Following the collapse of his marriage to Janet Planet, Van Morrison returned to live in Ireland for a period. An intensely personal and often melancholy album, Veedon Fleece is the product of that sojourn here.
Having been vastly under-rated for years, the album has recently achieved a greater vogue among Morrison afficiandos. It doesn’t have big songs of the kind that had studded his previous records – ‘Moondance’, ‘Crazy Love’, Jackie Wilson Said’, St.Dominic’s Preview’ and ‘Caravan’ spring to mind – but, like its spiritual forebear Astral Weeks, it wields a subtler kind of power. ‘Streets Of Arklow’, Country Fair’, ‘Linden Arden Stole The Highlights’ and the anguished ‘Cul De Sac’ are standouts, with Van re-engaging with his Irish muse.
A harbinger of the direction his music would take during the ‘80s, Veedon Fleece is an understated work of sustained beauty.