Video hit Van Morrison

Van Morrison - Have I told You lately

Have I Told You Lately is a hit song written by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison and recorded for his 1989 album Avalon Sunset.

It is a romantic ballad often played at weddings although it was originally written also as a prayer.

"Have I Told You Lately" has become a classic song and has received acclaim by winning a Grammy Award and a BMI Million-Air certificate.

In 1993, Rod Stewart's version charted at number five in the US and UK.

Composed as a love ballad and built on the framework of "Someone Like You", it is preceded on Avalon Sunset by the song, "I'd Love to Write Another Song" proclaiming "In poetry I'd carve it well/ I'd even make it rhyme."

Then, in the words of Brian Hinton what follows is: one of the finest love songs of the century, which I remember devastated me when I first heard it, as it seemed both something never quite said before, and yet a song I felt I had known forever. Earthly love transmutes into that for God, just like in Dante, "there's a love that's divine and it's yours and it's mine". The morning sun has set by the end of the song, suggesting love shading into death, but subtly.

Filmed performances of the song include a version recorded in 1989 that was featured on Morrison's video album Van Morrison: The Concert the following year. In 1997 Morrison performed the song in a duet with Sinéad O'Connor on Late Show with David Letterman; this version was subsequently released on the Live on Letterman: Music from the Late Show CD.

In the media

"Have I Told You Lately" was featured in the movie and soundtrack from the 1996 film, One Fine Day, starring George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer, and at the end of the Amanda Bynes 2003 film, What a Girl Wants, covered by Matt Acheson.

Impressionist and comedian Rory Bremner included the song as one of his eight Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 on April 20, 2003.

Television and radio presenter Gloria Hunniford also included the song on her list on December 24, 2006.

The lyrics:

Have I told you lately that I love you

Have I told you there's no one above you

Fill my heart with gladness

Take away my sadness

Ease my troubles, that's what you do

Oh the morning sun in all it's glory

Greets the day with hope and comfort too

And you fill my life with laughter

You can make it better

Ease my troubles that's what you do

There's a love that's divine

And it's yours and it's mine

Like the sun at the end of the day

We should give thanks and pray to the one

Have I told you lately that I love you

Have I told you there's no one above you

Fill my heart with gladness

Take away my sadness

Ease my troubles, that's what you do

There's a love that's divine

And it's yours and it's mine

And it shines like the sun

At the end of the day we will give thanks

And pray to the one

Have I told you lately that I love you

Have I told you there's no one above you

Fill my heart with gladness

Take away my sadness

Ease my troubles, that's what you do

Take away my sadness

Fill my life with gladness

Ease my troubles that's what you do

Fill my life with gladness

Take away my sadness

Ease my troubles that's what you do.