What is a ‘Pink Moon’ in the Nick Drake song?
Every artist has certain creative licenses when it comes to their songs. Although a tune might mean something to millions of fans worldwide, the only person who truly knows what every single line means is the person who wrote the thing down in the first place. Nick Drake always catered to the darker side of that lifestyle, though, and nowhere did his outlook get any bleaker than on Pink Moon.
While the album has become known as an impressive work by most folk-rock connoisseurs worldwide, Drake was still struggling to find his audience. He knew what he was doing had merit behind it, but he didn’t have the resources or mental stability to capitalise on them half the time, leading to many albums that seemed to sink without a trace on the charts compared to his contemporaries.
Even though Five Leaves Left was a brilliant fixture of the folk-rock movement, the fact that Pink Moon sounds the way it does is practically a miracle. Drake seemed to become completely detached by the time he was working on his third release, after which he tried to get help for his mental issues before dying by his own hand a few months later.
Although the album is considered a dark masterpiece, the image of a pink moon has been a bit of a mystery in the context of the song. Despite following in the grand tradition of folk acts making comparisons to nature, there might have been some darker connotations behind what Drake was getting at when writing the title tune.
So, what is a ‘Pink Moon’?
From day one, Drake was already fascinated with the more rustic side of songwriting. Every one of his albums seemed to capture that warm feeling that comes with finding refuge in the wintertime, and when looking at how he constructed the song ‘Pink Moon’, there was more to his lyrics than the phenomenon of the moon changing colours.
When looking at the word’s origins, the pink moon is normally a strange hue with a history in agriculture. When farmers are checking how the weather is going to look for the harvest season, they normally pay attention to whether the moon has a pinkish hue to it, which them dictates how they are going to look at their crops. Since the phenomenon also has to do with the shadowy side of life, though, Drake may have inadvertently tried to send his fans a message.
According to his sister, part of Drake’s downward emotional spiral started happening in April, which is normally when the pink moon shows itself. So when he sings about the pink moon being on its way, he could also be talking about that darkness washing over him as he enters the final period of his life.
Then again, it’s a great irony that Drake used something to symbolise all of the pain that he was going through and somehow make it sound so beautiful for the rest of us. The pink moon may have been slowly rising in the background for him, but to every listener, all they saw was the pure afterglow.
