It always comes back to Pink Moon. There have been a few “last songs from an album” posts around recently. After this, there’s only one more to come from Pink Moon. Any fan of it will be able to correctly guess what song that post will be for. But for now, this one’s for ‘Things Behind the Sun’. The track is the longest one on Nick Drake’s third and final studio album, positioned right in the middle of it, acting more as the closing number for the LP’s first half before you’d flip the vinyl around and listen to the second. Even back when I first heard the track in late, late 2012, it did feel like I was listening to what was meant to be considered the record’s most poignant moment. This and the preceding instrumental, ‘Horn’, together make up a one-two punch of poignancy. They both sounded so much sadder than anything else than the numbers that came before. But then again, I think ‘Horn’ acts as more of the tone setter, the moment of quiet reflection before the storm of ‘Things…’ begins soon after.

Not like ‘Things…’ is this wild, raucous rock number or anything. It’s just as acoustic as everything else the album delivers. It’s a storm in terms of the tone… there’s something uneasy, disquieting about it. It’s probably the minor key it’s in for the verses. That would do it. ‘Things Behind the Sun’ sees Drake detail his disillusionment with his musical endeavours. He goes out to perform, but he doesn’t trust the people who go and watch him. And as he goes about his way, observing people on his idle travels, he sees how they act and concludes that there’s no point in trying to win their hearts with his music – the likelihood is they won’t listen anyway. It seems to me that this is a track – another being ‘Harvest Breed’ – where he more or less implies that he won’t be around for much longer, or at least has thought about the end of his life, but doesn’t want to “name the day” on which it happens or reveal that he’s tried to end it before. So until then, where the more sprightly, happier chord progressions come in, he’ll take his time, find delight in the dark humour he appreciates that makes other people frown and generally keep to himself with his head down while he carries on feeling depressed. He’s comfortable in his state of dejection. It’s all very bittersweet.

And just like almost everything other song on Pink Moon. the track is provided to you solely by Nick Drake with his weary vocal and fingerpicked acoustic guitar. Goes to show how much you can do with so little. One thing I’ve always liked about this tune is how rhythmic Drake’s playing style is. He sort of skips around from one chord to the next throughout, playing a root note or two in between. It really shows during the guitar break halfway through when he jumps higher and higher with the progression before dipping back downwards again and repeating the process again. I’ve always thought this and ‘Which Will’ – which if you didn’t guess, will be the next song – both had a rhythm that could have been infused into a hip-hop track of some kind easily, which I guess would be sacrilege to some for weird reasons, but it’s just how I feel. Then Kendrick Lamar used a re-recorded sample of ‘Things…’ in one of his own songs – unreleased, mind you – and my point was proven. But overall, it’s disheartening to listen Drake’s track and hear how let down he was by the fact – and it was a fact at the time – that his music wasn’t going anywhere, not making him the big star that he wanted to be and that people told him he could be. It happened eventually, people love his music now. If only he’d stuck around.