Free Republic

Legendary rock-and-roll guitarist and vocalist Eric Clapton is collaborating with Van Morrison on a song called “Stand and Deliver” that is critical of United Kingdom’s laughably stringent COVID lockdowns and their effects on live music. Predictably, liberals on Twitter are seething uncontrollably over the news. Clapton, the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, told Variety magazine that he chose to collaborate with Morrison on the song after finding the effect of lockdowns on musicians “deeply upsetting.” “We must stand up and be counted because we need to find a way out of this mess. The...

Van Morrison is releasing a series of protest songs opposing Great Britain's coronavirus lockdowns, saying "people should have the right to think for themselves." "I’m not telling people what to do or think, the government is doing a great job of that already," the 75-year-old Northern Irish singer said in a statement posted on his website on Friday. "It's about freedom of choice." The trio of songs, called "Born to be Free," "As I Walked Out" and "No More Lockdown," all "question the measures the government has put in place," an announcement about them said. "Morrison makes it clear in...

Beside the garden walls, We walk in haunts of ancient peace. At night we rest and go to sleep In haunts of ancient peace ... The holy grail we seek On down by haunts of ancient peace. We seek the new Jerusalem In haunts of ancient peace." They could be the words of a bard of yore, but they are lyrics from Van Morrison's "Haunts of Ancient Peace," from his 1980 album, "Common One." They are an example of how Morrison, across a four-decade career, has mined English literature for the ideas that elevate his music to elegant meditations on...

Think different.  Here's to the crazy ones.    The misfits.     The rebels.      The troublemakers.       The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules.    And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,   disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.     Because they change things. They invent.    They imagine.     They heal.  They explore.     They create.    They inspire.       They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy. How else...