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Van Morrison’s greatest six minutes – Cul De Sac

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Track 7 on 1974’s Veedon Fleece stands as everything that is great about Van Morrison, mysterious about his art and in its own way proof positive for those who find him utterly unapproachable. I have read of the obsessions that others have had with various songs and albums, claims that listeners are on their third copy since the groove was so worn. These claims have often made me feel like a pretender, a dilettante – until I come to Cul De Sac. I never tire of listening to it – listening to everything in it with confidence that its peculiar greatness will never pall.
I have no great certainty about what Morrison is on about here. Lyrically, it is bizarre, as odd as anything in his very odd ‘catalogue’ ( and what a strangely typical Morrisonian word that is); it is as strange as anything on the unremittingly strange ‘Common One’ album and is, in fact, I think a completely autobiographical song about his own sense of his autistic ( I say this with love) otherness. It is, in some ways, the bleakest song he has ever written yet he does not communicate bleakness in his performance which is determined, majestical and self-assured.
Morrison was once asked about his awkwardness on stage and he took the trouble to explain that it is when he forgets the audience that he relaxes and paradoxically seems more comfortable with them. I think that is what is happening in Cul De Sac too; he has managed to forget the listener, the public, the record company and has written something incredibly personal. I feel very sorry for him here as he attempts to communicate poetically what he has sometimes opted to communicate prosaically and with shrill anger: he wants to say something about what it is to be him but he doesn’t want to explain it.
Obviously, for me, I think the song is remarkably successful on every level. I am always surprised by how much mileage Morrison got out of those very familiar chord changes, yet somehow here, it is quite difficult to be sure what chordal progression he is using – it doesn’t really sound that familiar yet it’s those same old chords around and around.
A key part of the thrill of Cul De Sac is its astonishing performance by the entire ensemble. I use the word deliberately – Morrison has never had interest in being in a band – his musicians have to figure it all out. I know the song has drums on it but I never really hear them; to me, it’s the bass and the brilliance of John Tropea’s guitar who never quite plays the same thing twice but places and bends every note around Morrison’s vocal (never over it) and is always leading to his anticipation and then replication of Morrison’s scat ending. Listening to the performance, is doesn’t sound like they had many chances at this – Tropea plays so much in the song that it seems likely he was sorting and sifting his ideas, most likely planning to cull much of what he played. Good thing he didn’t get a chance to do that as eventually he would have settled on a part and the lightening would not have struck again. That bluesy piano intro announces the song perfectly and then gives way to the guitar.
Little wonder that Morrison has played these songs so little and when I think about the general lack of appreciation that it received at the time, it makes tragic sense that he has so utterly sold out to the reality of making the same album every two years.

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Comments

  1. Great stuff, more of this please. Thought provoking and well written.

    I don’t agree it’s the best thing he’s done but a standout track on a great album. And Van was still trying hard well into the 90s (much later than most of his contemporaries), so I give him a pass for recent mediocrity in his seventies.

  3. Pip pip, it’s an album where you could pick any track and wax lyrical. I find You Don’t Pull No Punches ,But You You sure Don’t Push The River irresistible, the momentum of the rhythm like a river with a strong flow.

    I’ve always just sort of listened to Cul De Sac without really concentrating on it. All of the falsetto type songs – it, Linden Arden and Fair Play Ive treated similarly. But I’m gonna put it on tonight and concentrate !

    cheers

  5. For me Van’s greatest six minutes is and will always be Tupelo Honey. It’s his best vocal performance 00AA and the band are great – the organ at the start, the drums, the backing vocals and his vocal interplays, all fantastic.

    Like all truly great songs it sounds not so much as it has been composed as discovered by Van.

  8. That was a joy to read, although it’s not my personal favourite period of Van, I hear where you’re coming from. My favourite album of his is ‘No Guru, No Method, no Teacher’ but I lurv to read any in-depth appreciation of The Man.

  9. As ever the Afterword is the gift that keeps on Afterwording.

    I have posted before, I was very late to the Man – Days Like This was my entry point. This and his later output, perhaps against the grain, I generally love.

