Tag Archives: pink moon

My iPod #396: Nick Drake – From the Morning

“…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.

My iPod #390: Nick Drake – Free Ride

“Pink Moon”, man. One of my favourite albums ever. Eleven songs of one man and an acoustic guitar (and a short piano overdub) producing the most moving, chilling, melodic, bare, but brilliant songs you could ever hear. Sad to know that it was his last before he passed away two years after making it. But honestly, I never knew an album made so simply could be so emotional.

“Free Ride”, to me anyway, seems like one of the most happier songs on the album. Only because of the way it’s played. There’s like a continuous C-note drone that Drake plucks on the lower strings throughout the verses which drives the song forward whilst he plays the more detailed melody on the higher ones. It’s hard to describe; there’s just something a sense of confidence in the song’s tone that I get every time I hear it, and compared to the rest of “Pink Moon” is a lot more perky in its delivery.

I’ve read somewhere say that it’s about having sexual relations with a friend; another place saying it’s Drake trying to reach out to the people that he doesn’t really get on with it, but still wanting their support and attention. I am not that bothered. I think the song itself is too good to really ponder over.

Listen to “Pink Moon”.