About The Whole of the Moon

"The Whole of the Moon" is a song by the Waterboys which was released as a single from their album This Is the Sea in 1985. It is a classic of the band's repertoire and has been consistently played at live shows ever since its release. Written and produced by Mike Scott, the subject of the song has inspired some speculation. The single was not a big success when initially released in 1985, only making the lower ends of the chart, although it reached number 12 on the Australian chart. Subsequently, it became one of the Waterboys' best-known songs and their most commercially successful. It is arguably the band's signature song and was the Ivor Novello Award winner "Best Song Musically and Lyrically" in 1991. Upon its re-release in 1991, it reached No. 3 in the United Kingdom.

The subject of the lyrics has inspired speculation, some of which has been rebutted by the writer. The song began as a "scribble on the back of an envelope on a wintry New York street", after Scott's girlfriend asked him if it was difficult to write a song. Scott added further lyrics to the song upon returning to his hotel and after his return to London. Like The Waterboys' first single "A Girl Called Johnny", the song is a tribute to an inspirational figure or figures. In each line, the singer describes his own perspective and immediately contrasts it with that of the song's subject, summarizing the difference with the line "I saw the crescent / You saw the whole of the moon". AllMusic instead suggests that its subject is a number of people who inspired Scott, including writer C. S. Lewis and the musician Prince. Scott himself says that he "couldn't have written" the song without having read Mark Helprin's novel Winter's Tale, but goes on to state that the song is not about Helprin. The official Waterboys website's Frequently Asked Questions clarifies that Scott has said that the song's subject is "a composite of many people", including C. S. Lewis, but explicitly states that it is not about Prince. Musician Nikki Sudden, with whom Scott had collaborated before forming the Waterboys, has claimed that the song was written about himself. In a 2020 interview, Scott specifically rejected claims that it was about Sudden or Prince: he said that he wrote a message "on the record’s label saying, 'For Prince, U saw the whole of the moon'" as a reference to discussions between himself and Karl Wallinger about creating a Prince-inspired sound when they were recording the song.