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Mystic Eyes
Composer: Van Morrison

Mystic Eyes was possibly performed by the Warlocks in 1965. Bob Weir spoke about the role of Mystic Eyes as a starting point for the song Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks) in an interview that was printed in The Golden Road in 1993:
We were driving around listening to the radio .... and the song Mystic Eyes by Them was on, and we were saying, 'Check this out! We can do this!' So we got to the club where we were playing and we warmed up on it. We lifted the riff from Mystic Eyes and extrapolated it into Caution, I think Pigpen just made up the words..

It's uncertain if "we warmed up on it" means that they performed Mystic Eyes when preparing for a show or if they just played around with the riff.

Mystic Eyes was written during a recording session by Van Morrison when he was with Them. The song was first released in the summer of 1965 on the album The Angry Young Them. It was subsequently released on a single.




Van Morrison recordings

info The "Angry" Young Them, Them, June 1965 (UK)
info Them, Them, July 1965 (US)
no info Single (Mystic Eyes / If You And I Could Be As Two), Them, Oct 1965 (US)
no info Single (Mystic Eyes / If You And I Could Be As Two), Them, Nov 1965 (UK)
no info The Greatest Hits From England Vol. 2, Various Artists, 1967
info World of Them, Them, 1969
info Them Featuring Van Morrison (US), Them, 1972
info It's All Over Now Baby Blue, Them, 1975
no info The History Of Rock (Volume Eleven), Various Artists, 1982
info Them Featuring Van Morrison, Them, 1987
no info In Celebration of Van Morrison's Mercury Music, Van Morrison, 1988
no info And The Beat Goes On, Various Artists, 1988
no info 12" single (Baby Please Don't Go / Gloria / Mystic Eyes), Them, 1991
no info The British Invasion: The History Of British Rock, Vol. 6, Various Artists, 1991
no info The Collection Featuring Van Morrison, Them, 1992
info The British Invasion: History of British Rock, Vols 1-9, Various Artists, 1992
info The Story of Them Featuring Van Morrison, Them, 1997
info The Sopranos, Various Artists, 1999
info Classic Rock: Rock Renaissance, Vol. 2, Various Artists, 199?
info Gold, Them, 2005
no info The Complete Them 1964-1967, Them, 2015


Other recordings

This list is not intended to be comprehensive.

no info Stack Waddy, Stack Waddy, 1971
no info Crawdaddy Express, The Crawdaddys, 1979
no info Single (Mystic Eyes / Death Comet Drive), Death Comet, 1986
no info Stack Waddy / Bugger Off!, Stack Waddy, 1994
info Live at the Avalon 1966, Oxford Circle, 1997
no info Stage Door Witchdoctors, Chants R&B, 2000
no info Runnin' Down A Dream (3*DVD), Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers, 2007
no info Sea Of Cortez EP, The Sables, 2008
info The Live Anthology, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, 2009
no info So Who The Hell Is Stack Waddy? The Complete Works 1970-72, Stack Waddy, 2017

 
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