)[6] Compared to "Yesterday" by The Beatles, it has been described as "another song where the music and the words seem to have been born together, at the same time, to make one perfectly formed, complete artistic element.
"[8] A Rolling Stone review by Greil Marcus and Lester Bangs described the song's importance on the album as: "'Into the Mystic' is the heart of Moondance; the music unfolds with a classic sense of timing, guitar strums fading into watery notes on a piano, the bass counting off the pace.
'[9] The Moondance Allmusic review described it as "a song of such elemental beauty and grace as to stand as arguably the quintessential Morrison moment.
[18] On the original 1970 pressings of the Moondance LP, "Into the Mystic" is presented in a mix done on 10 December 1969, featuring a prominent tambourine throughout the song.
Later LP pressings, and all CD reissues of the album prior to 2008, contain an alternate mix of the song done on 5 January 1970, lacking the tambourine and with a more muted foghorn sound.
[19] The original tambourine mix of the song made its CD debut in a 2008 Japanese Moondance remaster, and was also restored for a vinyl reissue of the album on Rhino Records later that year.
It was played as Jim and Michelle's first dance as a married couple in the 2003 movie American Wedding, along with a cover version of the song by The Wallflowers.
The song was also used by the Boston Red Sox to honor the late long-time color commentator Jerry Remy during a pre-game ceremony early in the 2022 season.
Some of the artists performing it are Paul Carrack,[21] Joe Cocker,[21] Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová (The Swell Season) on the Once (Collector's Edition of Original Soundtrack),[22] The Dead,[21] Jackson Hawke,[23] Colin James,[21] Ben E. King,[21] Michael McDonald,[24] The Allman Brothers Band,[25] Zac Brown Band,[26] Marc Cohn,[27] Paco Estrada, The Wallflowers,[21] Stoney Larue,[28] and Jason Isbell.
Bob Dylan covered the song in Alicante, Spain on June 15,[30] 2023 in the midst of his "Rough and Rowdy Ways": World Wide Tour / 2021-2024.