Veedon Fleece

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Veedon Fleece is the eighth studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison, released in October, 1974 (see 1974 in music). Morrison recorded the album shortly after his divorce from wife Janet (Planet) Rigsbee. With his broken marriage in the past, Morrison returned to his homeland for new inspiration, arriving in Ireland on holiday on 20 October, 1973 (with his fiancee at the time, Carol Guida), where he wrote in less than three week's time all of the songs on the album (except "Bulbs", "Country Fair" and "Come Here My Love") plus one that would evolve into "The Street Only Knew Your Name".[1]

Biographer Clinton Heylin has said "Veedon Fleece is by far the most underplayed album in Morrison's canon."[2] Due to only five of the ten songs having ever been played by Morrison in concert.[3]

The July 01, 2008 re-issued and re-mastered version of the album contains an alternative take of "Cul de Sac" and "Twilight Zone".[4]

Album cover

The album cover photograph shows Morrison sitting in the grass between two Irish Wolfhounds. The photographer, Tom Collins, took the original photograph that situated Morrison and the dogs adjacent to the Sutton House Hotel, a converted mansion overlooking Dublin Bay, where Morrison first stayed upon arriving in Ireland for his vacation.[5]

Title of album

Several authors have commented on the mysterious object, "Veedon Fleece" as it appears in the album title and in the lyrics of the song, "You Don't Pull No Punches, But You Don't Push the River". Scott Thomas states in his review: "The Morrison-conceived Veedon Fleece is the symbol of everything yearned for in the preceding songs; spiritual enlightenment, wisdom, community, artistic vision, and love". Steve Turner concludes: The Veedon Fleece...appears to be Van's Irish equivalent of the Holy Grail, a religious relic that would answer his questions if he could track it down on his quest around the west coast of Ireland".[6]Morrison once told a fan when questioned about the meaning, "It doesn't mean anything, I made it up myself."[7]

Recording

Morrison has said in 1978 that he recorded the songs about four weeks after writing them. According to the drummer Dahaud Shaar, the tracks were laid down in a very informal manner. "During that time I kinda haunted the studio, and Van would come in and we'd just do tracks". David Hayes recalled about the recording sessions: "Every night for about a week he came in with two or three new tunes and we just started playing with him". The strings and woodwinds were arranged by Jeff Labes in a New York studio. The song "Come Here My Love" was inspired during the week of the sessions and another song "Country Fair" was left over from the Hard Nose the Highway album and provided a fitting sense of closure. "Bulbs" and "Cul de Sac" were recut in New York later with musicians with whom Morrison had never worked before: guitarist John Tropea, bassist Joe Macho and drummer Allen Schwarzberg. Given a rock music treatment, these songs were released as the single for the album.[8]

Songs

The opening track, "Fair Play" derived its name from Morrison's Irish friend, Donall Corvin's repeated use the Irish colloquialism "fair play to you" as a wry compliment. According to Morrison, the song derived "from what was running through my head", and it demarcated a return to the stream of consciousness channeled song-writing that had not been evident since several of the songs contained in his 1972 album, Saint Dominic's Preview. [9]

"Linden Arden Stole the Highlights" segues into "Who Was That Masked Man" (sung in falsetto) which has a similar melody. The story line pertains to a mythological Irish expatriate living in San Francisco who, when cornered, turns violent and then goes into hiding, "living with a gun," and references a childhood interest in The Lone Ranger. Morrison described the anti-hero Linden Arden as being "about an image of an Irish American living in San Francisco - it's really a hard man type of thing, whilst the latter was a song about what it's like when you absolutely cannot trust anybody. Not as in some paranoia, but in reality."[10]

"You Don't Pull No Punches, But You Don't Push the River" is frequently regarded as one of Morrison's most accomplished compositions. He revealed that the song owed a considerable debt to his readings in Gestalt therapy. "Streets of Arklow" describes a perfect day in "God's green land" and is a tribute to the Wicklow town visited during this vacation trip.[11]

On the second side of the album, the songs "Bulbs" and "Cul De Sac" focus on emigration to America and homecoming. The album concludes with the love songs, "Comfort You", "Come Here My Love" and "Country Fair", the latter two employing the traditional Irish ballad style. To Clinton Heylin, the songs also spoke to "the healing power of love....here at last are songs that speak of what he can do for her, rather than concerned solely with his needs and wants." Heylin comments on the song, "Come Here My Love": "This is no "Autumn Song". Rather, it sounds a lot like a man learning how to love again."[12]

