I’ve just listened to this album start to finish.It has been a few months since I last listened to it and I just wanted to say that this must be one of the all time great albums.
If you don’t have a copy of this album…get one soon.
Absolute brilliance…
Just thought I’d get that off my chest 
Slan,
D.
When I was younger, I saw a video of Grease. It had a moon dance.
I couldn’t agree more. 
I used to play in a band with an Aussie who looked and sounded exactly like Van the Man.
We did a trad-flavoured version of Moondance and Brown Eyed Girl. It went very well on the flute.
Mukade
I love that album too. Way back then, it was my introduction to solo Van de Grump. ‘It stoned Me’ was and remains my favourite track. Astral Weeks is more consistent though, I think. Of course, every home should have both. I loved Them and still do. Is here a better R&B track from that era than ‘I Can Only Give You Everything’?
I would agree about the consistency of Astral Weeks.
Popular wisdom has it that it was recorded in 48 hours.A recent - and rare - interview with Van the Man revealed that although the album was recorded in one weekend,himself, the bass player and flautist had spent months rehearsing the songs so when he got it to a studio the three of them knew exactly where they were but some of the other session players on the album were not so well prepared and you can hear some confusion in places.
In Madam George,Morrison has written one of the greatest songs of all time.Multiple layers of meaning over an incredible fusion of styles in the backing.Three or four verses in there is a line that goes “when you fall into a trance…” just as the line ends the fiddle player hits a rising arpeggio that just lifts the whole song onto yet another level.
In any copy of this album that I have ever seen,the fiddler is the only musician not credited on the sleeve notes.
Bugged me for years that…
Slan,
D.
“moondance” is one of my favorite tunes to play on the whistle.
Dale
My band throws Moondance (done ‘jiggy’) in between Morrison’s and Lanigan’s Ball. Clip forthcoming.
might someone please throw in a mp3 or a wav-file of this moondance thing?
thanks.
And some dots!
(Thanks!)
You know, I just noticed . . . the only time I’ve ever seen Amar write using actual capital letters and punctuation was when he was speaking to that fine fellow from Zurich.
Go figure.
I played Flute on Moondance in a band before I was playing it in Am but the the singer wanted Gm so I had to get a C Flute.
WHAT ARE YOU IMPLYING?
Why, err, I wasn’t . . . . . . implying . . anything! Noooo! <snort!> Certainly not!
But now that you’ve mentioned it . . . what should I have been suspicious of?
“It Stoned Me” is still my favorite off that album. Ah, how it brings back memories.
Wonderful album.
Thinking about another thread, “Into the Mystic” has always been a creepy song for me. I can’t actually tell you what the song’s about, because Boston has the Mystic River, a short polluted stream surrounded by worn out factories and poor neighborhoods. A huge, high bridge, the Mystic River Bridge, carries traffic north out of the city. It has been a place where people have decided to end it all by going “into the Mystic.” The creepy local meaning has always colored the song for me. It’s the same Mystic River from the recent book and movie.
Whew!! Jeeez, I came into this thread thinking “Oh, hell, it’s another Michael Flatley thingy!” 
I sent you an MP3 of this track at 05:30 this morning before I left for work.
I’ve just got back home to find that it has been returned…something about your disk space being exceeded.
Have you got another Email addy for me?
Slan,
D.
A while back I played in a combo where we did Moondance. I played guitar, and the flute player didn’t know the tune well enough, so I put together an abc version of the tune, complete with jazzy hi-hat, walking bass line and guitar chords.
Here’s the (very small) MIDI file: Moondance
Enjoy for a low budget chuckle …
-Chris
oh. yeah, sure, i know that. cool