Nick Drake Pink Moon released

Pink Moon Nick Drake

Released: February 25, 1972 Peak: -- Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.1 UK Genre: British folk

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. Pink Moon [2:06] (17 DF) Place to Be [2:43] Road [2:02] Which Will [2:58] Horn (instrumental) [1:23] Things Behind the Sun [3:57] Know [2:26] Parasite [3:36] Free Ride [3:06] Harvest Breed [1:37] From the Morning [2:30] All songs written by Nick Drake. Total Running Time: 28:22

Rating: 4.540 out of 5.00 (average of 25 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

The Final Outing British folk singer/songwriter Nick Drake died in 1974 from an overdose of antidepressants. He was only 26 but had recorded three studio albums – Pink Moon was his last and “the bleakest of them all.” AM “After two albums of tastefully orchestrated folk-pop, albeit some of the least demonstrative and most affecting around,” AM nobody expected a third album. “Nick was crushed by the commercial failure of Bryter Layter and a complete lack of recognition from the general public…He apparently told his mother he’d thought he’d failed in everything.” AD While he was clearly being hard on himself, “making music this beautiful, pouring your heart and soul into it – to see it largely ignored…must have been truly soul-destroying.” AD Going Down in a Haze of Obscurity Pink Moon “is the sound of Nick Drake cracking up. That’s not exactly true – some have long thought that his death by an overdose of an anti-depressant was an accident, and not suicide – but this album…certainly sounds like a fever dream.” AZ “It is not an easy album to live within, for the creator or the listener.” PM “It’s hard not to see his battle with depression within the haunting and desolate structure of Pink Moon.” PM “This isn't at all an easy record… This is a unique record, a work of beauty and another fine testament to the talents of Nick Drake.” AD “The calm, focused anguish of this album [is] as harrowing as it is attractive.” AM “Drake’s elegant melancholia avoiding sounding pretentious in the least thanks to his continued embrace of simple, tender vocalizing.” AM “Meanwhile, the sheer majesty of his guitar playing…makes for a breathless wonder to behold.” AM “If the music were as dark as the lyrics, it might be unlistenable. But Drake’s soothing vocals and unadorned acoustic picking unfold with supernatural tenderness.” 500 The Album’s Impact “Though ignored in his lifetime, Nick Drake has since become one of the best loved singer-songwriters of the 1970s.” TB This album “made Drake the cult figure he remains.” AM “Its stark beauty has touched the intimate bedroom folk of Cat Power, Elliott Smith, and many others” 500 including Mark Eitzel, Lou Barlow, and Robert Smith. AM The Recording Drake’s first two albums “have a distinct melancholy but are brightened by Robert Kirby’s baroque string arrangements and a number of impressive guest musicians.” TB By contrast, Pink Moon is too unadorned.” AD There are no side musicians or outside performers. “Aside from a splash of piano, the only instrumentation on this stark and spooky collection is Drake’s eloquent acoustic guitar.” AZ It was “recorded by regular producer Joe Boyd but otherwise untouched by anyone else.” AM Engineer John Wood “captures Nick’s voice well, even though it appears he wasn’t singing with any great self-confidence. He’s almost mumbling in places” AD but “it becomes part of the overall mystique and appeal of Pink Moon.” AD Peter Buck of R.E.M. once asked Wood how he “achieved the intimacy of the sound on Pink Moon. Wood explained that Drake simply sat down in front of a microphone at Sound Techniques studios and played; any atmosphere created came from the unadorned power of Drake’s guitar and haunting vocals, filled with tremulous emotion.” RD Drake was a fan of blues music, and particularly taken with Robert Johnson, even copying his technique of recording with just his guitar, facing a wall, and no one else in the studio. AD Drake recorded the album during two late-night sessions in October 1971. TB Drake arrived at the studio after midnight both times, sang a few songs, and left. TB Then, according to different accounts, he either apathetically walked into the record company offices and dropped off the master tapes with a secretary RD or “mailed the tapes to Island Records, and checked himself into a psychiatric ward.” 500 ”He