What is it about the moon that so entices songwriters? Well, besides the fact that it’s pretty easy to find words that rhyme with it. In any case, that big old celestial body has certainly inspired some pretty remarkable tunes.
Videos by American Songwriter
You could make a very impressive playlist of songs with the word “moon” in their titles. Start with these four, and you can’t lose.
“Marquee Moon” by Television
After an intense, taut instrumental opening, Tom Verlaine barks out the unforgettable opening line: “I remember how the darkness doubled.” And that merely sets the tone for this, perhaps the finest distillation of the magic created by this one-of-a-kind quartet. Billy Ficca keeps revving things into gear with his drum breaks, while bassist Fred Smith rumbles along underneath it all. They’re the foundation, allowing guitarists Verlaine and Richard Lloyd to unleash all manner of pyrotechnics. “Marquee Moon” rolls along for just shy of ten minutes, and yet you’re extremely bummed when it finally crashes to its conclusion. Living somewhere between prog and punk, it’s a stellar achievement by any measure.
“The Killing Moon” by Echo & The Bunnymen
Echo & The Bunnymen enjoyed a ton of commercial success in Great Britain but stayed more of a cult act in America. They consistently conjured up a kind of dark majesty that made them unique among their British New Wave peers. And, with “The Killing Moon”, they came through with a signature song that sounds fresh and thrilling no matter how many times you cue it up. Ian McCulloch, the band’s lead singer, had the bulk of the lyrics come to him while in bed one night. He caresses those words for all they’re worth, making them sound alternately seductive and scary as he toggles between octaves. In the song, “The killing moon/Will come too soon.” If you ask us, this moon-besotted song can’t appear soon or often enough.
“The Whole Of The Moon” by The Waterboys
The Waterboys, a trio at the time this song was recorded, were all about “Big Music” a kind of updated version of the Wall of Sound in which the density of instrumental elements is combined with heightened emotional content. Mike Scott, the Scot at the heart of this band, wrote the song. Over the years, he has mostly played coy about who inspired the lyric’s heartfelt praise. It’s most likely a composite of the kind of visionary who comes from out of nowhere and creates something unique and special. The narrator doesn’t see himself in that same vein. “I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon,” he explains. Scott and company were selling themselves short, because they birthed something rare and eternal with this track.
“Surface Of The Moon” by Del Amitri
What is it about these Scottish bands and songs about the moon? Del Amitri also hails from The Auld Country, as it’s sometimes called. Their song “Surface Of The Moon” appears on their excellent 1992 album Change Everything. Like most of the band’s output, it comes from lead singer and songwriter Justin Currie. While the other songs on this list generally see poetry and wonder in the moon, Currie here references its cold, isolated nature. All the better to explain how his narrator feels now that the love of his life has departed. As he walks through streets that once seemed so familiar to him, he’s stunned by how strange it all looks: “And without her, it might as well be the surface of the moon.”
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