I might not have bought this if it hadn't been for you. Those late afternoons with a coffee and a cigarette while you led me track-by-track through Astral Weeks and Moondance. What do you think of this one?
The sticker on the cover of my copy reminds me that the album was shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize in 1995, but I remember being sceptical about the claims about Van being on peak form, and I held out from buying it until late 1996. I still back my original scepticism, and I think of this album being Van-lite. I can imagine it being popular because Van doesn't sound so unremittingly truculent as usual. I think his relationship with Michelle Rocca was fairly new and songs like Perfect Fit show him very content. Nevertheless, my favourite tracks on the album have always been the cheerful ditties Underlying Depression and Melancholia — authentic Van.
Listening to Ancient Highway just now — Van groaning and grumbling through nearly nine minutes of the song — I had a very bad-taste thought which I shouldn't really say out loud. It went like this: imagine Van in his dotage, when the tendrils of senility start insinuating their way into his brain, and he's sitting there, mumbling, slightly incoherently, "East Belfast… gardens wet with rain… down the avenue… the Castlereagh Road… cockles and mussels… sun goes down in the evening… town called Paradise, town called Paradise". Well, couldn't they record it over one his old rehearsal tapes and put it out to cover the nursing home bills? It would bear a strong resemblance to many of the tracks he's put out over the past twenty years, quoting himself and then quoting himself quoting himself.
And while I'm being cruel, notice the foreshortening in the cover photo, from which you could mistake Van for being the same height as his girlfriend.
Ah, Van, we love you really — we just express that love in similarly mysterious ways to your love for your audience.
 MusicBrainz entry for this album
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