famously remarked…that he simply had no more to record.” AM The Songs: Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs. “Pink Moon” The lead-off title track features “a plethora of colorful chords.” RD It is the only song on the album to feature any overdubs. AD It was “used in a Volkswagen commercial nearly 30 years later, giving him another renewed burst of appreciation – one of life’s many ironies, in that such an affecting song, Drake’s softly keened singing and gentle strumming, could turn up in such a strange context.” AM “Place to Be” “The pastoral elements of Place to Be recall the nature imagery common in Drake’s work.” RD It features “a beautiful vocal, reaching deep. The lyrics contain less of the imagery present on Five Leaves Left…but still are rooted in nature and emotion. It’s a lovely song.” AD “Road” “Road has some of the most enjoyable guitar playing on the album, hypnotic and beautiful. Nick’s voice comes in, quiet and deep, lost in a world of its own. The guitar is crystal clear and the contrast between the guitar playing and the vocals is striking and very effective.” AD “Which Will” “Which Will contains one of albums happiest guitar melodies, almost back to the kind of sound heard on Five Leaves Left only without all the overdubs and orchestra parts…But these songs are the pure essence of Nick Drake.” AD “Horn” “Horn is sometimes described as filler. It’s an instrumental, just over a minute long. It’s very hard to explain or write about the sound of someone’s inner turmoil, however brilliantly and effectively it’s being expressed. A simple guitar figure, long sustained notes going off into the ground, before a new section comes in – a repetition re-iterating the message of the song. It’s a plea for help without any words…It is utterly haunting and possessing a strange kind of beauty.” AD “Things Behind the Sun” Things Behind the Sun is “even more striking. It sounds full thanks to Nicks guitar playing. The lyrics are back to the symbolic, poetic nature of Five Leaves Left and indeed, this song dates from that era, it’s a song Nick had been working on for a while, playing the guitar pattern to himself over and over. It’s a brilliant song.” AD “Know” Know “is typical of the stark pure beauty of Pink Moon.” AD “A bare, repeating guitar figure. Nick starts humming the melody of the lyric. It's a two and a half minute song. He doesn't start singing until it’s half-way over. When he does though…it’s effective, to say the least.” AD “Parasite” “The baroque elements of Drake’s melodies, intricate guitar plucking, and open tuning create descending chimes on Parasite.” RD The song features “beautiful guitar playing” AD and “deep affecting vocals. The lyrical matter here comes across as bitter – reflects Nick’s state of mind…That it’s still utterly beautiful, through the poetic nature of the lyrics and vocal work, says something…about how developed Nick’s talent was.” AD “Free Ride” Critic Adrian Denning says this song, “is completely impossible to describe. I don’t know what’s going on in the song, guitar wise, lyrically…how do you translate such material as this?” AD It “features breathtakingly swift chord changes.” RD “From the Morning” The song “ends things on a rare note of optimism.” RD It “was a favourite of Nick’s parents…It’s a song full of springtime and beautiful air. Wonderful lyrics, vocals and playing – and it does sound happy.” AD “All the sadder, then, that one of its lines – ‘and now we rise, and we are everywhere’ – was to be inscribed on the gravestone of this enormously talented musician.” RD Notes Drake’s three studio albums (Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter, and Pink Moon) and a posthumous archival collection (Made to Love Magic) were gathered together on the box set Fruit Tree.

Resources and Related Links: AM AllMusic.com review by Ned Raggett AZ Amazon.com review by John Milward AD Adrian Denning (3/30/2007). “Adrian’s Top 100 Albums, So Far” RD Robert Dimery (2006). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Quintet Publishing Limited: New York, NY. Page 274. PM PasteMagazine.com (6/3/2024). “The 300 Greatest Albums of All Time” 500 Rolling Stone (2020). 500 Greatest Albums of All Time TB Thunder Bay (2005). Albums: The Stories Behind 50 Years of Great Recordings. Thunder Bay Press; San Diego, CA. Page 148. Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 6/19/2011; last updated 10/14/2026.