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Pink Moon, A Story About Nick Drake
Originally written in Danish in 1980, Pink Moon was the first biography of Nick Drake, and remains the only one to include exclusive interviews with the singer's parents, Rodney and Molly Drake. In this new, significantly updated edition, available in English for the first time, author and poet Gorm Henrik Rasmussen reveals more from his visits to the Drakes in their home Far Leys - the first, just five years after the death of their troubled son.
Rasmussen includes new interviews with Nick's friends and collaborators plus extracts taken from his eight-year correspondence with the Drakes, and from telephone conversations he had with Rodney every month over four years.
Full of intimate detail about the last three years of Nick's life spent at his childhood home, Pink Moon - A Story about Nick Drake is a personal, original, and moving retelling of the life, death, and posthumous rise of a poet and guitarist who was strangely unsuited for his own time, and is more popular now than he ever was in life.
Gorm Henrik Rasmussen (b. 1955) is a poet living in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has published novels, short stories, poems, and works of non-fiction. His subjects include eccentrics and strange places of the northern part of Jutland, where he was born and raised. He has received several literary awards from The Danish Arts Foundation and The Danish Arts Council.
Reviews:
"...constructs the story of Drake’s life with insights from those who knew him best... Rasmussen writes elegantly about the music, while his detailed account of the last years of Drake’s life are sensitively handled. By the end of this book, Rasmussen has breathed new life into his subject and his music."
Mark Blake, Mojo magazine
"A story in which straight biographical bits are interwoven with skillfully composed, extrapolated scenes ... fans will find it a great companion book to Drake’s music, and rock lovers will enjoy the author’s serious, personal attempt to get intimate with his icon."
Douglas Lord, Library Journal
'Gorm tells the story with great understanding of Nick and his art. He must be credited with writing the first book about Nick, and possibly the best one too. Like Nick's own works, it was unappreciated for many years.. now that its truth and magic are revealed, it deserves to find a much wider audience and will undoubtedly bring satisfaction to all those who wish to know the real Nick Drake a little better.'
Jason Creed, Pynk Moon fanzine
Rasmussen includes new interviews with Nick's friends and collaborators plus extracts taken from his eight-year correspondence with the Drakes, and from telephone conversations he had with Rodney every month over four years.
Full of intimate detail about the last three years of Nick's life spent at his childhood home, Pink Moon - A Story about Nick Drake is a personal, original, and moving retelling of the life, death, and posthumous rise of a poet and guitarist who was strangely unsuited for his own time, and is more popular now than he ever was in life.
Gorm Henrik Rasmussen (b. 1955) is a poet living in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has published novels, short stories, poems, and works of non-fiction. His subjects include eccentrics and strange places of the northern part of Jutland, where he was born and raised. He has received several literary awards from The Danish Arts Foundation and The Danish Arts Council.
Reviews:
"...constructs the story of Drake’s life with insights from those who knew him best... Rasmussen writes elegantly about the music, while his detailed account of the last years of Drake’s life are sensitively handled. By the end of this book, Rasmussen has breathed new life into his subject and his music."
Mark Blake, Mojo magazine
"A story in which straight biographical bits are interwoven with skillfully composed, extrapolated scenes ... fans will find it a great companion book to Drake’s music, and rock lovers will enjoy the author’s serious, personal attempt to get intimate with his icon."
Douglas Lord, Library Journal
'Gorm tells the story with great understanding of Nick and his art. He must be credited with writing the first book about Nick, and possibly the best one too. Like Nick's own works, it was unappreciated for many years.. now that its truth and magic are revealed, it deserves to find a much wider audience and will undoubtedly bring satisfaction to all those who wish to know the real Nick Drake a little better.'
Jason Creed, Pynk Moon fanzine
178 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1986
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137 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
December 3, 2012
I'd like to thank Pat Thomas for letting me know about this gem of a book. This is the first English translation of Gorm's legendary biography of Nick Drake that came out in Denmark in 1986 having been written in 1980. Which in terms of Nick Drakes slow building career is really early only 6 years after his death.
