The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #142183   Message #3279383
Posted By: GUEST,matt milton
24-Dec-11 - 12:30 PM
Thread Name: advice sought from Nick Drake nerd
Subject: RE: advice sought from Nick Drake nerd
I think Pip is being a bit festively Scrooge-like.

"Bryter Latte" is indeed a terrible pun, but I personally think terrible puns are the best kind!

I don't interpret Pink Moon the way you do Phil:

I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on it's way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get you all
It's a pink moon
Hey, it's a pink moon
It's a pink, pink, pink, pink, pink moon.
It's a pink, pink, pink, pink, pink moon.

I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on it's way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get you all
It's a pink moon
Yeah, it's a pink moon

I always think of it as an "I'm doomed" song, like "Black Dog". Or, at a pinch, a "we're doomed" song. Never occurred to me to take the "you"s literally. ("You" is anyway often used to mean "us" ["one"], as in "you do this", "you do that".] He certainly doesn't sing it with any kind of spite or satisfaction: he sings it in that gentle, world-weary, 'I've been up all night', 'I'm totally defeated' voice that is his default.

And anyway, the words say "I saw it written ... none of you stand so tall", so it's reporting something, not making a threat.

That said, I don't think the lyrics bear much scrutiny. Usual mix of non-specific New Testament-ish imagery and slightly blues-ish imagery. As an apocalyptic symbol, a "pink moon" is a fairly pallid, atrophied one (ie it's hardly a "blood red sun" or whatever...) But maybe that's appropriate, given Drake's lackadaisical personality and otherworldliness.