album contained the popular song “Warm Love” but otherwise has been largely dismissed critically. In a 1973 Rolling Stone review, it was described as: “psychologically complex, musically somewhat uneven and lyrically excellent.”
During a three-week vacation visit to Ireland in October 1973, Morrison wrote seven of the songs that would make up his next album, Veedon Fleece. Though it attracted scant initial attention, its critical stature grew markedly over the yearsith Veedon Fleece now often considered to be one of Morrison’s most impressive and poetic works. In a 2008 Rolling Stone review, Andy Greene writes that when released in late 1974: “it was greeted by a collective shrug by the rock critical establishment” and concludes: “He’s released many wonderful albums since, but he’s never again hit the majestic heights of this one.” “You Don’t Pull No Punches, But You Don’t Push the River”, one of the album’s side closers, exemplifies the long, hypnotic, cryptic Morrison with its references to visionary poet William Blake and to the seemingly Grail-like Veedon Fleece object.
Morrison would not release a follow-up album for another three years. After a decade without taking time off, he said in an interview, he needed to get away from music completely and ceased listening to it for several months. Also suffering from writer’s block, he seriously considered leaving the music business for good. Speculation that an extended jam session would be released either under the title Mechanical Bliss, or Naked in the Jungle, or Stiff Upper Lip, came to nothing, and Morrison’s next album was A Period of Transition in 1977, a collaboration with Dr. John, who had appeared in The Last Waltz with Morrison in 1976. The album received a mild critical reception and
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