| Yes, the last five years or so of Van Morrison’s career have been an utter embarrassment. But that doesn’t change the fact that Morrison is responsible for some of the best albums of the 20th century, and as we begin to thaw out and creep a little closer to spring, there’s nothing I want to hear more than Astral Weeks. It’s what I always reach for on that first sunny, warm day of the year where everything feels new again and the act of transitioning from a winter coat to a light jacket makes me feel like I’ll never die. Maybe it’s the instrumentation — the flutes, strings and that iconic harpsichord on “Cyprus Avenue” — but there’s something about Astral Weeks that just feels like spring. It’s in Morrison’s gorgeous lyrics, too, from the moment he ropes us in with the title track by asking, “If I ventured in the slipstream / Between the viaducts of your dream / Where immobile steel rims crack / And the ditch in the back roads stop / Could you find me?” (Hard to believe that the man who wrote those words would go on to pen “Why Are You On Facebook?” five decades later.) Sometimes it’s more literal — the “gardens all misty and wet with rain” that he walks through on “Sweet Thing” — but there’s also something springlike about the nostalgia that Morrison sings with while recalling his days as a young teen in Belfast on “Cyprus Avenue,” like he’s remembering a time when he, too, was green. We may not be totally there yet — there’s always that whole “coming in like a lion” thing to contend with in March — but at some point before the end of the month, I promise, it’ll finally hit 60 degrees, those first flowers will start blooming, and it’ll be the perfect time to give this classic album another spin. | 