“And It Stoned Me” is the opening track of Van Morrison’s album Moondance, released in 1970. It was inspired by an event that occurred when he was 12 years old after a day of fishing with friends outside the village of Ballystockart, near Belfast in the North of Ireland. Morrison and his companions stopped at a village house where they encountered an old man, whom Morrison later described as “dark weather-beaten.”
The boys asked the man for water, and he gave them some he had drawn from a nearby stream. As Morrison drank, something extraordinary happened. He describes slipping into a mystical experience: “Time stood still. For five minutes everything was really quiet, and I was in this other dimension.” This profound moment, a sudden and overwhelming sense of transcendence, became the heart of “And It Stoned Me.” The phrase “stoned me” in the song does not refer to intoxication, but rather to this feeling of being transported—of being spiritually moved by something greater than himself.
This mystical connection to nature is a recurring theme in Irish culture, from the poetry of W.B. Yeats to traditional folk songs that intertwine the natural world with the spiritual. Morrison, deeply influenced by his Irish roots, often infused his work with a sense of the magical and the ethereal. “And It Stoned Me” captures that distinctly Irish reverence for the land, where an ordinary moment—drinking fresh stream water—becomes something sacred and transformative.
“And It Stoned Me” is a fusion of folk, jazz, and rhythm and blues—genres that Morrison had been steeped in from a young age. His father, an avid collector of American records, introduced him to jazz musicians like Jelly Roll Morton, who is name-checked in the song’s chorus: “Stoned me just like Jelly Roll.” Morton’s influence on Morrison’s musical style is undeniable, and this reference serves as a nod to both his childhood and the deep musical traditions that shaped him.
“And It Stoned Me” speaks to something universal—the awe-inspiring, almost mystical experiences that can arise from the simplest moments. For Morrison, that moment came in a quiet Irish village, drinking water from a stream. For listeners, it serves as a reminder that magic can be found in everyday life, if we only take the time to let it wash over us.