Search - Van Morrison :: Blowin Your Mind

I love this album

Evan Streb | 12/14/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I think "Brown Eyed Girl" is a great pop radio hit, but my favorite song on the album is "TB Sheets". Probably Van Morrison's all time best song, "TB Sheets" is about how Van watches his girlfriend die from tuberculosis and all the feelings that go through his mind at that time. This song is very personal to me because I've had a similar event happen to me in the past few days."

Fine & dandy

Ali Moeller | Nebraska | 12/10/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Sure, it's Van Morrison. With his raspy blues voice and swaggering lyrics, that seem to get lost numerous times in the music within this album. It's a raw record, with many of the songs recorded on improv, but still, it's worth a listen. If only for the Berns number Goodbye Baby, which is a 3 minute CCR rave up, before Fogerty was every humming about Suzie Q or that crazy Proud Mary prowling down the Mississippi River. If not for undeniably one of the greatest rock songs ever, Brown Eyed Girl. If only for the excellent remastering Legacy did when they cleaned this record up. The quality is tremendous, and the songs come alive like they never did on the older T.B.'s Sheets and the numerous bootlegs that offer the same thing here, but with a minimal quality. If you love Them, you must pickup this record. There are numerous improv blues numbers, and Morrison's lyrics may not be poetic, but they'll get a laugh or two. "I've done more for you, than your daddy's already done". Recomended, but pick up Astral Weeks & Moondance first."

Van would improve by leaps and bounds

finulanu | Here, there, and everywhere | 10/05/2007

(2 out of 5 stars)

"A lower-tier release with some truly high points, most notably the wonderful pop tune "Brown Eyed Girl" - still today his most famous song; the claustrophobic, melancholic, drawn-out blues "T.B. Sheets"; and the rocker "Goodbye Baby", which makes up for its idiotic lyrics and cheesy backup vocals with a stingni guitar riff. Elsewhere, there are all kinds of ill-advised, clunky experiments, including Latin ("Spanish Rose") and psychedelic blues ("He Ain't Give You None"), as well as a miserable "La Bamba" rip-off with clumsy acid guitar ("Ro Ro Rosey"), and the turgid blues "Who Drove the Red Sports Car"; the cover of "Midnight Special" has a bass line remarkably similar to "Get Ready"'s, and is laced with really cheesy backing vocals. Van gives his all on the track, but the fact is it's not much of a song at all: that, and I've heard way too many covers of it. For those curious, these same recordings have been repackaged under a huge variety of different names - most of them contain awful early versions of "Madame George" and "Beside You", without the mystique the takes on Astral Weeks would have: the former is remade as a ho-hum psychedelic rocker with frustrating shouts from partygoers, and the latter is a dorky soul-blues hybrid. The fact is that very few of the Bang recordings are worth investigating in the first place, so it's annoying that they were re-released so often, and it doesn't help that the record company gluttons most likely keep all the money they make off them from Van, the guy who deserves them. Morrison would jump leaps and bounds above this one on the next album (Astral Weeks) alone. Not a single song on this album really points in that direction, so it's of minimal interest to collectors either. Since you've heard "Brown Eyed Girl" a quagagoolion times on the radio anyway (and the fact is I absolutely adore that one - never get tired of it), the only real find is "T.B. Sheets". I would definitely pick Astral Weeks, Moondance, His Band and the Street Choir, Tupelo Honey, Veedon Fleece and Magic Time above this one as starting points."