Moondance (4:32)

“Moondance” is a popular song written by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison and is the title song on his 1970 album Moondance. It was not released as a single until 1977.

The song is played mostly acoustic, anchored by electric bass, with accompaniment by piano, guitar, saxophone, and flute with the instruments played with a soft jazz swing. It’s a song about autumn, the composer’s favorite season. Towards the end of the song, Morrison imitates a saxophone.

“Moondance” is the most frequently played song by Morrison in concert, as it is the only song known to have been played over 1,000 times.

Morrison on the writing of the song

With “Moondance” I wrote the melody first. I played the melody on a soprano sax and I knew I had a song so I wrote lyrics to go with the melody. That’s the way I wrote that one. I don’t really have any words to particularly describe the song, sophisticated is probably the word I’m looking for. For me, “Moondance” is a sophisticated song. Frank Sinatra wouldn’t be out of place singing that.

In the media

“Moondance” is one of the moon-themed songs used in An American Werewolf in London, a comedy-horror film released in 1981.

This song is featured in the 2007 movie, August Rush as performed by Jonathan Rhys Meyers with Robin Williams playing harmonica and also features an instrumental version by Chris Botti.

“Moondance” is one of the songs featured on the compilation album Michael Parkinson: My Life In Music, which is a 2-disc CD of Michael Parkinson’s favorite songs.

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