks
That spilled over from the gardens of the houses on Cyprus Avenue
Watching the moth catcher working the floodlights in the evenings
And meeting down by the pylons
Playing round Mrs. Kelly's lamp
Going out to Holywood on the bus
And walking from the end of the lines to the seaside
Stopping at Fusco's for ice cream
In the days before rock 'n' roll
Hyndford Street, Abetta Parade
Orangefield, St. Donard's Church
Sunday six-bells, and in between the silence there was conversation
And laughter, and music and singing, and shivers up the back of the neck
And tuning in to Luxembourg late at night
And jazz and blues records during the day
Also Debussy on the third programme
Early mornings when contemplation was best
Going up the Castlereagh hills
And the cregagh glens in summer and coming back
To Hyndford Street, feeling wondrous and lit up inside
With a sense of everlasting life
And reading Mr. Jelly Roll and Big Bill Broonzy
And "Really The Blues" by "Mezz" Mezzrow
And "Dharma Bums" by Jack Kerouac
Over and over again
And voices echoing late at night over Beechie River
And it's always being now, and it's always being now
It's always now
Can you feel the silence?
On Hyndford Street where you could feel the silence
At half past eleven on long summer nights
As the wireless played Radio Luxembourg
And the voices whispered across Beechie River
And in the quietness we sank into restful slumber in silence
And carried on dreaming in God.