Editing Van Morrison (section)

===Songwriting and lyrics===
Morrison has written hundreds of songs<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1882001,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090302082256/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1882001,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=2 March 2009|magazine=Time|title=10 Questions for Van Morrison|date=26 February 2009|access-date=6 May 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url={{AllMusic|class=artist|id=p107175|pure_url=yes}}|publisher=[[AllMusic]]|title=Van Morison songs|access-date=7 May 2009}}</ref> during his career with a recurring theme reflecting a nostalgic yearning for the carefree days of his childhood in Belfast.<ref name="Astral Travels">{{cite web|url=http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-02-18/music/the-astral-travels-of-van-morrison/|date=17 February 2009|website=The Village Voice|author=Foundas, Scott|title=The Astral Travels of Van Morrison|access-date=18 February 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090222041219/http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-02-18/music/the-astral-travels-of-van-morrison/|archive-date=22 February 2009}}</ref> Some of his song titles derive from familiar locations in his childhood, such as "[[Cyprus Avenue]]" (a nearby street), "[[Orangefield (song)|Orangefield]]" (the boys' school he attended), and "On Hyndford Street" (where he was born). Also frequently present in Morrison's best love songs is a blending of the sacred-profane as evidenced in "[[Into the Mystic]]" and "So Quiet in Here".<ref name="HintonPage13">Hinton (1997), page 13.</ref><ref name="Enlightenment">{{cite magazine|magazine=Rolling Stone|title=Enlightenment: Van Morrison review|author=Swenson, John|date=15 November 1990}}</ref>

Beginning with his 1979 album, ''[[Into the Music]]'', and the song "[[And the Healing Has Begun]]", a frequent theme of his music and lyrics has been based on his belief in the healing power of music combined with a form of [[mysticism|mystic]] Christianity. This theme has become one of the predominant qualities of his work.<ref name="CollisPage 149">Collis (1996), page 149.</ref>

His lyrics show the influence of the visionary poets [[William Blake]] and [[W. B. Yeats]]<ref name="HintonPage12">Hinton (1997), page 12.</ref> and others such as [[Samuel Coleridge|Samuel Taylor Coleridge]] and [[William Wordsworth]].<ref name=TurnerPage145>Turner (1993), page 145</ref> Biographer [[Brian Hinton]] believes "like any great poet from Blake to [[Seamus Heaney]] he takes words back to their origins in magic ... Indeed, Morrison is returning poetry to its earliest roots—as in [[Homer]] or Old English epics like [[Beowulf]] or the Psalms or folk song—in all of which words and music combine to form a new reality."<ref name="HintonPage13" /> Another biographer, John Collis, believes Morrison's style of jazz singing and repeating phrases preclude his lyrics from being regarded as poetry or as Collis asserts: "he is more likely to repeat a phrase like a mantra, or burst into scat singing. The words may often be prosaic, and so can hardly be poetry."<ref name="CollisPage12">Collis (1996), page 10.</ref>

Morrison has described his songwriting method by remarking: "I write from a different place. I do not even know what it is called or if it has a name. It just comes and I sculpt it, but it is also a lot of hard work doing the sculpting."<ref name="Astral Traveller" />