Pink Moon (1972) Nick Drake

Written by Meenakshi Nirmalan

I came across Nick Drake around a month before I sat my A-Levels. I saw a couple of his songs on a playlist and decided to listen to them. I hadn’t heard of the artist, nor had I heard of the album Pink Moon. I didn’t know what to expect in terms of sound, genre or style, but was not disappointed in the slightest. Everything about him, from his voice to his general vibe, felt unassuming and soft. The first Nick Drake song I listened to - titular track Pink Moon - has an immediately striking ambiguity. The music sounds hopeful, but the lyrics say otherwise. Drake sings: ‘I saw it written and saw it say / Pink Moon is on its way,’ anticipating a pink moon, something elusive and mystical. Yet the next line - ‘Pink Moon gonna get you all’ - feels deeply sinister. It’s so simple, but almost prophetic; half warning, half comforting. I was captivated by its sound. The album reflects the folky zeitgeist of its release in 1972, while also being a fountainhead of inspiration for today’s music. Moreover, Pink Moon is pretty short, adding up to just under 30 minutes of material, and many of the tracks on the album have a similar sound. It works well though: Pink Moon is compact whilst still feeling substantial.

Nick Drake received little recognition during his lifetime. Only posthumously did his work garner the attention it deserved. He didn’t make much money from music and struggled both financially and psychologically. He died young, and like many artists who suffered the same fate, he is mythologised whilst being fundamentally misunderstood. Despite his newfound recognition, Pink Moon still feels intimate. There’s something aloof and incomprehensible about his music, captured by Michael Trevithik’s Surrealist album cover. It’s fun and playful, posing various mundane objects against the backdrop of a moon. We see a teacup, a leaf, and a tooth with a clown face, giving the album a whimsical and mellow feel while eluding interpretation. The middle is illuminated by a fading sun, but the bottom is obscured by darkness. Just like his music, there’s something more ominous underneath the tranquil surface.

The title track features piano, but other than that the album relies on guitar and vocals. For a long time, I had an aversion to acoustic sounding albums. I still often get bored, to an extent, because it can be hard to be innovative whilst sticking to such a confined sonic palette. Of course there are exceptions. Acoustic guitar can be one of the most beautiful instruments, when played well. Take the pieces of Francisco Tárrega for instance: they are stunning. Pink Moon is another such exception for me. The lyrics throughout Pink Moon are bleak, on the whole, however I enjoy that the guitar isn’t necessarily so. It’s texturally layered, providing a nice contrast. The album both adheres to and breaks away from the conventions of verse/chorus/verse, depending on the track, creating variation for the listener. Pink Moon is, of course, not a perfect album. I enjoy the first half of the album more than the later tracks. Know is grating. The ostinato annoys me; I don’t like Drake’s vocals on this track, nor do I like the humming. I like the idea of experimenting with the lengths of phrases sung, however it doesn’t deliver for me. Nonetheless, the album derives much of its charm from these imperfections.

Nick Drake was in his twenties when he wrote the majority of Pink Moon. In spite of this, he sings as if he is haunted by the profound regrets of an old man. It’s hard to pin down his age purely from the sound of his voice; there’s a timelessness to his presence throughout the album. Place to Be epitomises this idea. The song starts with the gentle strum of a guitar and then, soft vocals: ‘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 to face / And now I’m older, gotta get up, clean the place.’ Still, his youth does not make his lyrics seem disingenuous; they exude authenticity. On the other hand, Drake does not sustain this tone throughout Pink Moon. Which Will is filled with unanswered questions: ‘Which do you dance for / Which makes you shine / Which will you choose now / If you won’t choose mine.’ This imploring tone underlines the uncertainty of youth. Everything feels tenuous and impermanent. Similarly, Road tinged with desperation. ‘You can take a road that takes you to the stars now / I can take a road that’ll see me through’ establishes a stark division between the speaker and the addressee. The track feels simultaneously emotionally charged and aloof, marked by the volatility of youth.

My favourite track from the album is undoubtedly Things Behind The Sun. The acoustic guitar is beautiful. The soundscape is fairly busy but not overcrowded. Although the guitar is repetitive throughout the album, it feels purposefully so, helping to centre and ground the vocals. Drake’s voice has a languor as he sings: ‘Please beware of them that stare / They’ll only smile to see you while your time away.’ I love the internal rhymes in the lyrics, along with the track’s moody, brooding sound. The track grows increasingly cryptic towards its close: ‘But say what you’ll say / About the farmers and the fun / And the things behind the sun / And the people round your head / Who say everything’s been said.’ We don’t always know what Nick Drake is singing about, only that it feels important. Like Place to Be, the song has a didactic feel. The last two lines ‘And the movement in your brain / Sends you out into the rain’ seem to alter the meaning of the entire song. All these rules, all the ‘movement in your brain’ ultimately will drive you into the ground. Follow advice from others but only to the extent you wish to; it won’t matter in the end. The track is a long stream of warnings, of consolations, of personal frustrations. The musings of a man who experienced a lot in a short life, yet still had so much unrealised potential.