Tag Archives: nick drake

#1039: Nick Drake – Pink Moon

1 Reply

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.

#1015: Nick Drake – Parasite

1 Reply

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.

#943: Nick Drake – Northern Sky

1 Reply

It may be a despicable thing to say. But for me, when it comes to Nick Drake’s three-album discography, there’s Pink Moon, and then there’s the other two. I feel some shame just typing that. I’ve grown so use to the desolate and stark atmosphere of Pink Moon that when I hearFive Leaves Left or Bryter Layter, the fullness of the instrumentation seems a bit unfamiliar to me. Those are both very fine albums in their own ways, and I’ve been trying to appreciate them more as time has gone on. In fact, wasn’t relatively long ago that I truly understood how good today’s track was.

‘Northern Sky’ is the penultimate track on Bryter Layter. Might not just be me, but I get a lot of imagery from this track. Clear skies of purple and deep blue at dusk on a chilly winter evening. Oddly specific, but that’s what I see. The album cover may play into it a bit too. But mainly it’s those visions are caused by the soft resonance of those celeste keys and the soothing Hammond organ which are present throughout, provided by former Velvet Underground member and all-round fine musician John Cale. Initially turned off by the instrumental choices, Drake grew to like the arrangement and anticipated it to be his big commercial breakthrough. That didn’t happen. Record label antics.

The lack of widespread recognition of his work dampened Drake’s hopes, and he became more and more emotionally withdrawn and distant as a result. He was known to be quite the shy person anyway, so it makes a song like ‘Northern Sky’ all the more profound and affecting. It’s a love song, something of a rarity in his work, and it captures all the feelings that usually come along in that situation of being with someone. The courage, the wonder and happiness, the underlying uncertainty, numerous others, but most of all the appreciation. It might be one of the best love songs out there. And with that, the sadness seeps in when thinking on how everything ended for Drake. He just wanted his music to be heard. If he could have hung on that bit longer, he would have arrived at a point where he would see his material be adored by millions. Too tragic. But we’re all listening now.

My iPod #491: Nick Drake – Harvest Breed

2 Replies

Before closing his third album on a note emphasising a positive outlook on life, Nick Drake provides us with “Harvest Breed”, a track which – though only lasting a minute and a half and containing four different sentences – describes a person in need of help, is not able to find anyone who can provide it, and enjoys the beautiful earth one last time before supposedly accepting his mortality. A rather eerie song, which would have brought a morbid end to Pink Moon had “From the Morning” not directly followed it.

Despite its foreboding subject matter, “Harvest Breed” is another typically entrancing performance by Drake. Consisting only of his acoustic guitar playing a circular riff which he simultaneously sings along too with his calm, soothing vocal, the song sounds just as vulnerable and empty as the other ten that accompany. Maybe even more so as it is the shortest one on the album. But it is the one that is the most haunting, especially considering Drake’s own depression and his sad death.

My iPod #396: Nick Drake – From the Morning

1 Reply

“…listening to this album, with headphones to be isolated of all exterior noises, with eyes closed, is a unique experience. Because at the end, the last song you hear is FROM THE MORNING, and this song is so positive! After all an album of a beautiful darkness, you finish on this moving celebration of life, telling you that another day starts after this tormented night, all starts again with a beautiful morning, that everything is possible with the rise of the sun. It’s at the opposite with the whole rest of the album, and it ends like that. I’m telling you, you can’t arrive at the end of PINK MOON with your eyes dry. That’s why this song has a particular saviour. And you need to know that FROM THE MORNING was his parents favourite song, proof that it has a positive reflect, and that’s why they chose a quote of this song as epitaph on his gravestone “Now we rise, and we are everywhere”.

That is a comment under the lyrics of “From the Morning” on songsmeaning.net. And I actually couldn’t put it better myself.

“Pink Moon” is the album to play during the hours of a cold winter night; its bare atmosphere and depressing lyrics matching the dark, silent environment. You walk around wondering where to turn.

But then “From the Morning” begins just as the sun rises, the skies turn a pinkish colour, the birds start to sing and you realise you’ve been bugging out over nothing. Everything will be alright. Another day is here. Time to learn something new.

The track’s presence wipes the sadness and desolation present throughout “Pink Moon” away, and as the last song ends the album on a happy, positive note. Sadly he would pass away only a few years later, but at least his official discography came to a definitive conclusion with this highly-spirited tune.