Van Morrison – Almost Independence Day

Last year, one of my readers, MY, suggested this song, so this year I’m going to post it. This and the title track were the first songs to get my attention on this album. The drums and guitar really make this song so strong, along with Van’s voice, of course.

The intro to this song is worth the price of admission. Van Morrison and guitarist Ron Elliot trade guitar licks, and then Lee Charlton joins with some great jazz-influenced drumming. Van has said it was written in a stream of consciousness style. The recording was more of a jam than a thought-out, rehearsed process.

The song was on his 1972 album Saint Dominic’s Preview, and it closed the album in a way that only Van Morrison could do. It has that long, drifting feel that he was so good at during this period. You can feel the mood more than the story. This is the Van Morrison who could take a simple phrase and turn it into something epic. He can make any song feel spiritual.

When I got the album, I had a summer job in the middle of nowhere in a backwater town. I had to drive over an hour to get there, and Van kept me company singing about Safeway’s Supermarket, fireworks, and Redwood Trees. One listen to this album, and I’m young, carefree, and having a really good time living life. Music brings back memories, and this one makes me feel exactly like I felt then.

It’s easy to get lost in this song. I’ve always liked the Van Morrison songs that feel more like a place to visit than just a song. Almost Independence Day is one of those. It rolls and flows along at its own pace. Van has many songs that sound like memories, and this one sounds like a memory that is still happening.

The album peaked at #15 on the Billboard Album Charts and #14 in Canada in 1972.

Couldn’t find a live version but I did find this wonderful concert by Van.

Almost Independence Day

I can hear them calling way from Oregon
I can hear them calling way from Oregon
And it’s almost Independence Day

Me and my lady, we go steppin’ (we go steppin’)
We go steppin’ way out on China town
All to buy some Hong Kong silver
And the wadin’ rushing river (we go steppin’)
We go out on the, out on the town tonight

I can hear the fireworks
I can hear the fireworks
I can hear the fireworks
Up and down the, up and down the San Francisco bay
Up and down the, up and down the San Francisco bay
I can hear them echoing
I can hear, I can hear them echoing
Up and down the, up and down the San Francisco bay

I can see the boats in the harbor (way across the harbor)
Lights shining out (lights shining out)
And a cool, cool night
And a cool, cool night across the harbor
I can hear the fireworks
I can hear the people, people shouting out
I can hear the people shouting out (up and down the line)
And it’s almost Independence Day

I can see the lights way out in the harbor
And the cool, and the cool, and the cool night
And the cool, and the cool, and the cool night breeze
And I feel the cool night breeze
And I feel, feel, feel the cool night breeze
And the boats go by
And it’s almost Independence Day
And it’s almost, and it’s almost Independence Day

Way up and down the line
Way up and down the line…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

40 thoughts on “Van Morrison – Almost Independence Day”

  2. Pingback: Van Morrison – Almost Independence Day – MobsterTiger

  4. I have to admit to only knowing the singles from this album. So I don’t believe I have heard this before. Van can take you on a journey for sure. Very adjacent type of song for today. Going to have to this a quiet listen. Happy Independence Day!

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  5. Good one for the day. I definitely get your point about how certain songs take you back to a time gone by and evoke great memories, and for you in the case of this one, probably very strongly since you don’t hear it several times a day on the radio or in the Walmart.

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    1. I sure will! I’ve been invited to 3 parties…I doubt if we can make each one…but we will try. We haven’t got out since we got the puppies…tonight our neighborhood is having a get together like every year…so that will be fun.

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  9. He has always surrounded himself with the best musicians he could find; those two horns are fantastic, just the entire thing. I’ve always been a fan from back in the day. One of my favorites, “Domino”, that’s where he started getting into horn sections and changed his music completely.

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    1. I knew bassist Leroy Vinnegar from Les McCann and Eddie Harris’ album recorded in Montreux. Pianist Mark Naftalin was in Paul Butterfield’s band and then Mother Earth with Tracy Nelson (and Mike Bloomfield). Yes, in the tradition of great bandleaders, Van surrounded himself with great musicians.

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      2. 2 are…and 3 are going tomorrow…I’m holding 2 more until the 13th…when the two will be back from vacation. It’s hard doing this…although they have rampaged through our home…I will miss them bad….just NOT at 3am.

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  14. Saint Dominic’s Preview, super mellow interesting album overall. Lovely song from it you reviewed, and I expect that’s the same guitarist Ron Elliot that starred in the 1960’s SF band the Beau Brummels. Van was on a roll in that period, everything he released from his late 60’s masterpiece Astral Weeks to his 1974 almost as great Veedon Fleece was pretty magical, even when he was just kind of jamming in the studio like on Independence Day or Listen to the Lion. Not that he stopped writing and recording great, imaginative works, he kept that up for decades, just that he took a break after Veedon Fleece for a while when he moved to London after leaving San Anselmo California apparently right after his split with his first wife. I can never decide if I prefer his song Astral Weeks or Into the Mystic as my very favorite magical period Van, but then Moondance, Wild Nights, It Stoned Me, You don’t Pull No Punches/ You Don;t Push the River,, Tupelo Honey, they all hit me in my heart and soul from first listen and still do. He’s in my pantheon, long live Van Morrison.

    As to the San Francisco lyrics on St. Dominics: By various accounts, Van lived in San Anselmo, CA, between about 1971 and early 1974, that’s quite near where my wife and I have lived for many years, close to the city, just across the Golden Gate Bridge. Thus the song Snow in Anselmo, meaning almost never because that (snow) only happened, very briefly one day in the early 1970’s, and only a couple of times there in the entire (cooler) 20th century, and not since. San Anselmo, and nearby, was also where his lovely daughter, singer Shana Morrison was mostly raised. And Van’s parents also moved there from Northern Ireland sometime when he lived there, and they opened a record store nearby, and stayed to operate it for many years.

    San Anselmo was also where Van sometimes played at the local rock and countryish nightclub the Lions Share, which I understand was a small sweaty room holding about 150 people. The Lions Share was thus likely referenced in Van’s Listen to the Lion from that same period.

    The Lions Share, FYI, was also the place Jimmy Buffett was actually heading for the Labor Day Weekend Show, in early September 1973 which he referenced in Come Monday, which he wrote that very weekend at at the Howard Johnson’s Inn in nearby Mill Valley, per later interviews with Jimmy. Great lyrics that made him a star. In the year before that song broke in early summer 1974, a 150 person room was apparently the best he could do to promote his not selling well first albums. Janis Joplin also played the LIons Share a lot, living close by, and her wake was held there! The Grateful Dead played acoustic sets for that small audience there a few times. It was gone by the time I moved to in SF in early 1977, I just missed it. Thanks for the review. Art

    On Sat, Jul 4, 2026 at 5:45 AM PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop

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