And It Stoned Me

"And It Stoned Me" is a song by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. It is the opening track on his 1970 solo album, Moondance.

"And It Stoned Me"
Song by Van Morrison
from the album Moondance
ReleasedFebruary 1970
RecordedSummer 1969, Warner Publishing Studio, New York City
GenreR&B, folk rock[1]
Length4:30
LabelWarner Bros.
Songwriter(s)Van Morrison
Producer(s)Van Morrison and Lewis Merenstein
Moondance track listing
10 tracks
Side one
  1. "And It Stoned Me"
  2. "Moondance"
  3. "Crazy Love"
  4. "Caravan"
  5. "Into the Mystic"
Side two
  1. "Come Running"
  2. "These Dreams of You"
  3. "Brand New Day"
  4. "Everyone"
  5. "Glad Tidings"

Composition and recording

"And It Stoned Me" was recorded in summer 1969 at Warner Publishing Studio in New York City.[2]

As Morrison biographer Ritchie Yorke described it, the song remembered "how it was when you were a kid and just got stoned from nature and you didn't need anything else".[3] Morrison, in 1985, related the song to a quasi-mystical experience he had as a child:

I suppose I was about 12 years old. We used to go to a place called Ballystockart to fish. We stopped in the village on the way up to this place and I went to this little stone house, and there was an old man there with dark weather-beaten skin, and we asked him if he had any water. He gave us some water which he said he'd got from the stream. We drank some and everything seemed to stop for me. Time stood still. For five minutes everything was really quiet and I was in this 'other dimension'. That's what the song is about.[4]

Music critic Johnny Rogan describes "And It Stoned Me" as "a wonderfully understated remembrance" of that experience, with "no pat moralizing or sentimentality."[5]

During this song Morrison sings: "...Stoned me just like Jelly Roll. And it stoned me." That lyric is thought to be a reference to jazz musician Jelly Roll Morton, whose recordings Morrison listened to with his father as he was growing up.[6]

Rogan describes the saxophone solo as one of the best in any of Morrison's songs.[5]

Covers

The song has been covered by Jackie Deshannon,[7] Bob Dylan (with Van Morrison),[8] Zero, Jerry Garcia,[7] James Morrison,[9] Widespread Panic,[10] Gov't Mule,[11] David Gray,[11] The Allman Brothers Band,[12] John Mayer, Passenger, and Joe Higgs.

The original recording of the song was re-released onThe Best of Van Morrison and Still on Top - The Greatest Hits. "And It Stoned Me" is performed by Morrison on the 1980 segment of his 2006 2-disc DVD, Live at Montreux 1980/1974.

Personnel

Notes
  1. https://www.allmusic.com/song/and-it-stoned-me-mt0052303224
  2. Heylin. Can You Feel the Silence?, p. 519
  3. Hinton. Celtic Crossroads, p.106
  4. Turner, Too Late To Stop Now, p. 102
  5. Rogan, Johnny (2006). Van Morrison: No Surrender. Random House. p. 250. ISBN 9780099431831.
  6. "Song review: And It Stoned Me". allmusic.com. Retrieved 2009-04-08.
  7. "Grateful Dead Family discography:And It Stoned Me". deaddisc.com. Retrieved 2009-09-11.
  8. "Bob Dylan-And It Stoned Me-Song Reviews". discollective.com. Archived from the original on 2009-05-20. Retrieved 2009-10-23.
  9. "Concert Review-James Morrison". countrystandardtime.com. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
  10. "Cypress Hill III". ew.com. 1995-11-03. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
  11. "HIdden Tracks-Cover Wars:And It Stoned Me Edition". glidemagazine.com. Retrieved 2009-11-03.
  12. "Allman Brothers Band Live Concert CDs". hittinthenote.com. Archived from the original on 17 October 2009. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
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References
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