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Morrison can be a prickly interview and specifically dislikes expounding on his work (“I just sort of write down what I get,” he told an interviewer in 1985, “without censoring or questioning what it is and what it means, you know”). Consequently, three recurring, possibly apocryphal tales that might shed light on the inspiration for “T.B. Sheets” are unlikely to ever be confirmed by the song’s composer:

Van Morrison, 1987 (Poetic Champions Compose cover art; photo: Steve Rapport, Direct Art Green Ink) ©

1) Morrison himself had T.B. as a child. This might explain both the song’s theme and its extraordinary, subjective intensity (though the shift of infection from himself to a girlfriend is curious: perhaps for narrative reasons it was easier to approach his memories by externalizing the disease; or perhaps there’s some psychological significance to splitting himself into a female felled by infection and a male unable to cope or assist).

2) Morrison broke down in tears after recording the song, unable to finish the session. This seems entirely possible given the sheer emotive force of his performance, whether or not Morrison had personal experience with the disease.

3) The song resulted from a nightmare Morrison had – one that gripped the young musician such that he could only exorcise its hold by singing it, not describing it, for over an hour to his mother. Probably the most intriguing tale. But what caused the nightmare?

All good stories. But we’ll probably never know.

Let me breathe

“All cruelty springs from weakness.”
— Seneca

“T.B. Sheets” is rarely covered or performed. It’s hard to imagine what most other artists could bring to the song and equally difficult to picture concert audiences (including Van Morrison’s), raised lighters in hand, boisterously chanting “’T.B. Sheets!’ ‘T.B Sheets!’” Beholden to blues as the song is, unsurprisingly its one notable cover is by a blues legend who remakes it as his own.

John Lee Hooker (1970s) (Wikipedia)

John Lee Hooker recorded “T.B. Sheets” on his 1971 studio album, Never Get Out of These Blues Alive – in a spare small band rendition featuring spine-tingling violin by jazz musician Michael White. Typically, the boogie king takes Morrison’s steady, minimalist original and decelerates and pares it further, trading its mid-tempo 4/4 groove for a sepulchral 6/8. Lyrically, Hooker sings a line from the original here and there, but mostly wings it. He alters the narrative, deleting the lover and assuming the victim’s voice. As the track fades, his doomy growl intones: “I don’t weigh but ninety pounds … I won’t be here … raise up the window … let me see daylight … one more time …” The song has grim power, but its reductive, single-character scenario denies it some of the creeping despair and psychological complexity of Morrison’s original. This does however more closely link Hooker’s version to earlier blues.

John Lee Hooker: “T.B. Sheets” (1971)

Victoria Spivey (1930s) (Paramount publicity photo)

The Depression and war years were rife with fatalistic and defiantly un-squeamish blues songs about various illnesses – influenza, meningitis, alcoholism, drug addiction, even “Jake leg,” the crippling paralysis caused by drinking improperly distilled hooch during Prohibition. The poor blacks that wrote these songs were intimately familiar with each ailment because, like the Irish, poverty and prejudice kept disease rates disproportionately high in their communities. In 1927, Okeh Records released “T.B. Blues” by Victoria Spivey. The first of several songs the pioneering blueswoman wrote and recorded about tuberculosis, its moaning vocal and wearily repeated words were bleak and pitiable:

Too late, too late, too late, too late, too late
It’s too late, too late, too late, too late, too late
I’m on my way to Denver and mama mustn’t hesitate

Victoria Spivey: “T.B. Blues” (1927)

Alice Neel: “T.B. Harlem” (1940) (National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.)

Colorado was a common destination for T.B. patients. Home to multiple sanatoriums, its convivial weather and high elevations relieved symptoms.

T.B.’s all right to have if your friends don’t treat you so low-down
T.B.’s all right to have if your friends don’t treat you so low-down
Don’t you ask ‘em for no favors, they’ll even stop coming around

Spivey’s song was widely covered, rewritten, and imitated by a range of artists including Josh White, Leadbelly, and Champion Jack Dupree. Like Hooker’s version of “T.B. Sheets,” all are first-person accounts, sung from a victim’s perspective. A recurring theme, present in Spivey’s original, is abandonment by friends:

I used to have friends, but none of them that I can see

(Buddy Moss, “T.B. Is Killing Me,” 1933)

Well now here I am here sick, baby, you know
And I’m laying here in my bed
And now even won’t none of my friends come
And even rub my aching head

(Sonny Boy Williamson [I], “T.B. Blues,” 1939)

Friends. Abandonment. The words seem especially incongruous in the context of terminal illness. Yet it’s not at all uncommon for friends, even family members or spouses, to do just that – abandon a dying loved one at their time of greatest need. It sounds unbelievably callous, self-centered, and cruel. But when the chips are down, some people flee – for a time or forever – just like the singer in “T.B. Sheets” (“I gotta go, I gotta go, baby”). One of the most striking things about Morrison’s song, in fact, is how our irritation, even disgust, at the singer’s selfishness never turns to contempt – a testament, perhaps, to both its creator’s unflinching but humane artistry and the realization, spurred by the song, that we have the capacity and instinct for the same wretched behavior. Dark as “T.B. Sheets” is, it is also imbued with a kind of grace – a deep compassion for human frailty, partly bred from the knowledge that the singer will likely be haunted by his actions for the rest of his life.

Oh Lord

Edvard Munch: “Death in the Sick Room” (1893)
(The Munch Museum, Oslo; WikiArt)