Editor’s note: Arachnophonia (“Arachno” = spider / “-phonia” = sound) is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
All links included in these posts will take you to either the library catalog record for the item in question or to additional relevant information from around the web.
Today’s installment of Arachnophonia is by student assistant Georgia (class of 2025) and features Nick Drake’s 1972 studio album Pink Moon. Thanks, Georgia!
As a graduating senior, my life feels full of mystery, like I’m entering a threshold into a world of possibilities. But despite all the excitement and anticipation that this should bring, it is impossible not to dwell in the anxiety of uncertainty, as I am also entering a world that is suffering and undergoing extreme changes. Nick Drake’s Pink Moon (1972) is an album that reflects on choices and individual agency through a beautiful arrangement of nature metaphors and thoughtful reflection, and stands out to me as proof that art making and nurturing creativity are our most human tools that connect us all together and to the planet.
“Which Will,” the album’s fourth song, encapsulates feelings of both opportunity and indecision, as he asks
“which will you go for, which will you love,
which will you choose from, from the stars above,
which will you answer, which will you call,
which will you take for, for your one and all?”
This song reminds me of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, when Esther reflects on her life through the metaphor of a fig tree, where she imagines her future and notices her feelings of indecision, and here she states:
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
The environment has much to reveal about our nature as human beings, and can assure us that we are part of a larger, interconnected world. The stars above, the fig tree, our imaginings and choices, are reflected everywhere. We all see the same sky, and wish just to live in peace and without regrets.
Another song that has particularly inspired my reflection on this album is “Things Behind the Sun.” This song speaks deeply to the idea of choosing to live with creativity and earnestness despite external pressures to conform and lose all sense of individuality.
“Open up the broken cup
Let goodly sin and sunshine in
Yes, that’s the day
And open wide the hymns you hide
You find renown while people frown
At thing that you say
But say what you’ll say
About the farmers and the fun
And the things behind the sun
And the people around your head
Who say everything’s been said
And the movement in your brain
Sends you out into the rain.”
Ours is a very scary time for many people, with unconstitutional and unconscionable acts being enacted from those meant to serve us. We are intentionally being overwhelmed into apathy, with unnecessary tragedies and poisonous rhetoric filling the minds and ears of people everywhere. When it feels like we have nothing to do, nothing we can do, we must not stay still. One of many ways we can resist is within our own lives, choosing to nurture our spirits, our creativity, and our individuality, and building communities that encourage the same for others. Despite what many would want you to think, we live a life full of infinite choices, and within those so many opportunities to choose empathy and self-expression. What makes us human is you and me, so why should we be any different?
Tragically, Nick Drake passed away when he was 26, overdosing on his antidepressants in his home in Warwickshire, United Kingdom. In this unfortunately short life he lived, he has filled so many with inspiration and comfort. He would have turned 77 this year.
*I recommend you read or listen to this NPR interview that discusses Drake’s life and career:
https://www.npr.org/2024/11/30/nx-s1-5206525/remembering-singer-nick-drake-50-years-on
