Van Morrison - T.B. Sheets

"Open up the window...and let me breathe." Van isn't so much feeling itchy and stuffed up as he is gagging for air.

I always thought of this song as an Astral Weeks b-side. But something about Van's tone is just a bit more abrupt, a bit more demonic and very Jagger-like. It lacks the breezy janglin' tone of Astral Weeks, but its all the better because of it.

Van, more so than any male vocalist who isn't Otis Redding, has soul. It doesn't matter how resonant his voice is, it's how he uses it. He rarely sings. He jabs, claws, aches, mumbles, cries, whines and chuckles. Where a virtuoso guitarist would play some staccato burst of notes to "let me breathe", Van just pants like dog.

That's the beauty of "T.B. Sheets". You don't remember it by its instruments, or though its chorus and verses (of which it has none). The song is an atmospheric dry heave; a nine minute plus stretch of terror stricken gasps and chortles, a man desperate to escape.

Someone open up a window.