Morrison grew up on Hyndford Avenue in a terraced house under the shadow of the yellow cranes of the Harland and Wolff Shipyard. The tree lined street comes out of a more innocent time, before the bombs and guns defined the city of Morrison’s birth. Unlike other songs of Belfast at the time, ‘Cyprus Avenue’ is drenched in romanticism. He watches her walk down the tree lined Cyprus Avenue as he sits in a car, letting his mind wander as he fantasies her as a lady of high grandeur commandeering the street of high affluence. He brings us to a place and time in Belfast where as a teenager he ventures across the tracks to view a life he can only dream of and a girl he wishes he could be with. Morrison’s voice is heaving through a stream of conscious. Davis delivers the Jazz sound, Fallon the classical feel but it is Morrison’s bluesy vocals that blast through the song. We hear double bass on behalf of Richard Davis, harpsichord from Larry Fallon and acoustic guitar played by Morrison. The song tends to combine all sorts of musical genres such as blues, classical and jazz. Morrison recorded ‘Cyprus Avenue’ minus strings and harpsichord but a month later decided to dub them in as he felt the song was missing something. Upon listening to the song, the first thing to hit your ears are the strings and harpsichord, but they were not originally included in the song.
Astral Weeks is an album packed with musical delights such as ‘Madame George’ ‘Sweet Thing’ and of course the title track ‘Astral Weeks’ but, it is ‘Cyprus Avenue’ which stands out as something very simple yet beguiling.
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