| "Bulbs" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single byVan Morrison | ||||
| from the albumVeedon Fleece | ||||
| B-side |
| |||
| Released | November 1974 | |||
| Recorded | March 1974, Mercury Studios, New York City, United States | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 4:19 | |||
| Label | Warner Bros. | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Van Morrison | |||
| Producer(s) | Van Morrison | |||
| Van Morrison singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Official audio | ||||
| "Bulbs" onYouTube | ||||
"Bulbs" is a song written by Northern Irish singer-songwriterVan Morrison. It was the only single to be taken from his 1974 albumVeedon Fleece, with a B-side of "Cul de Sac" for the US release and "Who Was That Masked Man" for the UK release.[2][3]
"Bulbs" was first recorded, with different lyrics, at the recording session for the 1973 album,Hard Nose the Highway, released in 1973.[4] After the first recording session forVeedon Fleece', "Bulbs" was re-cut at Mercury Studios in New York City in March 1974, along with "Cul de Sac", to give it a morerock feeling. According toJef Labes this was "cause he (Morrison) didn't feel they had the right feeling... It was me, Van and a bunch of other guys that he'd never played with."[5]Bass player Joe Macho had previously played on the 1966Bobby Hebb hit song "Sunny".[6]
"Bulbs" has been described as "a pleasant, catchycountry ditty, aDire Straits song before its time" by biographer John Collis.[7] As with many of Morrison's songs, "Bulbs" does not have a clear story line, but in part focuses onimmigration to the United States as in the lines:
Record World called it "Something like a performance from hisAstral Weeks days with a graft ofpedal steel" and said that "Van benefits from a renewed powersurge."[8]
In an interview with Morrison,Tom Donahue said, after he had listened to "Bulbs": "You always make great noises. The other things you do in songs beside the words."[9]
In aStylus Magazine review for the albumVeedon Fleece, Derek Miller says of the song:[10]
"Of course, the best and most immediately memorable song onVeedon Fleece is "Bulbs". Coming about as close to laying down a groove as he does on the album, the song quickly makes dust of its acoustic start, leaping headstrong into aWaylon Jennings' style bass-roll, rump heavy and plush, pianos shimmering and fingerdense."
Morrison performed the song on the German television showMusikladen on 13 November 1974.[11]
The title might come from the lines:
A live performance of this song is featured on the 1974 disc of Morrison's 2006 issued DVD,Live at Montreux 1980/1974. Morrison used a stripped-down band on thisMontreaux Jazz Festival appearance consisting of:
