''Inarticulate Speech of the Heart'' is the fourteenth studio album by

Northern Irish Northern Irish people is a demonym for all people born in Northern Ireland or people who are entitled to reside in Northern Ireland without any restriction on their period of residence. Most Northern Irish people either identify as Northern ...

singer-songwriter

Van Morrison Sir George Ivan Morrison (born 31 August 1945), known professionally as Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose recording career spans seven decades. He has won two Grammy Awards. As a teenager in t ...

, released in 1983. Morrison said he arrived at the title from a

Shavian The Shavian alphabet (; also known as the Shaw alphabet) is an alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonemic orthography for the English language to replace the difficulties of conventional spelling using the Latin alphabet. It wa ...

saying: "that idea of communicating with as little articulation as possible, at the same time being emotionally articulate". As his last album for

Warner Bros. Records Warner Records Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Records Inc.) is an American record label. A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the ...

, he decided to do an album which had more than the usual complement of instrumental tracks. As he explained in 1984, "Sometimes when I'm playing something, I'm just sort of humming along with it, and that's got a different vibration than an actual song. So the instrumentals just come from trying to get that form of expression, which is not the same as writing a song." Although not expanded upon, of note is that a special thanks is given to

L. Ron Hubbard Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986) was an American author, primarily of science fiction and fantasy stories, who is best known for having founded the Church of Scientology. In 1950, Hubbard authored '' Dianetic ...

in the liner notes. The reissued and remastered version of the album contains alternative takes of "Cry for Home" and "Inarticulate Speech of the Heart No. 2".

Recording

The recording sessions took place in California,

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

, and a series of marathon sessions at the

Town House A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residence ...

in London. Morrison played piano, guitar and saxophone on these sessions. Two Irish musicians played on the album (

Arty McGlynn Arty McGlynn (7 August 1944 – 18 December 2019) was an Irish guitarist born in Omagh, County Tyrone. In addition to his solo work, he collaborated with different notable groups such as Patrick Street, Planxty, Four Men and a Dog, De Dannan and ...

and

Davy Spillane Davy Spillane (born 1959 in Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish musician, songwriter and a player of uilleann pipes and low whistle. Biography Irish music At the age of 12, Spillane started playing the uilleann pipes. His father encouraged him an ...

) and overall the music had a strong Celtic colouring. Four of the songs were instrumentals.Hinton, Celtic Crossroads, p. 239

Critical reception

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gave the album an honourable mention in their list of the top ten albums of 1983.

Track listing

Personnel

* Van Morrison – guitar, piano, Fender Rhodes, alto saxophone, vocals * David Hayes – bass guitar *

Mark Isham Mark Ware Isham (born September 7, 1951) is an American musician and film composer. A trumpeter and keyboardist, Isham works in a variety of genres, including jazz and electronic. He is also a film composer, having worked on numerous films and t ...

– synthesizer, trumpet * John Allair – Hammond organ, piano, Fender Rhodes *

Pee Wee Ellis Alfred James Ellis (April 21, 1941 – September 23, 2021), known as Pee Wee Ellis due to his diminutive stature, was an American saxophonist, composer, and arranger. With a background in jazz, he was a member of James Brown's band in the 196 ...

– tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute * Tom Donlinger – percussion, drums * Mihr Un Nisa Douglass – backing vocals * Stephanie Douglass – backing vocals * Pauline Lozana – backing vocals *

– acoustic guitar *

–

Uilleann pipes The uilleann pipes ( or , ) are the characteristic national bagpipe of Ireland. Earlier known in English as "union pipes", their current name is a partial translation of the Irish language terms (literally, "pipes of the elbow"), from their ...

, alto flute *

Chris Michie Chris Michie (January 12, 1948 – March 27, 2003) was an American guitarist and composer and best known for his work with Van Morrison. Chris Michie was born in Ithaca, New York in 1948 and moved to Madison, Wisconsin, when he was a teenager. He ...

– guitar * Annie Stocking – backing vocals * Bianca Thornton – backing vocals *

Peter Van Hooke Peter Van Hooke (born 6 April 1950) is an English rock drummer and producer with over 350 credits to his name. He was the drummer for the English band Mike + The Mechanics (from 1984 to 1995) and also drummed for Van Morrison's band, Headstone, ...

– drums, tambourine

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

Citations

Sources

* *

External links

{{Authority control Van Morrison albums 1983 albums Albums produced by Van Morrison Mercury Records albums Warner Records albums Polydor Records albums