A-side "Ivory Tower" Released 1986 Genre Celtic, Folk rock | B-side "A New Kind of Man" Recorded 1985 Length 3:34 | |
"Ivory Tower" is a song written by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison and included on his 1986 album, No Guru, No Method, No Teacher. The song was also released as a single with the B-side "A New Kind of Man", from his previous album A Sense of Wonder. It charted at #21 on the US Mainstream Rock Tracks in 1986.
Clinton Heylin writes this about the song "A chorus about how tough 'It really must be/ To be me, to see like me, to feel like me' threatens the spirituality self-effacing mood he had previously maintained." Biographer John Collis takes the same viewpoint by saying "Ivory Tower, totally breaks the mold - it's an r'n'b shaker just like those produced by the Van Morrison of old, though now he suffers from self pity: "Don't you know the price I have to pay/Just to do everything I have to do..."