Listening to Van Morrison

Intense, idiosyncratic, diverse, elusive. These are just a few of the words that have been used to describe singer/songwriter Van Morrison. One our our most astute cultural critics, Greil Marcus, in his new book When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison examines Morrison's particular and peculiar genius. Marcus says that Morrison willfully resists simple categorization; that his greatest songs are at one moment his own, at another covers of those by others. My conversation with Greil Marcus about listening to Van Morrison: