T-t-t-tongue gets t-t-t-tied...

From the ridiculous to the sublime: Here's Van Morrison singing "Cyprus Avenue," September 23, 1970, at the Fillmore East.



It's a legendary performance, one of the three TV appearances that Lester Bangs writes about in his essay "Astral Weeks" (freely available here, albeit with typos; it's the first piece in the Psychotic Reactions collection). Watch him stutter—utterly transfixing!

I pretty much figured I'd never see it—then one of my students mentioned that it was on YouTube, and...

[Insert long appreciation of YouTube here.]