There are only four instruments on Nick Drake’s third and final album: a guitar; his voice; one piano line for the introductory song, and the telling uncomfortable silences. That silence is telling because Pink Moon suffers from the Nick Drake problem, that the “death of the author” in this instance is stunningly literal. Within a year of making this record Nick Drake would be dead from the hands of his depression, and this would be the last piece of work he officially released (the four songs that he recorded after this suffered from the fact was no long able to play and sing at the same time. They are quite upsetting). When you know that, it’s hard not to see this as an incessantly bleak record, one where the metaphor of the “Pink Moon” as a symbol of oncoming death is the shadow of the whole production.
Even not knowing that, this record is noticeably heavier than the other’s two varying tinges of folk-pop. It’s a short album, under thirty minutes, but anymore would probably feel too much. Barring that one piano line, it is the constantly intimate stylings of one man and the guitar which he had mastered more than any folk artist I’ve ever heard. And to top it off there is more reference to the death on here than any of his brighter and more lavish works.
HOWEVER, if one was to pay attention to simply that, one would neglect what a stunning work of beauty this album is. The guitars on so many of these songs are bright and vibrant, and Nick Drake’s vocal are never overtly sad or angry. The wistfulness of his tone comes to play here more than ever before; it’s as though he is speaking as nature itself, as something not of this earth, as a being for whom the cryptic words are full of knowledge but maintaining a distance from us mortal humans, so as not to be hurt. Someone omniscient, but not omnipotent.
I have to say before going into this that I described this as being either the easiest Record Club post I’ve ever written or the hardest. It’s not just the fact that this is one of my favourite albums of all time, but that everytime I have put the record on I have never once thought about it in any kind of academic context. It’s an artefact onto itself, always there. Even the fact that some songs like “Know” sound unfinished or are perhaps meant for another instrument (I have no evidence for this, but was “Horn” originally meant to be for the actual horn instrument?) only adds to the unique and rough qualities of Pink Moon. Also, considering what I tend to talk about in these articles when it comes to production, I don’t know how many times I can write variations “Nick Drake’s sombre voice is breath-taking and the guitar playing is impeccable” before it gets stale. I also noticed, as writing, that my favourite lines from a given Nick Drake song was, many times, basically the whole song (which is again more evidence of lines that put extra emphasis on mood, like another instrument). But let’s move on and give it ago, shall we?
Pink Moon opens with the title track, and is set there to cast its glow on everything that comes after it. Not just because of the aforementioned metaphor that comes with the image, but that gorgeous piano medley which ingratiates itself to both old and new listeners before casting them into the sparse, open landscape of the remaining twenty five minutes. The contrast between the beauty that the image of a Pink Moon conjures, and the implications of it when you know of its symbolic weight, also displays the contrast between the vivid exterior and the underlying darkness that does permeate pretty much the whole album. By the end of the album, it is going to get you.
Or, with “Place to Be,” maybe we are already there. At the very least this song adds to the idea of being both vulnerable man and the very essence of nature. He describes himself as both a nostalgic old man and like the green of hill, but with that comes the idea of the darkness of the sea. This is quintessential Romantic poetry, the descriptions of landscape being more in the line of Blake than Whitman, where the seemingly simple lines take on a more metaphorical and metaphysical line of thought the more you look at them.
“Pink Moon”: “Saw it written and I saw it say Pink moon is on its way/ And none of you stand so tall/Pink moon gonna get ye all/ And it’s a pink moon”
“Place To Be”: “When I was young, younger than before/ I never saw the truth hanging from the door/ And now I’m older see it face to face/ And now I’m older gotta get up, clean the place
Until the latter half of this record, there is nothing on Pink Moon that ties it to some kind of urban location. “Road” seems to be something that leans to the urban, but it instead turns into one of the first truly enigmatic passages in this album. Is this song a reference to death? Isolation? Seeing another path to great knowledge? Embracing the unknown, even beyond nature itself? Whatever way you take, all would note the incredible playing guitar on this track in particular, subtle yet energetic, always rolling along on what seems to be this hypothetical road.
We then move on to what is probably my favourite Nick Drake song of all time, “Which Will”. This was once a variety show standard for myself, and it is when you attempt to play the complex tuning, the frenetic fingers that still keep a gentleness, that you realise just how much of an anomaly Nick Drake was. And when covering one of his most ambiguous songs, I thought of it as both a song about rejection – either from another person or society – and both one of some kind of cosmic inevitability of our actions (especially with references to the stars and which of them you shall call to). But when thinking about it in the context of the album, it’s odd that the narrator talks about obeying the stars when in “Road” they intentionally moved away from them. You could say it was a contradiction. I’d say it is more evidence of the ethereal
“Road”: “You can say the sun is shining if you really want to/ I can see the moon and it seems so clear/ You can take the road that takes you/to the stars now/ I can take a road that’ll see me through”
“Which Will”: “Which do you dance for/ Which makes you shine/ Which will you choose now/ If you won’t choose mine”
The only instrumental on Pink Moon is interesting in how not complicated it is compared to the songs. A piece of long, hard plucked string notes that ring into the ether, the “Horn” implies the same sense of piercing that the playing supplies. It might just be two strings, but it carries with it, and its context in the album, a kind of minimalist depth.
