Song · Van Morrison
“Precious Time” by Van Morrison
Released 1999
“Precious Time” by Van Morrison appears on 2 radio countdowns from 2 stations between 1999 and 2026. It was first released in 1999. Its best result is #5 on the WXRT Listener Poll: Top 25 Songs of 1999. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #5 indie & aaa song of 1999 and #6,014 indie & aaa song of all time.
"Precious Time" is Van Morrison in a sunny mood, a bright, upbeat tune wrapped around a meditation on how fast time runs out. He wrote and produced it and cut it in 1998 at the Wool Hall Studios in Beckington, with Walter Samuel engineering, for the 1999 album Back on Top, and the band is a crack one: Mick Green on guitars, Ian Jennings on double bass, Bobby Irwin on drums, Geraint Watkins on Hammond organ, Pee Wee Ellis blowing tenor and baritone sax, and Brian Kennedy on backing vocals.
It went out as a single in Britain and reached No. 36, but its real life has been on stage: Morrison played it 574 times between March 1998 and June 2008, putting it among his most performed songs, and a 2006 set at the Austin City Limits Festival later surfaced on a live album.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | 5 | 93XRT Chicago, IL | WXRT Listener Poll: Top 25 Songs of 1999 | 25 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 582 | KXT | KXT 917 Song Countdown | 917 |
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