In March 2000, Van Morrison told the Irish rock magazine "Hot Press" about the impact that "Freewheelin made on him: "I think I heard it in a record shop in Smith Street. And I just thought it was incredible that this guy's not singing about 'moon in June' and he's getting away with it. That's what I thought at the time. The subject matter wasn't pop songs, ya know, and I thought this kind of opens the whole thing up ... Dylan put it into the mainstream that this could be done."