"Northern Sky" is a song from the English singer-songwriter Nick Drake's 1971 album Bryter Layter, produced by Joe Boyd.

During the recording sessions for the album, the chronically shy and withdrawn songwriter formed a friendship and a mentorship of sorts with producer Joe Boyd, an early supporter of Drake.

Boyd saw commercial potential in the acoustic and unaccompanied demo version of the song, and recruited former Velvet Underground member John Cale as producer.

Having tried lush arrangements, Drake's following album Pink Moon is characterised by bleak vocals and sparse guitar parts, but again only received limited release.

The accompaniment by the classically trained Cale reflects Drake's desire to move away from the pastoral sound of his 1969 debut album Five Leaves Left, which was a commercial failure.

Cale's own career was similarly in tatters; he had been fired from the Velvet Underground by Lou Reed two years earlier, and was yet to re-establish his reputation as a formidable producer.

[3] Yet it essentially retains Drake's original acoustic style, being anchored by long term producers and arrangers Robert Kirby and John Wood's sharp and stripped-down sparse engineering and production values.

After Bryter Layter failed to sell, Drake rarely left his flat, and then only to play an occasional poorly-attended concert or to buy drugs.

Although Drake's debut album was commercially unsuccessful, Boyd was able to generate a mood of optimism around the lead-up to the release of Bryter Layter.

"[11] Patrick Humphries wrote of the song: "The atmosphere is dense, suggesting silver moons sailing on a raven black sea, wind lightly ruffling the hair of the treetops, all stoked by a crazy kind of magic; and the alchemy is fuelled by Cale's hymnal organ and soaring piano figures.

[12] As a result of this, the BBC began to field requests for Drake's song, while Nick Stewart, head of A&R at Island Records, pitched to the label that the songwriter's catalogue might be ideally placed for re-issue to the then developing adult CD market.