Between the Notes
An Intimate Journey through Moondance and Arc of a Diver
I spent the day listening and re-listening to a couple of albums recommended to me and then found myself asking questions I hadn’t expected.
I was slipping under the surface of something much deeper than I anticipated. In doing so, it unexpectedly expanded my understanding of myself and how deeply others can feel.
Moondance was a new album for me, only being familiar with a few of Van Morrison’s hits. Arc of a Diver I've listened to a bunch of times. But yesterday, I approached it with a deeper understanding of the themes and the intent of the sharer.
Generally, the themes I'm vibing from these albums are:
Emotion is healing
Sensuality is sacred
Beauty and connection matter more than logic or reputation
Love isn’t a thing to be chased, it is a garden to enter and tend
These are worthy ideas and quite lovely. So much music is about loss or want, but if you look closer, you can usually see a secondary meaning under the authors words.
A book only asks that you love it.
A song demands that you love yourself.
Van Morrison – Moondance
And It Stoned Me
Track 1 opens like a short story: two boys, a day out not unlike something I would have experienced as a child. They have an encounter with something unexpectedly sacred. “Stoned” here doesn’t feel like intoxication—it feels like revelation. The water “running all over me” hits like baptism, like some unseen truth washing you clean before you even know you’re dirty. That line stirs me. The man with the sunshine in his eyes—was it moonshine? Or something more? Either way, it leaves an impact.
Moondance
Wow. I didn't expect this one to be so moving. Of all the tracks, this one surprised me most. Jazzy, lush, unhurried. It doesn’t beg for love—it seduces it. Every line oozes longing, but not desperation. It's a confident invitation into intimacy, like whispering stay with your whole body. More than a few times I felt that little flutter in my chest. The night you never want to end, that you pray you can stay in forever.
A fantabulous night to make romance
'Neath the cover of October skies
Something about October... I think everything in the world is just—better.
Crazy Love
Pure devotional chant.
'I can hear her heartbeat from a thousand miles...'
The repetition—I need her, I need her, I need her—is an awareness that he's moved past just enjoying her presence and entered the realm of addiction. Real dependency. She is the agent of healing, the one who unburdens. There’s no pride in the admission, just a truth. And that kind of love, the kind that clears grief like storm clouds, is nothing short of a miracle.
Caravan
Caravan feels like swagger bottled and served any time you need to feel confident. It's all youth, hunger, and that perfect pulse of being alive in a room with music and her. I can’t always follow the thread, but it doesn’t matter. It’s the feeling of turning up the radio and locking eyes across the firelight.
Into the Mystic
Into the Mystic is where he speaks of parting, maybe. The foghorn calls him out to sea, but until then, he’ll rock her gypsy soul. The ocean always means something more: freedom, surrender, or the inescapable pull of fate. Sometimes, it means never seeing someone again. A real goodbye.
Come Running
Joyful reassurance.
Wanna keep you satisfied in the morning sun...
It’s not a promise of wild passion—it’s the morning after, sunlit and certain. If she comes to him, it will be okay. And he wants to be her willow. The line gave me pause. There’s something elemental about that kind of vow.
Even Dreams of You
Even Dreams of You, deceptively upbeat, carries pain under the rhythm. Morrison isn’t pretending things are easy—just that they’re survivable with music, with memory, with hope.
Steve Winwood – Arc of a Diver
If Moondance lives in twilight and candlelight, Arc of a Diver is water and sunlight—brighter, but no less deep.
While You See a Chance
While You See a Chance urges transformation. Not reinvention for show, but release. A complete renaissance of the soul. The image of a “clear blue morning” after clouds feels like spiritual recovery—like surviving yourself. It's exciting and hopeful to be reminded nothing is ever truly over. There is always hope for renewal if you really want something (or someone). I'll confess, the first time this was shared with me (a few years ago), I thought the sender was inviting me to look for opportunities to connect.
I still think that. :-o
Arc of a Diver
Arc of a Diver dives into love like sacrament.
She bathes me in the light and gives me shelter...
warmth and love—tenderness beyond words, a willowShe shimmers the world with her dreams
Chasing away the fog and the grey with simple conversations and dreamsBefore and after, we go all directions
Time has no meaning. Like water everywhere being connected in one body, time has not beginning and end; they always were and always will be; each moment is only a single point of that continuation exposed.
This isn’t lust—it’s elevation. Love that makes a man better. He doesn’t just fall—he’s drawn upward, reshaped by her grace. He is transformed, together they are greater than the sum of their parts.
Slowdown Sundown
Slowdown Sundown is the heartbreak of time. A quiet track, but the lyrics linger: glass of memory, faded love songs, sunrise, a woman’s eyes. How often do we look up and realize a decade’s passed without warning? The song reminds me to notice, to feel it while it’s here.
Spanish Dancer
Dancer pulls me in like trance. Whether it’s a woman or a metaphor, he’s captivated—surrendered to rhythm, to beauty, to something just out of reach. There’s real passion here, slow-burning and real.
Night Train
The bruised heart of the album. The rhythm evokes motion—an escape, or maybe a pilgrimage. He wants salvation, someone to tell him, You’ve made it. You’re safe now.
Use a lifetime looking for break of day...
It’s not just sadness—it’s spiritual hunger. The kind of ache creative souls know too well. A longing for connection in a world that only rewards productivity. And yet, he crosses his arms and believes. That, too, is a kind of love.
Dust
Dust closes the loop. Dust always comes back. Sometimes three days, sometimes two months. Whether after an argument or a longer separation, the absence is haunting.
Timeless memory of you / With you dawn never tasted so good...
The luscious way he sings: “I love you, I do, for all the little things you do” nearly undoes me. No metaphor, no bravado. Just the quiet power of remembering her fingertips on your back, the scrape of nails, a glass of juice in morning silence. I lived that once. Maybe more than once.
They’re beautiful. This is the frequency of a life. Can you meet me here? A place where longing is holy, touch is sacred, and love—despite the risk—is still worth diving into.
#music #essay #osxs #confession
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Thank you for coming here and walking through the garden of my mind. No day is as brilliant in its moment as it is gilded in memory. Embrace your experience and relish gorgeous recollection.
Into every life a little light will shine. Thank you for being my luminance in whatever capacity you may. Shine on, you brilliant souls!
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