As Van Morrison was quick to recognize, even the love songs added a new layer of complex thought and emotion. Perhaps the perfect example is Don’t Look Twice which allowed tender and bitter emotions to be balanced and contained within a delicate frame of some unwritten letter to his former lover who maybe puzzled by his sudden absence. Drawing a picture of a complex relationship with a great economy it is also heartbreakingly tender as he still harbors a hope “there were something she would do or say” to change his mind but also bitter for wasting his precious time. Just like the other beautiful song to lost love Girl from the North Country, Don’t Think Twice provides a landing place away from the political preoccupations so that we can take a measured look at a complex man who may be as interested as observing the complexity of the world he sees as changing it. There was no one in the 1960s better prepared to take us and guide us through that decade and beyond.
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