Van Morrison will release three 'lockdown protest' songs

Van Morrison has announced that he will be releasing three anti-lockdown tracks over the coming weeks. 'Born To Be Free', 'As I Walked Out', and 'No More Lockdown' are songs of protest which question the measures the government has put in place. In them, Morrison makes it clear the he is deeply unhappy with the way the government has taken away personal freedoms.

In a statement about the release on his website, Morrison said: “I’m not telling people what to do or think, the government is doing a great job of that already. It’s about freedom of choice, I believe people should have the right to think for themselves.”

The singer-songwriter has been campaigning for performance venues to operate at full capacity again, stating that he feels the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions are based on "pseudoscience" and "in danger of killing live music."

In a statement released a few weeks ago, Morrison claimed that socially distant gigs were not economically viable, saying that his scheduled socially distant shows were "not a sign of compliance or acceptance of the current state of affairs," but rather to get his band "up and running and out of the doldrum".

This comes the same day as over 600 signatories from the live events industry across Ireland released an open letter asking the government for wider support for musicians and industry professionals during the Coronavirus pandemic.