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"Bulbs"
Single by Van Morrison
from the album Veedon Fleece
B-side	"Cul de Sac" (US) "Who Was That Masked Man" (UK)
Released	November 1974
Recorded	March 1974, Mercury Studios, New York City, United States
Genre	Folk rock soul
Length	4:19
Label	Warner Bros.
Songwriter(s)	Van Morrison
Producer(s)	Van Morrison
Van Morrison singles chronology
"Ain't Nothing You Can Do" (1974) "Bulbs" (1974) "Caldonia" (1974)
Official audio
"Bulbs" on YouTube

"Bulbs" is a song written by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. It was the only single to be taken from his 1974 album Veedon Fleece, with a B-side of "Cul de Sac" for the US release and "Who Was That Masked Man" for the UK release.

Recording and composition

"Bulbs" was first recorded, with different lyrics, at the recording session for the 1973 album, Hard Nose the Highway, released in 1973. After the first recording session for Veedon Fleece', "Bulbs" was re-cut at Mercury Studios in New York City in March 1974, along with "Cul de Sac", to give it a more rock feeling. According to Jef 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." bass player Joe Macho had previously played on the 1966 Bobby Hebb hit song "Sunny".

"Bulbs" has been described as "a pleasant, catchy country ditty, a Dire Straits song before its time" by biographer John Collis. As with many of Morrison's songs, "Bulbs" does not have a clear story line, but in part focuses on immigration to the United States as in the lines:

She's leaving Pan American

Suitcase in her hand

I said her brothers and her sisters

Are all on Atlantic sand

Critical reception

Record World called it "Something like a performance from his Astral Weeks days with a graft of pedal steel" and said that "Van benefits from a renewed power surge."

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."

In a Stylus Magazine review for the album Veedon Fleece, Derek Miller says of the song:

"Of course, the best and most immediately memorable song on Veedon 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 a Waylon Jennings' style bass-roll, rump heavy and plush, pianos shimmering and fingerdense."

Morrison performed the song on the German television show Musikladen on 13 November 1974.

Title

The title might come from the lines:

And her batteries are corroded

And her hundred watt bulb just blew

or the repeated chorus:

.. she's standing in the shadows

Where the street lights all turn blue

Personnel

• Van Morrison – vocals, acoustic guitar
• John Tropea – electric guitar
• Jef Labes – piano
• Joe Macho – bass
• Allan Schwartzberg – drums

Other releases

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 this Montreaux Jazz Festival appearance consisting of:

• Van Morrison – vocals, guitar
• Pete Wingfield – piano, background vocals
• Jerome Rimson – bass, background vocals
• Dallas Taylor – drums

Covers

• Australian blues and root band The Revelators covered the song on their 2000 album, The Adventures of The Amazing Revelators.
• Ellis Hooks performed a cover version of "Bulbs" on the 2003 released tribute album, Vanthology: A Tribute to Van Morrison.
• "Bulbs" was covered by Jason Boland & the Stragglers on their 2018 album "Hard Times Are Relative."

Notes

1. Segretto, Mike (2022). "1974". 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Minute - A Critical Trip Through the Rock LP Era, 1955–1999. Backbeat. pp. 301–302. ISBN 9781493064601.
2. "Van Morrison – Bulbs" – via www.45cat.com.
3. "Van Morrison – Bulbs" – via www.45cat.com.
4. Heylin, Can You Feel the Silence? p. 521
5. Heylin, Can You Feel the Silence? p. 284
6. "Soul Hits from NYC". soul60scodified.wordpress.com.
7. Collis, Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, pp. 140–141
8. "Single Picks" (PDF). Record World. 28 September 1974. p. 12. Retrieved 15 March 2023.
9. Hinton, Celtic Crossroads, p. 179
10. "Van Morrison – Veedon Fleece". stylusmagazine.com. Archived from the original on 28 July 2014. Retrieved 3 August 2008.
11. Van Morrison - Bulbs on YouTube
12. Hal Horowitz (5 August 2003). "Vanthology: A Tribute to Van Morrison – Van Morrison | Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards". AllMusic. Retrieved 15 February 2014.
13. Stegall, Tim. "Jason Boland & the Stragglers: Hard Times Are Relative Album Review". The Austin Chronicle.

References

• Collis, John (1996). Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, Little Brown and Company, ISBN 0-306-80811-0
• Heylin, Clinton (2003). Can You Feel the Silence? Van Morrison: A New Biography, Chicago Review Press ISBN 1-55652-542-7
• Hinton, Brian (1997). Celtic Crossroads: The Art of Van Morrison, Sanctuary, ISBN 1-86074-169-X

• 1974 singles
• Van Morrison songs
• Songs written by Van Morrison
• 1973 songs
• Warner Records singles
• Song recordings produced by Van Morrison