Top singles from the past
14 October 2025
Scottish luminaries THE WATERBOYS scored their best known song (almost 200,000
million streams on Spotify) and biggest hit with THE WHOLE OF THE MOON . It was
released ss a single today 40 years ago, on 14 October 1985. It featured on their
3rd full-length This Is The Sea.
It was composed by songsmith/frontman Mike Scott. It’s 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”.
The song wasn’t a huge hit right away. It peaked at #26 in the UK.
Only on its re-release in 1991 the masses embraced it. It went to #3
that time.
“You were there in the turnstiles
with the wind at your heels
you stretched for the stars
and you know how it feels
to reach too high
too far too soon
you saw the whole of the moon”