What Gorm did was to go and interview Nicks parents and anyone else he could find to talk about Nick to paint a picture of this most beguiling and incredible artist who as everyone now knows was brilliant but mostly overlooked when he was around. The book has some terrific detail and a good explanaition of how Nick tuned his guitars to create his magic.
This book is essential reading for any fans of Nick Drake or English folk rock scene.
What Gorm did was to go and interview Nicks parents and anyone else he could find to talk about Nick to paint a picture of this most beguiling and incredible artist who as everyone now knows was brilliant but mostly overlooked when he was around. The book has some terrific detail and a good explanaition of how Nick tuned his guitars to create his magic.
This book is essential reading for any fans of Nick Drake or English folk rock scene.
June 4, 2012
Finished this book a few days ago. I found it to be just what I'd read in other reviews- the most accurate biography of Nick Drake. Interviews with his parents, friends and producers seem to be the best way to get the real scoop. I don't know why other biographers failed to do this(?)
I've come to know Nick Drake's music just recently. His songs are haunting and yet calming too. This book is, according to reviews I've seen, the most accurate biography of Drake's life. It was originally written in Danish, I think, then translated to English. Very interesting story of an English musical genius, who, like so many others, died tragically at a young age.
So far, I'm liking this book.
I've come to know Nick Drake's music just recently. His songs are haunting and yet calming too. This book is, according to reviews I've seen, the most accurate biography of Drake's life. It was originally written in Danish, I think, then translated to English. Very interesting story of an English musical genius, who, like so many others, died tragically at a young age.
So far, I'm liking this book.
November 9, 2020
poetry within poetry.
July 12, 2025
this is about nick drake as much as it is about the people who listen to him
September 8, 2018
A beautiful biography of a beautiful creature who lived outside his own time and was ignored when he needed most to not be.
It is with a mixture of disgust with how the world is flippant, fake and cowardly in its artistic tastes and adorations, that I finished this book, yet the fact that Nick Drake’s music became so popular later on, shows that perhaps it is true an artist can genuinely create outside of the capacity and understanding of their contemporary culture. It’s a terrifying, hollow reality, that in the end is indirectly addressed in this book.
All that bleakness expressed, the book does a beautiful job of eulogizing a quiet character who lived meekly and faded from the edges of his life, became invisible, wilted and disappeared before getting the opportunity to live out his potential.
It is with a mixture of disgust with how the world is flippant, fake and cowardly in its artistic tastes and adorations, that I finished this book, yet the fact that Nick Drake’s music became so popular later on, shows that perhaps it is true an artist can genuinely create outside of the capacity and understanding of their contemporary culture. It’s a terrifying, hollow reality, that in the end is indirectly addressed in this book.
All that bleakness expressed, the book does a beautiful job of eulogizing a quiet character who lived meekly and faded from the edges of his life, became invisible, wilted and disappeared before getting the opportunity to live out his potential.
July 8, 2023
Un acercamiento a la figura de Nick Drake la cual es tan hermética. Sinceramente, se me hizo dura en algunos pasajes, cuando hablaba con los padres, pero sin duda un libro que merece la pena leer. Yo lo leí en la editorial Contra.
October 23, 2017
wonderful insight, thoughtful and enlightening - will read again
June 12, 2020
This book was kind of hard for me to track down, and when it arrived I was immediately bummed out by how short it is. But I guess when you’re writing about a notorious introvert who lived a pretty uneventful life and was basically unknown in his own lifetime, how much is there to say? One of the better musician bios I’ve read.
December 21, 2023
Más que una biografía es una fabulación sobre Nick Drake.
April 15, 2024
Like watching a private concert from afar on a gray day in late autumn
February 23, 2017
the best i could come up with: a short, lyrical biography of someone who only made it to 26.
