Songfacts®:

• This Irish fable contains some bizarre imagery about the titular character who "loved the morning sun, and whiskey" and "stole the highlights with one hand tied behind his back." Mojo (November 2012) asked Morrison the inspiration behind this song. He explained: "It was a house I was staying in at the time. It was another way of writing songs. I just seemed to be picking stuff up, different ideas from this house. But I don't actually know what it's about. In fact I don't have a clue what most of the album is about."
  
  "I think I was picking those songs out of the air," he added. "Psychic air. Whatever you want to call it. They were fictional characters. Sometimes a place will inspire something and you get ideas without knowing what they mean."
• Recorded shortly after Morrison's divorce from Janet (Planet) Rigsbee and during a creatively charged holiday in Ireland with his then-fiancée, Carol Guida, Veedon Fleece is the kind of record that could only emerge from the twin crucibles of heartbreak and rolling green inspiration. In less than three weeks, Morrison penned seven of the album's tracks, including "Linden Arden Stole the Highlights."
• Morrison's pianist and musical director Jeff Labes later confessed to Mojo magazine that the songwriting process for Veedon Fleece was, frankly, a bit spooky. Morrison, he said, wasn't the type to sit down with a rhyming dictionary and carefully craft his lyrics. Instead, he'd pick up a guitar, press record, and let the words tumble out as if someone - or something - was whispering them into his ear. "It was scary for him," Labes admitted. "This was coming out of his soul. He never knew when it was going to come, and he never knew when it was going to stop."
• And then there's the title, Veedon Fleece, a phrase that appears in the track "You Don't Pull No Punches, But You Don't Push The River" and is enigmatic as the man himself. Asked what it meant, Morrison offered an explanation that was equal parts enlightening and maddening: "I haven't a clue what the title means. It's actually a person's name. I have a whole set of characters in my head that I'm trying to fit into things."
  
  Naturally, this hasn't stopped fans and critics from theorizing. Some see parallels with Greek mythology's Golden Fleece, interpreting the Veedon Fleece as a symbol of a transformative quest. Others point to the album's Irish influences and wonder if it's a nod to some half-forgotten piece of Celtic lore.