The Healing Game
| The Healing Game | ||||
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| Studio album by Van Morrison | ||||
| Released | 4 March 1997 Reissued June 2008 |
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| Recorded | 1996 at Westland Studios and Windmill Lane Studios, Dublin | |||
| Genre |
Folk rock Rock |
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| Length | 53:38 | |||
| Label | Polydor | |||
| Producer | Van Morrison | |||
| Van Morrison chronology | ||||
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| Singles from The Healing Game | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
  link
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| Rolling Stone | (Not Rated) link |
The Healing Game is the twenty-sixth studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison, released in 1997 (see 1997 in music).
The 30 June 2008 reissued and remastered version of the album contains a take of the "Rough God Goes Riding" B-side "At the End of the Day". "Rough God Goes Riding" from this album was listed as one of the standout tracks from the six album reissue.
The album was recorded in Dublin, Ireland. The cover features a threatening-looking Morrison with Haji Ahkba alongside looking like he is one of his bodyguards.
The title song "The Healing Game" is about the tradition of Belfast street singing. Van Morrison in Q magazine said, "People find it incredible when I tell them that people used to sing and play music in the street. I think there's a whole oral tradition that's disappeared." The song, "Rough God Goes Riding" is taken from a W. B. Yeats poem "The Second Coming" with its figure from the Apocalypse "rough beast". Leo Green's saxophone follows Morrison's voice like a twin brother. In "Waiting Game" he is "the brother of the snake" which Brian Hinton says refers to both his lost friend Jim Morrison (known for writing about "The Lizard King"), and the Garden of Eden. "Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" follows the children's book, The Wind in the Willows closely and Paddy Moloney plays uillean pipes with Phil Coulter on piano. On "Burning Ground" the singer relives a common scene from his childhood when jute was shipped to Belfast from India.
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Wikipedia