August 13, 2013
This book is a treasure for Nick Drake fans because it offers something none of the other books do--Rasmussen had the rare opportunity to become friends with Nick's parents while they were alive, and provides good descriptions of meeting with them and discussing Nick. This fact is all the more important for a book on Nick because virtually no one really knew about Nick's music it seems until the mid-nineties--and especially after the VW commercial in the early aughts. The fact that Rasmussen made a pilgrimage to Nick's house and interviewed his parents in the late seventies is extremely important in chronicling Nick. That fact alone makes this book crucial for fans of Nick and his music.
But there's more about the book that makes it appealing. Pink Moon was published in Danish thirty years ago, and was only translated into English recently. As such, even the book has the feel of a relatively dusty old biography, but it's interspersed with more observations and interviews the author made in only the last few years. Also, given that the author is a poet by trade, the book is written in a poetic style. The printing and the feel of the pages are beautiful, and its overall melancholy echoes the melancholy of Nick's music. Of all the books I've read about Nick, this is the only one that I feel matches the tone of the man and the music it explores.
Pink Moon is a reverent tribute to Nick and his music. It teaches the reader about him but doesn't try to necessarily demystify him--and this is one of its strengths, given that Nick seems to have wanted the myth he created during his lifetime.
One poignant part of the book describes a trip that Nick took as a young man with a few friends to Morocco. A man who made Nick's acquaintance on the trip writes his memories as a contribution to the book. In so doing, he makes an admission that though he wasn't necessarily drawn into Nick's personality or charisma while they were in Africa, that once he got back home, he realized that he missed Nick's company. In this sad, sweet, same way, the book makes the reader share those feelings. It makes you miss Nick and, while it doesn't dwell on the tragedy of the narrative, it makes you yearn for Nick's tangible presence here on this earth.
But there's more about the book that makes it appealing. Pink Moon was published in Danish thirty years ago, and was only translated into English recently. As such, even the book has the feel of a relatively dusty old biography, but it's interspersed with more observations and interviews the author made in only the last few years. Also, given that the author is a poet by trade, the book is written in a poetic style. The printing and the feel of the pages are beautiful, and its overall melancholy echoes the melancholy of Nick's music. Of all the books I've read about Nick, this is the only one that I feel matches the tone of the man and the music it explores.
Pink Moon is a reverent tribute to Nick and his music. It teaches the reader about him but doesn't try to necessarily demystify him--and this is one of its strengths, given that Nick seems to have wanted the myth he created during his lifetime.
One poignant part of the book describes a trip that Nick took as a young man with a few friends to Morocco. A man who made Nick's acquaintance on the trip writes his memories as a contribution to the book. In so doing, he makes an admission that though he wasn't necessarily drawn into Nick's personality or charisma while they were in Africa, that once he got back home, he realized that he missed Nick's company. In this sad, sweet, same way, the book makes the reader share those feelings. It makes you miss Nick and, while it doesn't dwell on the tragedy of the narrative, it makes you yearn for Nick's tangible presence here on this earth.
August 3, 2012
This beautifully crafted, well written biography on Nick Drake was written by Danish author Gorm Henrik Rasmussen. I was thoroughly pleased with this book particularly because it had a very intimate feel to it. Rasmussen was some how able to not just interview Nick's loving parents Molly & Rodney Drake, but he built lasting relationships with them as well. I've read a couple of bios on Nick, some in which I couldn't get all the way through due to their dry quality, but "Pink Moon: A Story about Nick Drake" had a sense of prose and feeling to it that stands out. Published in 1986 in Danish, the book was translated in 2007. If you are curious about Nick's life, I highly recommend this read!
June 24, 2013
A little too much in the nature of hero-worship for my liking, but a very interesting insight into the life of Nick Drake. Particularly effective in the use of interviews.
April 13, 2013
Interesting perspective on a young musicians brilliance that was crippled by depression.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews