Nick Drake’s Real ‘Pink Moon’ Arrives In The Sky Tonight

“I saw it written and I saw it say, pink moon is on its way,” sings British folk singer-songwriter Nick Drake on the title track of his third and final studio album Pink Moon.

While the song (and album) were released 48 years ago, ‘Pink Moon’ continues to be Drake’s most enduring hit, appearing in countless commercials, films and TV shows.

Now Drake’s prediction of a pink moon is coming to pass, with April’s pink supermoon set to appear in the night sky tonight on Tuesday, 7 April. The full moon occurs precisely at 10:35 pm EST, according to EarthSky.

If you’ve been stargazing as part of your at-home activities since the pandemic began, prepare to see the biggest and brightest supermoon of the year on Tuesday night. https://t.co/hRKJkp8cme

— CNN (@CNN) April 7, 2020

Of the three supermoons this year, April’s supermoon will come closest to Earth, appearing the largest, following March 9’s super worm moon and preceding May’s super flower moon, due to take place on 7 May, reports Newsweek.

“Watch for the biggest full moon of the year to shine all night long as it beams in the east after sunset 7 April, climbs highest up for the night around midnight, and sets in the west around sunrise 8 April,” EarthSky’s Bruce McClure said.

‘Pink Moon’ is an outlier on Drake’s 1972 album as well. With its gentle acoustic strumming and Drake’s breathy vocals, ‘Pink Moon’ is a bright spot of hopefulness, among an album that’s more sombre and starker in tone.

With his reluctance to play many promotional concerts, Drake has largely remained an unsung, cult figure, whose admirers include R.E.M. and Elton John, among others.

Over the past four decades critics have sung his praises but it took a Volkswagen advertisement in 1999 to revitalise his catalogue.

“Sales of Drake’s album increased nearly 500 percent during the first ten weeks of 2000, when Drake shifted more than 4700 copies of Pink Moon, compared to 815 in the same period in 1999,” citied author Amanda Petrusich in her 33 ⅓ book about Drake’s album Pink Moon.

“With album sales further bolstered by the addition of tiny ‘AS FEATURED IN THE VW AD’ stickers to the front of CDs, annual sales (as reported by The New York Times in 2001) jumped from about 6,000 copies a year to over 74,000.”

With the arrival of this evening’s pink moon, hopefully the late singer-songwriter will shine in the spotlight again.

Listen to Pink Moon on Apple Music and Spotify.

Format: UK English