    Since 2012 I have been adding to the back catalogue- all of which sit undisturbed in their cellophane wraps. On the strength of this I have today unwrapped Veedon Fleece and I am listening right now. It’s fabulous.

    Recorded in LA and New York. I’d never have guessed he would have been any part of the California ‘scene’.

  11. Cul De Sac is a great bit of Van and Veedon Fleece is certainly one of my favourite albums.
    I have been of late playing that other under rated album ,Hard Nose The Highway a lot recently. The jazzy tinged Autumn Song is perfect for this time of year, it is an absolute belter in my opinion.

    The often asked question about why the heritage reissues have come to a grinding halt still stands.

    • If you like Astral Weeks then you would probably like Veedon Fleece too (and Common One). But surely you would like pretty much everything from the 70s (for me weakest are Wavelength and A Period of Transition) And Van was great in the 80s too.

      • Agree that VF is the nearest Van album to Astral Weeks. You could certainly play it to someone as a gateway to the more “challenging” albums.

        Me, I swiped me dad’s tape of Ver Weeks when I was 14 and have never looked back…. mainly because if I did I’d see the giant lizards…

  14. I’ll have to investigate that. Common One is my favourite Van Morrison album. Whenever I’m on bedtime duty with my youngest, ‘When Heart is Open’ is the best thing for helping her drift off to sleep (dreaming about putting on her big boots, of course)

      • “T. S. Eliot chose England” Oh yeah!

        Like you, Moosey, I love me a bit of “Summertime in England”.

        I take it you’re familiar with the splendid version on the old curmudgeon’s Live at Montreux DVD?

  15. Thanks for a great post, and I absolutely agree – in the Great Van poll from a year or two back I was astonished that I was the only one to vote for Cul de Sac in my top 5 Van tracks. Nice to have some company.

    As you say he doesn’t often play much from the album live – Bulbs gets an outing from time to time but not much else. I still treasure the time I saw him sing an electrifying Streets of Arklow in, of all places, Torquay.

  17. Veedon Fleece is perhaps my favourite Van album although Hard Nose The Highway runs it close.
    Saying that, I rarely get past the first three tracks – after all these years still heartstopping magnificence, the best opening to any album ever.
    I recall Van in an interview saying “not a clue what any of Veedon Fleece means”.
    On first hearing those three songs I thought “John Wesley Harding only much better”: songs of outlaws, Lizzie Borden and the Badlands behind Belfast. It sure is lonely when you’re living with a gun….

      • Thanks so much. It is a dense and intense album and its easy to overlook how great ‘Comfort You’ and “County Fair’ are. I am always mindful of David Hepworth declaring the album was rubbish though he may have meant it as a relative judgement against Astral Weeks and maybe Moondance. He thought it was self-indulgent. I tend to have a great respect for artists and for their right to make judgments about their work. VF is not an album that you would start with if you wanted to make an easy path for those new to Morrison but he has attempted to be a very easy listening artist possibly ever since the best of album in 1990 (?). I think he was still trying with No Guru… but he ran out of steam I think. I think its fine for him to play music and write constant retreads but its fine for us to look back at the great art he produced for 20 or so years. Fair play, indeed.

        • “Self-indulgence” is not a good quality in a surgeon, perhaps, or a teacher, but it’s absolutely permissible – even necessary – in an artist. Astral Weeks is self-indulgence from the first note to the last, and makes it wonderful. Van’s at his best when he’s singing for himself, to himself, eyes closed, unaware of us out here.

  18. As a not very experienced fan of Van Morrison, I have to say Veedon Fleece is probably my favourite album of his. He only did it once. Not that he´s known to do anything twice, apart from complaining about how much better everything used to be.

  19. In my effort to make a meaningful contribution to this thread, all I can add is the observation that Irish wolfhounds were something of a go to accessory for 1974 album covers. See also Mike Oldfield’s Hergest Ridge. So that’s two.

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