The Whole Of The Moon
A song whose key line its writer Mike Scott says “floated into my mind as if by magic”, it’s still The Waterboys’ signature track and a magic moment live, and has inspired many covers.
The Waterboys’ most famous song was the response to a challenge. In New York City in early 1985, Mike Scott was walking back towards the Gramercy Park Hotel with then-girlfriend Krista King, when she asked him if it was easy to write songs. “It was a cold, clear January night,” Scott recalls, “and I said: ‘Yes, it is. I’ll write one now.’ So I looked around for some inspiration, and there was amoon in the sky. This phrase ‘I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon’ floated into my mind as if by magic, right on cue.” The Waterboys’ leader scribbled it down on an envelope taken from his pocket. Back at the hotel he added more lines.
On his return to London a few days later, Scott began working on the lyric in earnest. The Whole Of The Moon would become the band’s signature moment, a platinum-selling single and the centrepiece of the band’s commercialbreakthrough album This Is The Sea. With its jubilant chorus and brass fanfares, it also established The Waterboys at the forefront of the ‘Big Music’, a brand of widescreen, impassioned 80s rock built for big stages and thumping hearts. It also inspired a host of cover versions, including from U2, Prince, The Killers and, most recently, Bleachers.
For the first six weeks of its life, though, The Whole Of The Moon was just lyrics on a page. It was only when Scott began sifting through demos in the studio that inspiration for the music took hold.
“For the first couple of days, This Is The Sea co-producer John Brand recorded me singing things from my songwriting book on piano,” Scott explains. “And while I was doing that, I tried some older songs of mine, in case they worked. One was called The Mercenary And The Samaritan and there’s a reason you’ve never heard of it: it wasn’t very good. But it had this really funky piano rhythm that stayed in my mind. And either later that day or the next
