Art & Creativity Quote by Van Morrison

Van Morrison’s blunt little workflow is a quiet act of self-defense: three short sentences that shrink the modern celebrity machine down to its bare mechanics. In an era when musicians are expected to be content farms, brand ambassadors, and amateur therapists for the internet, he insists on an older contract. He makes songs, documents them, and sometimes takes them to a roomful of strangers. Everything else is noise.

The repeated “And” matters. It’s deliberately unpoetic, a shrug in grammatical form, refusing the myth that art arrives in a lightning bolt or that every public appearance should be a revelation. Morrison frames creativity as labor, not confession. “That’s my job” undercuts the romantic fantasy that the artist owes you access to his inner life; it also undercuts the industry fantasy that the artist owes you constant visibility. Even “maybe I perform them” is a needle: the stage, for most pop careers, is the proof of authenticity. For Morrison it’s optional, secondary to the work itself.

There’s context here, too: Morrison’s long reputation for prickly interviews and contentious live shows isn’t just temperament. It’s a boundary. “Simple” isn’t naïveté; it’s a dare. He’s telling audiences, journalists, and platforms alike: stop asking for the story, the stance, the persona. Judge the songs.