The Whole of the Moon - 2004 Remaster

The "whole of the moon" is the big picture, which takes a particular vision to see. In a Songfacts interview with Waterboys frontman Mike Scott, he said: "I wrote the song when I was 26 years old, and I was discovering that there was so much more than I had ever known. There was so much more to learn than I'd even been hinted at in the culture I'd grown up in. I had a strong sense of wonderment about that, and I realized there were people who had vastly more information in their imaginations and experiences than I had. And so that's what inspired that song."

Who is it that Mike Scott is singing about in this song? Here's what he told us: "It's not a specific person. It's more a type. The point of the song was to illustrate how much more there could be to learn than we had ever guessed. And so, I used that format of songwriting, as if addressing a more knowledgeable or wise being. Or it could actually have been someone who came into this life and burned out very quickly. Too far, too soon. Like Syd Barrett or Jimi Hendrix, who comes in and seems to be possessed by this otherworldly knowledge or inspiration, but burns out quickly then leaves us. That kind of character. It certainly wasn't written about C.S. Lewis, although he was a big spiritual inspiration to me as a child, and through the rest of my life, indeed. And it certainly wasn't about Prince, although there were moments when Prince seemed to embody that sort of person. And it certainly wasn't about my old friend Nikki Sudden, who was a very interesting character, but certainly not the kind of character I was describing in the song."

The Waterboys were a British group formed in London in 1981 by Mike Scott (guitar/vocals) and Anthony Thistlewaite (multi-instrumentalist). They later added Karl Wallinger (guitar, keyboards) Steve Wickham (fiddle) and Kevin Wilkinson (drums). The year after "The Whole Of The Moon" was released, Wallinger left the band to form World Party, who had a #27 US hit with "Ship Of Fools."