No stranger to an anti-lockdown rant, Van Morrison has now spoken his thoughts on freedom of speech. Or, the lack of it.
Van Morrison sat down for an interview with The Sunday Times and spoke on a variety of things, including the negative reaction to his anti-lockdown album, as per Consequence of Sound.
He said, “A few people got a petition together to end the lockdown, but nobody pays attention to petitions, do they? If I can write about it, I do. Poetic licence, freedom of speech… these used to be OK. Why not now? I don’t understand it. Some people call it a cult. It is like a religion.”
“Whether anyone agrees with me or not is irrelevant. Just as there should be freedom of the press, there should be freedom of speech, and at the minute it feels like that is not in the framework. If you do songs that are an expression of freedom of speech you get a very negative reaction.”
The double album called, Latest Record Project: Volume 1 was written and recorded by Morrison during lockdown and features 28 songs which span across two discs.
On releasing the album, he issued a statement saying, “I’m getting away from the perceived same songs, same albums all the time. This guy’s done 500 songs, maybe more, so hello? Why do you keep promoting the same 10? I’m trying to get out of the box.”
Morrison continued, “I’m not telling people what to do or think, the government is doing a great job of that already… it’s about freedom of choice, I believe people should have the right to think for themselves,” he said.
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Before releasing that anti-lockdown album, he also referred to socially-distanced concerts as “pseudo-science” and even released music which protested the UK lockdown restrictions.
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Listen to ‘Latest Record Project’ by Van Morrison.
