Van wrote it after watching children frolicking among the tombstones of an ancient cemetery, and the vocal consisted in essence of Van chanting virtually demonic incantations over a mad tempo and the harsh chords of a biting guitar. “Mystic Eyes,” though, was a triumph for both Van as an artist responsible to no one but himself, and for the band. One, “Philosophy,” was a Jaggerish rap sung over a monotonous blues theme, just Van letting it out for no particular reason, a piece that forced the listener to focus on the words, which were singularly uninteresting.

He wrote most of the songs on the first record, and in two instances began to show his discomfort with the limits of traditional R&B. Them’s first album, entitled The Angry Young Them in England, showed the musical side of Van’s attempt, in the midst of driving, powerful group efforts like “Baby Please Don’t Go” and the blazingly sexual “Gloria,” to walk his own road. The group began to break up almost immediately and continued to drop and add members with eerie regularity. Van’s angry need for freedom was evident in the first years. Such were “the good times, the sad times.” On “The Story of Them,” an English single released in 1967, Van described their origins: scrambling in bars, hassled by straights over long hair, what every group went through in those days. Them, formed in Ireland as a trio in 1963, added Van and another member in 1964 they played tough British R&B, heavily influenced by the Rolling Stones. From the time of his first recordings with Them in 1964, the image and the reality was that of a fiery Irish temper, a violent refusal to adhere to the discipline and the directives of unlucky A&R men, in a demand for freedom that was both personal and artistic. Van Morrison is a unique and often forgotten figure in the history of rock and roll.

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