Song Of The Day 12/6/2014: Van Morrison - "Almost Independence Day"

Housekeeper's Holiday: The opening lines of this song are "I can hear them calling way from Oregon." Allegedly the inspiration for this line was when Van Morrison was sitting in ihs home, I believe it was in Marin County, back in the early '70s when rotary-dial phones were still devilishly sexy. The phone rang. Somebody came on the line and told Van that he was getting a phone call from somebody in his old band Them, who had relocated to Oregon. When he picked up on the line the caller wasn't there. End of story. They'll just swoon all over that on Reddit, won't they.

This is from Saint Dominic's Preview, an album which is not on Spotify for some reason. It was the Van album wedged in between Tupelo Honey, which was relatively popular, and Hard Nose the Highway, which not many people consider Van's shining moment. "Almost Independence Day" has always been a mysterious and fascinating song to me. It's one of those placement songs. It captures a moment. In this case, something of a static moment. It ambles along for over ten minutes and really all that's settled is that the Bay Area was a half-decent place to spend July 4. Hey, sometimes that's all that's called for. Especially at the onset of winter, right before Christmas, a perfect time for a song about a summer holiday. My SEO manager will be thrilled.

That does it for Housekeeper's Holiday. That was fun. Starting tomorrow it's gonna be Theme Week Outtakes From 2014. And then it'll be Christmas. After that I'm giddy with terror about what's going to come next.