Critical appraisal

Generally, critics initially reacted by underrating or ignoring the album altogether, as it represented a significant departure from Morrison's more familiar R&B and soul genres. Both Rolling Stone and Melody Maker printed dismissive reviews. However, the current Rolling Stone biography of Morrison hails the album as "the culmination of everything Van was doing up to that point, all celtic mystic tumult in the vocals and pastoral beauty in the music" and ranks it among "his most majestic music".[13]

John Kennedy in PopMatters writes in 2004: "Veedon Fleece is a poet's album, a jazz lover's album, a masterpiece of soul-singing, a blue and green journey into the places of the heart that were first opened up for dowsing with Astral Weeks". Going further, he quotes Baudelaire: "we can call 'beautiful' only that which suggests the existence of an ideal order; supra-terrestrial, harmonious and logical that yet bears within itself, like the brand of an original sin, the drop of poison, the rogue element of incoherence, the grain of sand that will foul up the entire system." Kennedy finishes his review by concluding that: "This album contains all of Baudelaire's definition of beauty."[14]

Scott Thomas states in his review: "Veedon Fleece is one of the most ambitious albums ever made and one of the greatest: inexhaustible, eclectic, inspiring, beautifully performed, intellectually challenging, it remains the pinnacle of Morrison's art.

Sinéad O'Connor reviewed the album on 28 November, 2007 on The Dave Fanning Show and praised it as "the record I always come back to again and again...It is far superior to Astral Weeks and I love Astral Weeks. This is the definitive Van album with the definitive Van song, 'Who Was That Masked Man'....It's the most obvious album he's ever done about Ireland...Veedon Fleece is the only thing I listen to just before I go on stage".[15] RTE Radio 1 has made the audio interview available at: The Dave Fanning Show with Sinéad O'Connor.

Derek Miller of Stylus Magazine concludes: Veedon [Fleece] is the kind of album, so frothy and thick, that requires silence when it's over. You have to turn the stereo off for a while. To me that's the better explanation for Morrison's three year absence. He'd just finished Veedon Fleece."[16]

Elvis Costello has referred to this album one of his favourites.

Track listing

All songs credited to Van Morrison.

Bonus tracks (2008 CD reissue)
  1. "Twilight Zone" – 5:48 (alternative take)
  2. "Cul de Sac" – 2:54 (alternative take)

Personnel

Production

  • Producer: Van Morrison
  • Engineers: Jim Stern, Dahaud Shaar, Jean Shaar, Elvin Campbell
  • Photography: Tom Collins
  • Art Direction: Ed Caraeff
  • Arrangements: Van Morrison, Jeff Labes (string and woodwind)
  • Remastering: Ian Cooper, Walter Samuel

Charts

Album - Billboard

Year Chart Position
1974 Pop Albums 53

Notes

  1. ^ Heylin, Can You Feel the Silence?, pp. 277- 281
  2. ^ Heylin, Can You Feel the Silence? p.287
  3. ^ "concerts". van.vanomatic.de. Retrieved 2008-08-29.
  4. ^ "Catalogue reissues-second series". vanmorrison.co.uk. Retrieved 2008-08-04.
  5. ^ Hinton, Celtic Crossroads, pp. 157-158.
  6. ^ Turner, It's Too Late To Stop Now, p.123
  7. ^ Turner, It's Too Late to Stop Now, p.123
  8. ^ Heylin, Can You Feel the Silence?, pp. 282-285
  9. ^ Heylin, Can You Feel the Silence?, p.279
  10. ^ Heylin, Can You Feel the Silence?, p. 279
  11. ^ Rogan, No Surrencer , pp. 299-300
  12. ^ Heylin, Can You Feel the Silence, p. 280
  13. ^ "Rolling Stone biography of Van Morrison". The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster 2001. Retrieved 2008-08-04.
  14. ^ "John Kennedy-Streams of Consciousness:Veedon Fleece". popmatters.com. 2004-02-11. Retrieved 2008-08-04.
  15. ^ "The Dave Fanning show - classic album Veedon Fleece". rte.ie. 2007-11-28. Retrieved 2008-08-04.
  16. ^ "Van Morrison - Veedon Fleece". stylusmagazine.com. 2007-05-03. Retrieved 2008-08-03.

References

  • Heylin, Clinton (2003). Can You Feel the Silence? Van Morrison: A New Biography, Chicago Review Press ISBN 1-55652-542-7
  • Hinton, Brian (1997). Celtic Crossroads: The Art of Van Morrison, Sanctuary, ISBN 1-86074169X
  • Rogan, Johnny (2006). Van Morrison:No Surrender, London:Vintage Books ISBN 9780099431831
  • Turner, Steve (1993). Too Late to Stop Now, Viking Penguin, ISBN 0-670-85147-7

External links

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