love and life was the predominant theme of the album, this was especially true of "Troubadours", "Steppin' Out Queen" and "You Make Me Feel So Free". "Troubadours" is an uplifting celebration of the singer-songwriter from ancient days, walking through towns "singin songs of love and chivalry". "Rolling Hills" is a joyful song in which the singer directly refers to Christianity and to living his life "in Him" and reading the Bible. The album is notable for its interpolation of an elegiac version of the fifties pop hit "It's All in the Game". It was a B-side of the Morrison song "Cleaning Windows". Critical reception In a contemporary review for Rolling Stone, Jay Cocks hailed Into the Music as a daring "record of splendid peace" and "vastly ambitious attempt to reconcile various states of grace: physical, spiritual and artistic". "That's what this album is about, proudly and stunningly and with no apologies", Cocks wrote. "Resurrection. Real Hope." Tom Bentkowski from New York found Morrison's spirituality casually but confidently expressed in songs that are "introspective, impressionistic", and "charged by the author's overwhelming belief in them". High Fidelity was impressed by Morrison's ability to explore a diversity of universal emotions and called the album "the full-circle complement to his most cosmic, allegorical work", veering from gospel-rooted R&B and Gaelic songs to rock and roll blended with "heartfelt religious fervor". "There's a general sense of happiness and clarity here", the magazine wrote, "as if Morrison has finally distilled his feelings down to their most essential musical level." In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau deemed Into the Music his best record since 1970's Moondance while writing that like Bob Dylan, Morrison had "abandoned metaphorical pretensions, but only because he loves the world". Morrison's simple odes to rural life, he believed, were made vivid and deeper by backing musicians such as Marcus and "by his own excursions into a vocalese that has never been more various or apt." Christgau viewed "It's All in the Game" as the album's only great song, however, and was somewhat critical of the "lightweight rockers" and "You Know What They're Writing About", which he felt sounded tedious halfway through. Don Snowden of the Los Angeles Times described Into the Music as "a more personal, more definitely Van Morrison album than Wavelength", but complained that "Bright Side of the Road" and "You Make Me Feel So Free" lacked the "rhythmic punch and