In Moondance, Morrison bursts forth in warm Technicolor. The Van Morrison that the public would come to know and recognize over the decades—Van the Man, the Belfast Cowboy, etc—essentially makes his first appearance on Moondance.
~Erik Hage
This is Van Morrison’s 6th Symphony; like Beethoven’s equivalent, it’s fixated on the power of nature, but rather than merely sitting in awe, it finds spirituality and redemption in the most basic of things. The pinnacle of Van The Man’s career, and maybe, of non-American soul in general.
~Nick Butler
“It was Mark (Knopfler’s) wife Lourdes who came up with the idea (to record Miracle). She said to him that you don’t sing like Willy and he doesn’t play guitar like you, but you really like his stuff so why don’t you do an album together? So I went over to London to do this album. It wasn’t easy because we didn’t want it to sound like a Dire Straits album, and his guitar playing is so unique that it was hard to do. But nothing good is going to be easy. I know that I spent the whole time really trying to impress Mark, I wanted it to be good.”
– Willy DeVille (2006)
The album includes what is probably the best known Willy DeVille song — Storybook Love, it is also one of his best songs among many many great ones.
Willy DeVille (with Mark Knopfler on guitar) – Storybook Love (music video, studio version, Princess Bride soundtrack):
Go ’way from my window
Leave at your own chosen speed
I’m not the one you want, babe
I’m not the one you need
You say you’re lookin’ for someone
Never weak but always strong
To protect you an’ defend you
Whether you are right or wrong
Someone to open each and every door
But it ain’t me, babe
No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe
It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe
.. The tour was winding down — only one other show remained — and it was the day guitarist Keith Richards turned 38, so perhaps that’s the reason why the band seemed to be in a celebratory mood. No matter the reason, the Stones are on fire here, charging through their 1981 set, a set that was heavy on oldies (there’s a three-song sequence of “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me),” “Twenty Flight Rock,” and “Going to A Go Go”) and nasty rockers (it opens with “Under My Thumb” and “When the Whip Comes Down,” effectively setting up the slide into Undercover in the next year). Perhaps it was this palpable sense of sleaze that possessed a fan to bum rush the stage during “Satisfaction,” a move that required Keith to weaponize his Telecaster and attack the invader, providing an appropriate capper to a night when the old pros could still seem dangerous.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine (allmusic.com)
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