After that comes “Things Behind the Sun,” whose context in this album means it is the longest song at an earth shattering…four minutes. Like “Pink Moon” and “Place to Be,” the title and song content invoke a darkness behind the natural (as though you could possibly be, like, behind the sun). This isn’t some Herzogian call of nature’s evil or indifference though, in fact Nick Drake welcomes it for its virtues (see quote). But there still this ever sense that, like the narrator sent into the rain, something is coming, and we unable to prepare ourselves.
“Things Behind the Sun” was a return to the complex compound chords, but in an instant that piece ends up sandwiched between its two simplistic, two string beats. The swinging rhythm of “Know” seems to dictate that at some point it was the basis for a more complex bluesy/jazz song, but then realized it was its own kind of perfect the way it was. “Know” also the least amount of lyrics of any of these songs, and like the minimal nature of its guitar implies so much with so little: Love, indifference, caring, abandonment, isolation, all powerful, powerless. This man could be speaking as a man, or, as mentioned before, the world that the Pink Mooneclipses. Either way, the hums that compliments the guitar line with are harrowing in their sparsity.
“Things Behind the Sun”: “Open up the broken cup/ Let goodly sin and sunshine in/ Yes that’s today./ And open wide the hymns you hide/ You find renown while people frown/ At things that you say/ But say what you’ll say/ About the farmers and the fun/ And the things behind the sun”
“Know”: “You know that I love you/ you know I don’t care/ you know that I see you/you know I’m not there”
With “Parasite” we return to some semblance of an city world, and Nick Drake makes sure we don’t want to be there. This is the most overtly dark song on the album, starting with the guitar playing, where even the light notes sound ominous and there seems to more rumbling going on the lower end. As for the lyrics, it’s hard not to read this as some kind of depression allegory, or of ennui for the domestic. And whilst the parasite of the title seems to be one of the oppressive urban lifestyle, it is implied even by the end that it is also in the dirt (or in other people. Or in some larger, cosmic, religious sense with references to Noah) .
That feeling somewhat extends to the descriptions of the descriptions of the household in “Free Ride” that the narrator can see through. This one is much more melancholic than oppressive though, and that is many down to the guitar, with its breakdown and its lively rhythm exemplifying why it was that Nick Drake saw himself as having more in common with jazz than traditional folk music.
“Parasite”: “Falling so far on a silver spoon/ Making the moon for fun/ And changing a rope for a size too small/ People all get hung./ Take a look and see me coming through/ For I am the parasite who travels two by two.”
“Free Ride”: “I know too/ What you do/ When you’re through/ Counting the cattle as they go by the door/ Keeping a carpet that’s so thick on the floor/ But hear me calling/ Won’t you give me/ A free ride.
That idea of the natural world and man as one is solidified in the penultimate song, “Harvest Breed,” where with the title’s combination of plant words and mammal words it becomes so unclear whether Drake is speaking to a human being or a flower. I think I gravitate towards the former, as though one is about fall and become one with the ground. Nick Drake’s voice mirrors that decline, the “falling fast” coming out so static and with a kind of force, yet still reserved, and eventually move into a long response to inevitability.
If one sees “Harvest Breed” like me as a death, as an end, than it entirely possibly to see the elegant finale of “From the Morning” as a kind of rebirth, a continuing circle, and something that is actually “endless”. There is reference to “rising”, and flying which continues with the imagery of the middle point song “Things Behind the Sun”, and the colours that provide the backdrop for that flight sees a world that continues from the morning to the night regardless of whether we are in it. I find that notion both inherently sad and magnificent. And with the way he colours the final scene with his guitar and elegantly soft voice, so seems does Nick Drake.
“Harvest Breed”: “Falling fast and falling free you look to find a friend/ Falling fast and falling free this could just be the end/ Falling fast you stoop to touch and kiss the flowers that bend/ And you’re ready now/ For the harvest breed”
“From the Morning”: “So look see the days/ The endless coloured ways/ And go play the game that you learnt/ From the morning”
Nick Drake with Pink Moon is one of the few who can make the truly hopeless beautiful. Not in a problematic fetishism way. Not in a “spoonful of sugar” way. Not even in an ironic way. In a way that is completely honest, whose music is as honest as his poetry, and honest in a way that embraces the seeming inevitable, and will play moving and evocative music along the way.
Of course, I wish Nick Drake didn’t have to think his end was inevitable. Very much like his fellow Bryter Layter musician John Cale’s band The Velvet Underground, those who did buy a Nick Drake album were fervent to let others hear his music too. And twenty four years after his death, that music would be some of the most respected albums of all time from fans and musicians alike (inspiring so many musicians from folk and baroque pop, from Belle and Sebastian to The Cure). And his profile would find itself at its most resurgence when Nick Drake’s music was used for a Volkswagen car commercial. That song? “Pink Moon.” The album that signified his artistic and commercial end would contain the song that signalled his artistic and commercial rebirth from beyond the grave. Considering the nature of Pink Moon I think he would, in some way, appreciate that.
What did you think of the album, though?
Nick Drake Album Rankings
- Pink Moon
- Five Leaves Left
- Bryter Layter