Van Morrison

Award won Role or nomination

1. 1945 age 0

   Born

2. 2021 age 76

   CreditBelfastcomposer

• CHCiarán Hinds1 title
• KBKenneth Branagh1 title
• HZHaris Zambarloukos1 title
• JDJudi Dench1 title
• JCJim Clay1 title
• JSJohn Sessions1 title
• MMMichael Maloney1 title
• TCTurlough Convery1 title
• GHGerard Horan1 title
• CMColin Morgan1 title

• Music to me is spontaneous, writing is spontaneous and it's all based on not trying to do it. From beginning to end, whether it's writing a song, or playing guitar, or a particular chord sequence, or blowing a horn, it's based on improvisation and spontaneity.

  Van Morrison, CC BY-SA 4.0

• Where I feel this has cost me is in the personality situation, where you're expected to be a personality. You not only have to write and record, but you have to go out and sell it. Well, I'm not a salesman, and I'm very bad at selling things. If I had to do that for a living, I'd probably be completely broke. I can't sell myself. And I don't even want to. That's something that's not going to change.

  Van Morrison, CC BY-SA 4.0

• Someone once described me as a maverick and that's what I would say. I'm a maverick not by choice but by conviction.

  Van Morrison, CC BY-SA 4.0

• Like I say, the way I write songs is, you know, inspirational. I have to wait for it to happen. And when it happens I get lines, and I just write them down, you know. I'm not sort of a Tin Pan Alley sort of songwriter. I just sort of write down what I get - without censoring or questioning what it is and what it means, you know. Like later on I look at what it means, but not at the time.

  Van Morrison, CC BY-SA 4.0

• Music is spiritual. The music business is not.

  Van Morrison, CC BY-SA 4.0

• 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.

  Van Morrison, CC BY-SA 4.0