The deceptively cheery opening of the title track lulls the listener into a pastoral country scene (extended in the famous Volkswagen commercial). His moon is foreboding, hinting at certain doom; whatever it is, all he tells us is that it’s “gonna get ye all”. Something’s about to go wrong, and it’s not going to be pleasant. “Place To Be” has a pretty swingset opening, suggesting a wistful longing for the simplicity and carefree, lazy days of childhood, where he was shielded from the “truth hanging from the door”. What starts out as a reverie of youth is transformed after the variation in the interlude into either pining for an estranged lover (if you’re a romantic) or the pit of addiction (if you’re not). An excellent illustration of his genius simplicity, “Road” is a repetitive guitar piece with an equally repetitive vocal. He asserts that he knows the sun isn’t shining, so don’t try to tell him otherwise. His glass is half-empty. Easily one of his best, “Which Will” is an example of a list that works. It’s quite a heartbreaking portrait of the jilted lover asking simply where his beloved will go, do, and choose now that her life doesn’t revolve around him. By the end the questions become firm, almost scornful; less a query and more of a challenge. As instrumentals go, “Horn” is brief, simple again, and highly effective. The melody seems so familiar, almost a fanfare had it been played on an actual horn instead of two strings on the guitar. As an interlude, it distracts us from what’s next, another minor-key worrisome admission. “Things Behind The Sun” starts ambiguously with a suspended 2nd chord, the type that could go into a major key, but here chooses the minor instead. A rarity for Nick, it’s in standard tuning, albeit capoed, yet he still finds unusual fingerings and voicings within the structure. Typical of his work, the words carry a lot of alliteration and assonance. The mood alternates between reassurance and caution, telling himself to guard against change but stay open for beauty, to cover weakness and show strength despite what others say. “The movement in your brain sends you out into the rain” suggests the possibility of exploring the outside world to escape the downward spiral of isolation, but it also hints of teetering on an insanity so potentially dangerous to others that he’s best locked away.
Things aren’t much sunnier on the second side. “Know” on paper is as black as it gets here. A shuffling boogie beat under four pissed-off lines framed by the wordless “ooh”s at both ends, this is the closest he gets to blues, and it’s more Delta than Chicago. The hypnotic “Parasite” has a very common chord sequence with voicings that pull it above mere reiteration. The city he documented on Bryter Layter has left him beaten and feeling truly in the way, not insignificant enough to just be ignored, but swatted aside, yet he feels no empathy for people hanging themselves with “rope too short” or dealing with their own day-to-day problems. “Ride” has an almost rocking quality that could easily accommodate a ticking high-hat and snare with “Taxman” bass in an arrangement. Whatever was bothering him wasn’t keeping him from playing at a fluid pace; listen to those fingers go! The beginnings of the vocals have long held notes echoing those in “Know”, and then mimic the guitar parts perfectly with meaningful lyrics to match. (It’s also an interesting juxtaposition on the side: the “Parasite” is asking for a “Free Ride”.) “Harvest Breed” is similar to “Road” and “Horn”, existing just long enough to create a transition. Whatever the harvest breed is, it conjures up images of autumn, and end of the years when living things are cut down or dying, “falling fast and falling free”. “From The Morning” is just as beautiful in its own way as “Northern Sky”, and ends the album on the same glimpse of hope. He looks at the entire day and finds beauty in every moment, in every aspect of every light and shadow, providing a soothing finale to an unsettling record. (Nick’s tombstone even includes words from this song as his epitaph: “And now we rise, and we are everywhere.”)
The story behind Pink Moon is that he recorded it, quickly, and dropped it off at the label office for them to press and release, which they did, happily. At just over 28 minutes it still manages to hold one’s interest, and its economy would be something more “artists” should emulate. (The cover art is just as unsettling as some of the music, with an impressionistic painting that attempted to illustrate some of the song titles on the front and back, the gatefold featuring a photo negative from a commissioned session held at the time. Personally, we’re more enchanted by a now-famous snap from that session of Nick walking alongside a friendly dog.)
Nick Drake Pink Moon (1972)—4½
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