T.B. Sheets

The song *T.B. Sheets* immerses you fully in a raw and desolate scene. The lyrics place us in a room where a young woman, Julie, is dying of tuberculosis. The narrator, her partner, is torn between overwhelming pain, guilt, and a desperate need to escape the environment saturated with death and illness. It is a narrative that seeks to capture the realism of the situation, without embellishments or easy sentimentalism, encapsulating the claustrophobia of the room and the helplessness in the face of life's fragility.

This piece, lasting nearly ten minutes, was recorded on March 29, 1967, at A & R Studios in New York. Producer Bert Berns oversaw the session, where Van Morrison aimed to capture the essence of the song in a single take, though two were ultimately recorded. The recording atmosphere is described as intense; accounts suggest that, after finishing the take, Morrison was overcome by emotion to the point of tears, leading to the cancellation of the rest of the session. Musically, the song moves between passages of organ and free-form drums, a slow rhythm, and an insistent lead guitar, complemented by Morrison's harmonica, which adds a layer of rawness to the narrative. The track *T.B. Sheets* was included on his debut solo album, Blowin' Your Mind!, released in 1967 under the Bang label. Years later, this song also featured in Martin Scorsese's film Bringing Out the Dead in 1999.