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And Now We Rise: Nick Drake, Fruit Tree Re-release

by Gordon Lamb
11/30/2007

In the 21st century, where information travels with lightening speed and is available instantaneously, there is no shortage of raw facts associated with Nick Drake. We know he grew up in a loving family, a house full of music, attended exclusive private school Marlborough before studying at Fitzwilliams College, Cambridge and was a good athlete. We know that, somewhere between 1969 and 1974, he developed a debilitating depression, moved back home and passed away from an overdose of the antidepressant Trytizol.

But the facts, as in most situations, rarely tell the whole story because they are merely signposts marking off the passage of time. The living of a life happens between them. And, while they are certainly interesting and provide for hours of thoughtful reflection and rumination, the real stuff of Nick Drake is his music. Indeed, it seems silly to ponder his athleticism, outside of taking the man into full context, when everything one needs to (or rather, should) know about Drake is contained in his recordings. Namely, the three proper albums Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter and Pink Moon.

Fruit Tree, the Nick Drake boxed set originally released by Island Records in 1979, has been re-released and dressed up for the 21st century. This time, purchasers receive the three albums, but not the compilation of rare tracks Time Of No Reply which was included on previous compact disc editions.

In its stead is a DVD entitled A Skin Too Few. Although beautifully shot and including enjoyable interviews, most notably with Drake’s wonderfully charming sister Gabriella, the whole thing suffers from what was mentioned before: in attempting to contextualize Nick Drake’s music, and paint a portrait-in-tribute of his life, it has the effect of fooling the listener into thinking that Drake’s music can be explained once one has a sufficient number of facts. And that is the whole of the Nick Drake conundrum.

For so long his music was obscure; the stuff of a cult fan base. Now, thanks largely to the work of ad agency Arnold Worldwide (creators of the horribly patronizing Volkswagen Cabriolet advertisement which featured Drake’s “Pink Moon”) his albums have sold well since 2000. This is a good because there’s now an untold number of people inspired and consoled by his music.

The problem is not, really, with the popularity of the music; the problem is with the listener. Or, rather, the way our cultures, be it the rabid, cult-like and devoted culture of music fans or that of an art-cheapening, exploitative consumer culture, each contribute in their own way to expanding the myth and mystique of Nick Drake rather than, as each assumes, having him all sussed out. The former gathers facts and reads obscure articles and “knows” Drake; the other buys a CD he heard in a commercial and uses it for background music.

I will be the first to admit to committing nearly every offense listed above. Which is, of course, the way I figured out that, for most of the time I’ve been listening to Drake, I had it all wrong. And if not entirely wrong then wrong enough to not let the music speak for itself.

Drake’s debut album, Five Leaves Left, was originally released in 1969. Producer Joe Boyd, who in the early 1960’s had an uncanny ear for the what would become the next wave of English folk music (John Martyn, Incredible String Band), was taken with Drake's music after an audition and enthusiastically agreed to work with him. The album begins with the gentle, country sway of “Time Has Told Me” and from the first line Drake sets the mood which will forever characterize him. A quick reading of the lyrics present a simple love song but lines such as “Time has told me/ You're a rare, rare find/ A troubled cure/ For a troubled mind/ And time has told me/ Not to ask for more...” frame Drake not only as a romantic but a somewhat desperate one. He loves, but doesn’t push; desires but doesn’t ask.

The melancholy of “River Man” sees Drake discussing something with the ‘River Man’ (death? Perhaps the ferry men who shuttled immigrants from Ireland to England? It’s unclear who he means but it’s someone, or something, of importance enough to consult on heavy items). Ultimately, the song is one of teetering on an edge but withdrawing from it. Drake sings about ‘Betty’ who “Said she hadn't heard the news/ hadn’t had the time to choose/ A way to lose...” and then Drake sings “Going to see the river man/ Going to tell him all I can/about the plan/ for lilac time.” The wood of a Lilac bush is very dense and flowers regularly only when it remains unpruned. In short, it’s best when left alone. Ultimately, he rejects whatever counsel the river man offers, declaring, “If he tells me all he knows/ About the way his river flows/ I don't suppose/ It's meant for me.”

The rest of Five Leaves Left is a difficult listen. He questions his subjects (“Don't you have a word to show what may be done?/ Have you never heard a way to find the sun? [“Way To Blue"]), passes judgment on the physical world (“When the night is cold/ Some get by but some get old” [“Day Is Done”] and pleads with a potential romantic partner (“...there was a girl who lived nearby/ Whenever he saw her he could only simply sigh... So when he called her/ His shed to mend/ She said I'm sorry you'll just have to find a friend... Please don't think/ I'm not your sort/ You'll find that sheds are nicer than you thought” [“Man In A Shed”]). He shifts constantly between assurance and doubt; between action and resolution.

Drake’s second LP, Bryter Layter, is really a full-on pop record, replete with lush orchestral flourishes, pop electric guitar, drums and full band arrangements. Bryter Layter discloses its position immediately in the first two tracks. “Introduction” is exactly that; a gorgeous, orchestrated instrumental that could have very easily appeared on Five Leaves Left. From here Drake blasts, relatively speaking of course, in the most rock-n-roll song of his releases thus far: “Hazy Jane II." Augmented by the Fairport Convention guitarist Richard Thompson, the song, for lack of better terms, cooks. Drake’s lyrics are notably positive but, in the end, he still doubts his ability to communicate (“Now that you're lifting/ Your feet from the ground/Weigh up your anchor/ And never look round…If songs were lines/ In a conversation/The situation would be fine.”)

