It ain't why why why—it just is

This is neither here nor there, but...

After Van Morrison left his group Them, he recorded solo material for Bang Records (including T.B. Sheets, which has two early versions of tracks later found on Astral Weeks). Eventually he found the Bang contract onerous, and "wrote" and recorded 36 nonsense songs to fulfill it. Titles include "Jump and Thump," the conversational "Want a Danish," "Blow in Your Nose" (and "Nose in Your Blow"), the words-free "Chickee Coo," the audience-razzing "Freaky If You Got This Far"...

Here's a partial transcription of Van Morrison's "All the Bits":


All the bits.
No, ya' see, ya' get, ya' get a thing goin' like that,
it's uh, uhh...
and then, you put it on the end, ya' go
"Dahnt-dahn," you know, like that,
at the end of the lyrics,
"Dahnt-dahn"...
"Dahnt-dahn"...
"Dahnt-dahn," that's nice

And here are the lyrics, in toto, for "You Say 'France' and I'll Whistle":

You say "France"
and I'll whistle.
You say "France"
and I'll whistle.
I'll whistle,
you say "France".
No, you say "France" and I'll whistle.
No, no, you whistle and I'll say "France".
No, no, you say "France" and I'll whistle.
Yeah, you whistle, I'll say "France", yeah.
No, no,
you say "France" and I'll whistle.

(A tip of the Dizzies whirligig to the mysterious B. Kite. For more on Van Morrison, here's a brief review of Clinton Heylin's VM bio. My friend David S. played "Ring Worm" on his WFMU show—you can listen at the archive!)