Overlooked Classics: Nick Drake- Pink Moon

Everyone seems to like the other two Nick Drake studio albums- Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter– but as much as I like them, for me it’s all about the quiet, sad, low-key gem from 1972, Pink Moon.

Drake’s music, for me, reveals the kind of torpor of country life. It’s a paradox, a sense of feeling comfort: but also of longing for more. The Portuguese have a term for this: “saudade”. Roughly translated, it’s a profound longing for something you don’t have, an emotional jigsaw piece that’s missing. I think this album, his last, encapsulates this beautifully.

Nick Drake, with his soft purr of a voice and delicate guitar picking, suffered from depression all of his brief time here. His lyrics often alluded to this, full of ominous portents and dark symbolism. The title track seems to suggest mortality: “Pink Moon gonna get ye all”. In essence, he’s saying, don’t get too cocky, human. You’re wormfood.

But where tracks like the aforementioned and ‘Parasite’ are doomy, ‘From The Morning’, the closing track, offers a little sun. It’s not dazzling, more a tentative spring morning sun. It’s all very beautiful, and brief at just under half an hour. But it does rather feel like a full stop, which seems sadly apposite to Drake and his too short life.