THE TRUTH ABOUT VAN MORRISON AND BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN'S TENSE RELATIONSHIP
By LUKE HOLDEN
History - Science
According to Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen built a large part of his career by imitating his work, although Morrison admits it took him a while to actually check out Springsteen's songs. Once he finally did, he had some scathing words to share, stating in a 1985 interview that Springsteen had "definitely ripped me off...and I feel pissed off now that I know about it."
Despite Morrison's uncouth words, Springsteen has never returned anything but praise for the man whose music he has loved since the 1960s. The Boss attended a Van Morrison convert in the early 1970s, and Rolling Stone reported that Springsteen found the Irish singer's "combination of organ and horns intoxicating, and [Morrison’s] influence on [Springsteen’s] first two albums is unmistakable."
Springsteen also ranked Morrison's 1968 track "Madame George" among his favorite songs of all time, stating that the song ”made me trust in beauty. It gave me a sense of the divine." While fans might love Bruce Springsteen and Van Morrison equally, those sentiments don't always hold true in the higher tiers of music where stars interact with one another.