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, … Continue reading Van Morrison’s greatest six minutes – Cul De Sac