We’ve arrived. I’ve done many a post for a number of other songs on Nick Drake’s Pink Moon album. I’m sure that in the majority of them, I’ve mentioned that it’s one of my personal favourites ever. If I was to do one of those cheesy “need to know these albums to understand me” type of things, I’d have to say Pink Moon slots itself strongly into the list. It’s hit me that I would have been listening to the album for just over ten years at this point, and my god, it’s been one of my go-to listens in times of stress, recoveries from nights out, those cold winter mornings/evenings. So awesome how an album you come across pretty casually can become something you treasure and come to know like the back of your hand.

The record begins with its great title track, the two-minute wonder welcoming the listener into its world. Being 17 when I first heard it, the main thing that caught my ear was Drake’s singing style. Unlike almost every other person who put some volume into their vocals, Drake was singing what sounded like was barely above a whisper. Like he was sighing melodically. Wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. But it was that unique quality that made me listen to the whole thing again a second time, which is where everything clicked. Instead of focusing on just the vocal, I was listening to the charging acoustic guitar, how the chord progression moves underneath that vocal and alternates between the low strings and the higher ones. Plus, how that acoustic guitar just sounded so warm and the strings seemed to reverberate with a glistening richness. And then that lone piano comes in at about a minute in, the only other instrument to appear on the whole album apart from Drake’s guitar, just making the track that little more prettier than it had any right to be.

So why does the moon have to be pink? Why’s the pink moon so important? Well, for a while I was thinking that it was just a pretty, surreal image that Nick Drake was singing about. Something that he made up or had a dream about and was inspired enough to write a song about. After really thinking about it though, the pink moon is possibly a reference to the dark-red colour the actual moon takes during a lunar eclipse, when the Moon moves into the Earth’s shadow. Going on to know about Drake’s ordeal with depression, it hit that the pink moon is a metaphor for exactly that. He’s saying it’s written on the walls, it’s obvious, darkness is coming. He also just happened to set this message to some very beautiful music, so there’s a huge juxtaposition going on. It continues throughout the rest of the album. But it’s such a brilliantly warm and undertstated way to start off the proceedings.