The Moon's a Harsh Mistress and still has appeal in song

"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." - Neil Armstrong on landing on the moon, 20 July 1969

I remember reading in the days before Armstrong made his famous step some speculation that as we humans got to know more about the moon, and especially at first hand, as it were, that the moon would lose some of the romance, that lovers would stop gazing in wonderment and awe at it, and perhaps poets would stop writing about it, singers stop singing about it.

In the 40 years since the first moon landing I think that fear has been shown to be completely unfounded. We still gaze at it in wonder and it still exerts some tidal pull on our emotions. It still has some mystery around it, the kind of mystical feel that it has always had down the ages, the kind of mystical aura that has led poets and song-writers to write about it sometimes lyrically and sometimes frivolously.

And when, as happened a few weeks ago, a lunar eclipse – always a portentous event – is combined with a blue moon, then the pull of the moon is at its greatest.

Of course in this scientific age the lunar eclipse no longer has the power to scare people that it used to have. It is now more an occasion of curiosity than of occult foreboding. Lunar eclipses happen relatively frequently and very often go unremarked.

The explanation of the eclipse is straightforward – the earth passes between the moon and the sun, casting a shadow on the moon. The intensity and size of the shadow can very from very slight to complete. The French astronomer André-Louis Danjon devised the so-called Danjon Scale to measure the appearance and luminosity of the Moon during a lunar eclipse. The scale rates an eclipse on a scale numbered L0 to L4. L0 is described as, “Very dark eclipse. Moon almost invisible, especially at mid-totality.” L4, by contrast is described as, “Very bright copper-red or orange eclipse. Umbral shadow has a bluish, very bright rim.”

French artist and astronomer Lucien Rudaux, in the 1920s and 1930s created paintings of space themes which became quite famous. The one shown here is an attempt to show what a person on the moon would see during a lunar eclipse – this about 40 years before anyone actually stepped onto it!

“Blue moon you saw me standing alone

Without a dream in my heart without a love of my own

Blue moon you knew just what I was there for

You heard me saying a prayer for someone I really could care for.”

The famous Rodgers and Hart song from 1934 has been sung by many and very varied singers through the years as well as being used in something like seven movies. The saying “once in a blue moon” means an unlikely or rare event. A blue moon is defined in two ways – there is a seasonal blue moon and a calendar blue moon. In a normal season there will be three full moons.

Seven times in the 19-year Metonic cycle there will be blue moons. The seasonal blue moon occurs when a season of three months has four full moons. The third of the four is called the blue moon. The calendar blue moon is simply a month in which there are two full moons, such as happened this last December.

The term “blue moon” is first recorded in 1528 when an anti-clerical pamphlet was published in which the following appeared: "Yf they say the mone is belewe / We must believe that it is true" (If they say the moon is blue, we must believe that it is true). The coincidence of an eclipse with a blue moon is rare.

Poets and song-writers have since forever found inspiration in the moon. The following are some of those that I particularly enjoy. There are, of course, many, many more.

One of the personifications of the moon was as “Queen of the Night”, as in this poem by Greek poet Sappho, who was born on the island of Lesbos in about the 5^th Century BC.

The stars that round the Queen of Night

Like maids attend her
Hide as in veils of mist their light
When she, in full-orbed glory bright.

O'er all the earth shines from her height,

A silver splendour.

(Translated by Arthur S. Way)

Chinese poet of the 8^th Century Du Fu wrote a poem called “The Fading Moon”:

The Autumn Moon is rounded still this night.
At Kiang-tsun I pass my lonely age.
I roll the blind: she yet pours down her light.
She follows aye my staff-propped pilgrimage.

Her piercing beams the hidden dragons know.
Her radiance wakes the fluttering birds from rest.
In orange groves stands my thatched bungalow.
All purity in this fresh dew expressed.

(Translated by W. J. B. Fletcher)

Don't you love the “staff-propped pilgrimage”?

William Wordsworth in 1798 wrote “A Night Piece”:

—The sky is overcast
With a continuous cloud of texture close,
Heavy and wan, all whitened by the Moon,
Which through that veil is indistinctly seen,
A dull, contracted circle, yielding light
So feebly spread, that not a shadow falls,
Chequering the ground—from rock, plant, tree, or tower.
At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam
Startles the pensive traveller while he treads
His lonesome path, with unobserving eye
Bent earthwards; he looks up—the clouds are split
Asunder,—and above his head he sees
The clear Moon, and the glory of the heavens.
There, in a black-blue vault she sails along,
Followed by multitudes of stars, that, small
And sharp, and bright, along the dark abyss
Drive as she drives: how fast they wheel away,
Yet vanish not!—the wind is in the tree,
But they are silent;—still they roll along
Immeasurably distant; and the vault,
Built round by those white clouds, enormous clouds,
Still deepens its unfathomable depth.
At length the Vision closes; and the mind,
Not undisturbed by the delight it feels,
Which slowly settles into peaceful calm,
Is left to muse upon the solemn scene.

