It may have been in 1970 when the depression took hold of Nick Drake. Deeply disappointed by poorly attended concerts and lack of success, the British songwriter, who was already very uncomfortable on stage, withdrew from life at the same time. A year later, on the advice of his family, he was prescribed antidepressants. He died of an overdose of these drugs at the age of 26.
Nick Drake left behind three magical folk masterpieces, Five Leaves Left (1969), Bryter Layter (1970) and especially the austere Pink Moon (1972). At least since the one accompanied by “Pink Moon”. VW spot from 1999 the songwriter is regularly rediscovered. But no matter how much one reads about his life, musical ramifications of his family traced, it is always a look through a frosted glass.
For Nick Drake’s birthday, we pull out an archive review of the Fruit Tree compilation.
Nick Drake – Fruit Tree ***** (2008)
The three albums “Five Leaves Left”, “Bryter Layter” and “Pink Moon” as well as a documentary on DVD and a booklet with comments by Drake estate executors Joe Boyd and Robert Kirby and all lyrics.
One sees the fields and hills of the British countryside, the stately homes, the ivy, the oculuses, the gardens and the church. Here, in the bucolic idyll, ended the life of Nicholas Drake in 1974, the greatest songwriter of his generation, the only true poet in the guild of British folk musicians, today an icon, man of sorrows, solitaire. Of course, he only sold a few thousand records during his lifetime, became more famous every year after his death, and his three albums were included in the Pantheon. 1978 saw the debut of the Fruit Tree box set with the unrivaled triplet of records.
In the documentary film “A Skin Too Few” one hears, among other voices from the off, one sentence: “He said he had no more songs.” In 1972 “Pink Moon” was released, Nick Drake was back in his parents’ house after a few performances he never went on stage again: they had been drinking and talking in the auditorium and Drake couldn’t act like that. Even tuning the guitar took him a painfully long time.
The film, barely 50 minutes long and full of autumnal and elegiac landscapes, lets the artist keep his secret, has to let him. Sister Gabrielle talks in detail, remembers the happy childhood in Burma, the return to England, the pragmatic engineer father, the artistically moved and unstable mother who wrote poems and songs. But strange: Nick is also a blind spot, a projection surface, an enigma in his sister’s memories and analyses. No one was surprised when they heard of the melancholy’s death, and Gabrielle – who was on stage in Bristol – says to her parents: “I knew.” The Drake parents are no longer alive today, Gabrielle is a lady in her 60s , theatrical like Geraldine Chaplin. You see the famous photos of Keith Morris, a few impressions of London, you hear a fellow Cambridge student: “We felt superior at the time.” The same Drake was pathologically shy, although a good student, insecure, lanky, a shadow. In London he lived for a while in his sister’s apartment, then alone in a shack without heating or furniture. His first record, “Five Leaves Left”, was released in 1969 and was a masterpiece. He put the album on his sister’s bed. Depression, undiagnosed, forced him into his old room. A friend once saw Nick through the window staring at the wall.
Arranger Robert Kirby and producer Joe Boyd, to whom Drake owes so much, remember their most gifted protégé. Kirby discusses the strings at their finest collaborative effort, “Bryter Layter” (1970), taking Kirby’s scales far beyond folk music. Alongside Gabrielle, Kirby and Boyd are the driving forces behind the Drake estate administration, having contributed to numerous re-issues and archive compilations and ammunitioning interviews, stories and books. But neither man can think of an image, a situation, a thought that Nick Drake could grasp. From the off, the parents calmly describe the last night from which Nick — who regularly took sedatives and antidepressants — never woke up.
In the desolate songs of “Pink Moon” you think you can hear the hopelessness. While Richard Thompson, Dave Mattacks and John Cale had worked on “Bryter Layter”, Drake now recorded alone. The floating melancholy, the wonderful British chamber music had now given way to English Gothic: “Falling fast and falling free, this could just be the end.” Afterwards everyone knew it. But what inspires the film and what Drake wanted to give to people his age is heard in the accomplished beauty of Hazey Jane II, At The Chime Of A City Clock, Poor Boy and Northern Sky: the Singing of a boy who was not from this world, jazz and strings and organ without earthiness, without pretense, the saddest and most uplifting music.
The new “Fruit Tree” box contains the three albums as vinyl replicas, plus the DVD. “Time Of No Reply”, the rarity collection, is missing – the material has appeared on various compilations. In a plain white book, however, there is a lengthy interview with journalist Robin Frederick, Joe Boyd, Robert Kirby and sound engineer John Wood, along with Arthur Lubow’s essay from the original edition and all the lyrics.
This is how the legacy, the enigma, is passed on for another generation.
An article from the RS archive