Songfacts®:

• "Tupelo Honey" is an unreserved, typically mystic take on the domestic happiness Morrison had found since he'd married his wife Janet. They'd met during his time with the Irish R&B band Them. She'd already been his muse for several of Morrison's earlier songs.
• Tupelo honey is honey made from the sweet flowers of the tupelo tree, which grows abundantly in swampy areas of the Southern United States. >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Wayne - Crockett, TX
• There are allusions to early America and the Boston Tea Party in this song:
  
  You can take all the tea in China
  Put it in a big brown bag for me
  Sail right around the seven oceans
  Drop it straight into the deep blue sea
  
  And
  
  You can't stop us on the road to freedom
  You can't stop us 'cause our eyes can see
  
  The Irish Troubles were still raging when this song was written, and it's important to view it as the song of an artist who was a product of that situation. Freedom was surely heavy on Van's mind.
• This song plays at the conclusion of the 1997 film Ulee's Gold, which stars Peter Fonda as a beekeeper who makes Tupelo Honey.
• On the season 3 Friends episode "The One With the Princess Leia Fantasy," Ross calls this the most romantic song ever, while Rachel argues for "The Way We Were."