Thomas Hardy wrote a poem on the occasion of a lunar eclipse:

Thy shadow, Earth, from Pole to Central Sea,
Now steals along upon the Moon's meek shine
In even monochrome and curving line
Of imperturbable serenity.

How shall I link such sun-cast symmetry
With the torn troubled form I know as thine,
That profile, placid as a brow divine,
With continents of moil and misery?

And can immense Mortality but throw
So small a shade, and Heaven's high human scheme
Be hemmed within the coasts yon arc implies?

Is such the stellar gauge of earthly show,
Nation at war with nation, brains that teem,
Heroes, and women fairer than the skies?

Carl Sandburg wrote about a child's experience of the moon in “Child Moon”:

The child's wonder
At the old moon
Comes back nightly.
She points her finger
To the far silent yellow thing
Shining through the branches
Filtering on the leaves a golden sand,
Crying with her little tongue, "See the moon!"
And in her bed fading to sleep
With babblings of the moon on her little mouth.

Lawrence writes about seeing a moon rise from a speeding train:

And we are smothered between the darkness, we close our eyes and say "Hush!" we try
To escape in sleep the terror of this immense deep darkness, and we lie
Wrapped up for sleep. And then, dear God, from out of the twofold darkness, red
As if from the womb the moon arises, as if the twin-walled darkness had bled
In one great spasm of birth and given us this new, red moon-rise
Which lies on the knees of the darkness bloody, and makes us hide our eyes.

The famous poet of “A Shropshire Lad” fame wrote this achingly sad poem about taking leave from a lover as he walks and sees “White in the Moon the Long Road Lies”:

White in the moon the long road lies,
The moon stands blank above;
White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love.

Still hangs the hedge without a gust,
Still, still the shadows stay:
My feet upon the moonlit dust
Pursue the ceaseless way.

The world is round, so travellers tell,
And straight though reach the track,
Trudge on, trudge on, 'twill all be well,
The way will guide one back.

But ere the circle homeward hies
Far, far must it remove:
White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love.

There are many songs bout the moon and its effect on lovers and love. There is “Blue Moon of Kentucky”, there is “Moon Song” as sung by Patty Griffin which echoes Housman's melancholy: “Followed your road till the sky ran out”. There is the Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers “Blue Moon” which is so well-known.

My personal favourite moon song is the one written in 1974 by Jimmy Webb, “The Moon's a Harsh Mistress” which I first heard, I think, sung by Sting, though I can find no reference to him ever having recorded it. Anyone got any information on this? Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me.

Anyway I have since found a truly beautiful version of the song by the Norwegian singer Radka Toneff. The words and melody fit together so well and are so expressive of Webb's intent. He has said of the song, “'The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress' was a song that became a standard without ever becoming a hit and was symbolic of that decade of my life, my struggle, my failure, my angst, my pride and even scorn.... and ultimately my crash.”

See her how she flies
Golden sails across the sky
Close enough to touch
But careful if you try
Though she looks as warm as gold
The moon's a harsh mistress
The moon can be so cold

Once the sun did shine
Lord, it felt so fine
The moon a phantom rose
Through the mountains and the pines
And then the darkness fell
And the moon's a harsh mistress
It's so hard to love her well

I fell out of his eyes
I fell out of his heart
I fell down on my face
Yes, I did, and I – I tripped and I missed my star
God, I fell and I fell alone, I fell alone
And the moon's a harsh mistress
And the sky is made of stone

The moon's a harsh mistress
She's hard to call your own.

Another favourite moon song is the one most people I guess associate with New Zealand singer Hayley Westenra, but which was actually written by Namibia-born South African singer-songwriter Nianell. The song was inspired by a 2001 lunar eclipse and is called "Who Painted the Moon Black?" Here are the lovely lyrics:

Did you see the shiny moon?
Turned into a black balloon
Just as you walked away from me

Did you see how hard I've tried?
Not to show the pain inside
Just as you walked away from me

Who painted the moon black?
Just when you passed your love back
Who painted the moon black?
Oh won't you, won't you come back?

It must have been the darkest night
Not even a star in sight
Just as you walked away from me, now

Who painted the moon black?
Just when you passed your love back
Who painted the moon black?
Oh won't you, won't you come back?

Who painted the moon black?
Just when you passed your love back
Who painted the moon black?
Oh won't you, won't you come back?
Who painted the moon?

Da da da...

Did you see the shiny moon?
Turned into a black balloon
Just as you walked away from me

I have added vids of both Nianell and Hayley singing this wonderful song. Two beautiful singers singing a beautiful song. Enjoy!

Added another version of The Moon's A Harsh Mistress, this time by Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny, thanks to fellow-Hubber myownworld who pointed me in its direction. Thanks a mill.

The text and all images on this page, unless otherwise indicated, are by Tony McGregor who hereby asserts his copyright on the material. Should you wish to use any of the text or images feel free to do so with proper attribution and, if possible, a link back to this page. Thank you.

© Tony McGregor 2010