The soulful, practically R & B arrangement (as filtered through the English folk tradition) of “At The Chime Of The City Clock” is positively, oppressively urban. Featuring the alto saxophone of Ray Warleigh, the song is deceptively inviting but, in reality, one of displacement. It’s not about being part of a city but, rather, lost in one. (“...the sound of a busy place/ Is fine for a pretty face/ Who knows what a face is for... Hang on to your crown/ For a stone in a tin can/ Is wealth to the city man/ Who leaves his armour down.”)

(An aside: The actual music of Drake is now part of the English pop-folk canon. Although rarely gentle, as in gentle-folk-singer-major-chords, Drake plays with a deliberate tenderness towards his instrument. Through the use of alternate tunings, clustered notes and self-invented blues scales he made music that often sounded as if it were played on multiple guitars. If you’d like to learn about his technique further you’ll have to look elsewhere. There’s ample information (written by actual musicians, even!) that explore and explain Drakes use of music as a tool of communication, or at least expression, much better than I can.)

Bryter Layter is a stunning achievement. Drake was 22 years old when it was recorded. That such a young man was so thoughtful and musically adept at an age when most men can barely keep their head about them is less a necessarily rarified thing but, rather, a sad reproach of the state of young men in general.

With regard to his lyrical content I hesitate to say ‘world weary’ not only because of the atrocious cliché the term has become but because it doesn’t really apply here; Drake is intermittently hopeful, joking around with his subjects, offering encouragement and taking some encouragement himself (“I never held emotion in the palm of my hand/ or felt sweet breezes in the top of a tree/ but now you're here/ brighten my northern sky” [“Northern Sky”]).

Similarly, the album ends on something of a high note. As if to bookend the lyrical tracks the album closes with its second instrumental, “Sunday,” whose mood is slightly more uplifting than that of “Introduction.” It’s all as if Drake named the album Bryter Layter and meant, not an intentional deferment of joy but, rather, that happiness was almost in reach.

Drake’s 19072 LP Pink Moon has taken on a life of its own. As sales of the album skyrocketed from roughly 6,000 a year to more than 75,000 a year after the Volkswagen advertisement, the album has become the only one many people own or have heard. That’s understandable, but Pink Moon presents a Drake several years into his career, suffering from the frustration of poor record sales and questioning the future. When separated from the other two records it actually loses some gravity.

In order to understand the sadness of a person, it’s important to have understood their happiness. The half-joy, at the very least hopefulness, of Bryter Layter is all but disappeared on Pink Moon. Drake is not scared, worried or apprehensive. He is resolved and calmly assured of both failure and rejection. Reading the lyrics to Pink Moon, without actually hearing the record, is an experience I can only imagine is akin to reading a very secret diary. Even its title is a reference to a full spring moon, the lunar phenomenon associated with bad luck which Drake alludes to (“Pink moon gonna get you all”). Drake’s calmness is both horrifyingly deadpan and helplessly hollowed out. Whereas Five Leaves Left was deeply soulful and emotion-infused, Pink Moon is icy cold; resolved not to death but, rather, to life.

As alluring as the title track is, the deep cuts from Pink Moon are the true meat here. Drake sings to both himself and, perhaps, happiness as an elusive satisfaction on “Place To Be” (“I was strong, strong in the sun/ I thought I'd see when day is done/ now I'm weaker than the palest blue/ oh, so weak in this need for you.”), dedicates himself to his resolution (“You can say the sun is shining if you really want to/ I can see the moon and it seems so clear/ you can take the road that takes you to the stars now/ I can take a road that'll see me through” [“Road”]) and beguilingly asks the world to clarify its choices(“Which will you go for/ which will you love/ which will you choose from/ from the stars above... Which do you dance for/ which makes you shine/ which will you choose now/ if you won't choose mine” [“Which Will”]).

There is, of course, always a chance that Drake’s songs of pleading were quite earth-bound. Because the myth of Drake has exploded now beyond its cult roots into serious big business (which, admittedly, this article does nothing to slow the tide of) we, as an audience, seem duty-driven to infuse his songs with a depth they may not have had for Drake himself.

It is in this way that the music of Nick Drake is just as pure a pop phenomenon, and just as important, as any music that has ever accompanied a memory; any music that automatically returns a person to a particular time or experience. The sin of not letting Drake’s music speak for itself must be forgivable, for it is unavoidable. Where Drake is lost, we find ourselves; where he questions we find, not an answer per se, but an alleviation of the loneliness presented by our own questioning.

Why does “Which Will” need to be any deeper than Drake pleading with a romantic interest? And how different, really, is “Road” from Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken"? And there’s the rub: we require a deeper meaning because we want to connect with this music in a more intimate way, but through such searching we often wind up potentially obscuring it entirely. The listener places himself on top of Drake’s compositions and the result is meaning through an nearly deliberate misunderstanding. Though far from rare, and perhaps necessary to the pure enjoyment of art itself, the phenomenon gets us no closer to who Drake really was. Rather, it tells us who we are.

“So look see the days/ the endless colored ways/ and go play the game that you learnt/ from the morning... And now we rise/and we are everywhere” (“From The Morning”)

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