Hmmm. Now I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to write three hefty paragraphs for this one. That’s usually the max I go for when I’m going into these if you haven’t noticed. Feel like that’s a reasonable amount for someone to read before going on to something else unrelated. But I’m not sure whether there’s a lot to pick apart from Nick Drake’s ‘Parasite’, unless you’re willing to go through a line-by-line analysis which I’m definitely not prepared for. Plus, I’m not too well-educated on music theory. The second-longest song on Drake’s Pink Moon, one of my personal favourites, ‘Parasite’ is a track of pure self-loathing set to cascading waltz time.

Pink Moon is already a stark listen up to the point of ‘Parasite”s introduction, but I feel like it’s the one track where Drake details the depths on how he was feeling around the time of the album’s recording. The song is something of a commentary. Drake lists situations and details he comes across while walking around London and being heavily depressed, and not really having a very bright outlook to anything he witnesses. He eavesdrops on people’s conversations, not really caring about the problems their having and whether or not things will work out well for them. He drinks in bars and feels terrible afterwards. He feels isolated from those who seem to be having harmless fun around him. His self-esteem is at his lowest, and he compares himself to a parasite, sucking the joy out of the life of the town and latching onto people who are merely going about their day.

What’s really left to talk about his Drake’s guitar playing, because that’s all there is, just like all the other songs on the album. Despite the very coldness of the subject matter, there’s a definite warmth to the tones that ring from Drake’s fingerpicking. I’ve always appreciated how he’s able to play two different melodies on the lower and higher strings that come together to become this encompassing thing, but it’s the descending melody on those higher strings that are the main melodic hook. The artist who designed the Pink Moon artwork must have got some ideas from this track too. There’s no way that the sad clown on the front and the shining shoe on the back were chosen by coincidence.