Nick Drake, 50 Years Later

If fame is but a fruit tree, fifty years after his passing, Nick Drake's still flourishes.

Author’s Note: This post corresponds to the Five Leaves Layter special of Vinyl Monday, originally posted 11/25/2024. Save for audio/editing jokes that cannot be included in a text format, this is a faithful adaptation of the review chapter. To watch the full episode, scroll to the bottom of this post or visit my YouTube channel here.

One night in early 1968, Fairport Convention bassist Ashley Hutchings stumbled into some quaint little gig. There, he was met with a once-in-a-generation talent.

A long-haired man hunched over his guitar was pretty standard stuff for London in ’68. But this one was different.He towered over the rest...literally! He was 6'3"! Ashley was completely enamored by this guy’s sound. His voice was soft, his playing flowed naturally while razor-sharp. You could tell he was inspired by John Renbourn, Bert Jansch, and Donovan, but he remained completely original. Ashley had just discovered 20-year-old Nick Drake.

Nick was studying English at Cambridge at the time; following adventures around Europe and North Africa and busking in Aix-en-Provence. Before long, he’d drop out of school to pursue music full-time. Ashley passed word of Nick along to the Convention’s producer Joe Boyd. (You Pink Floyd fans will know him asowner of the UFO club in London!) The gentle giant stumbled into Joe’s office and handed him the demo tape he made in college. “I Was Made for Magic” didn’t grab Joe; its saccharine opening chord was “one of the few moments on a Nick Drake song that annoyed (him.)” Then came Thoughts of Mary Jane and Time Has Told Me.

“The clarity and strength of the talent were striking. There was something uniquely arresting in Nick’s composure. The music stayed within itself, without trying to attract the listener’s attention; just making itself available...Influences were detectable here and there, but the heart of the music was mysteriously original.”

(Joe Boyd, White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s, 2010)

Joe would soon become one of Nick’s greatest champions. With help from him, engineer John Wood, and plenty of guests, Nick would craft his first two albums: Five Leaves Left (1969) and Bryter Layter (1971) Both are snapshots of an artist coming into his own. Five Leaves Left is a whole picture of fledgling, incredible talent. A gentle giant with a babyface, gazing out the window of an abandoned house; as captured by Keith Morris on its cover. “Shy and boyish and likeable,” with a sense of humor – “five leaves” and green aren't lost on me!

During Five Leaves Left production, Joe and John got in the habit of shutting off Nick’s monitor. (Joe's made a point of it in like every interview he's ever done.) Why? Because he was just too perfect. His voice and guitar were always right, due in part to him staying up all night playing guitar. Despite its quaint, pastoral beauty, it sold poorly. Nick only sold a cumulative 4,000 copies of all three of his records in his 26 years of life. Though Five Leaves Left’s release was no doubt tampered by the Convention’s bus crash and the death of Brian Jones. But Nick was no less proud of having released his very first LP. He went into the follow-up with high spirits and plenty of ideas. His new material was thoroughly inspired; from bossa nova to Stax Records.

On the other hand, Bryter Layter is a fractured image due to the rocky circumstances of its creation. Witchseason Productions had gone to hell in a handbasket, and a gnarly wave of the depression Nick battled his entire adult life came and knocked him on his ass. The music is happy, reflective of the confidence he’d gained. It’s more elaborate too; indicative of Sound Techniques adopting 8-track technology and Nick receiving a 4-track reel-to-reel machine for his birthday.

But look at the cover, shot by Nigel Weymouth. The elements of whimsy – pinks and purples, “a pair of blue suede brothel-creepers (Nigel) made in the Chelseas Cobbler in a fit of nonsense sometime in the late sixties” – are weighed down by Nick. His presence heavy, hunched over his guitar. On the back cover, he's turned away from the camera. By Bryter’s release in 1971, Witchseason had collapsed, Joe Boyd moved back to the States, and Nick retreated completely.

Going in: I haven’t reviewed 2 subsequent albums at once since the Black Midi Black Midi special. I felt this approachwas right for this installment. Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter were released nearly 2 years apart. But because Nick recorded them close together and they have so many sonic similarities, I see them as sister albums.

Of course, this presents a unique challenge: how do I evaluate these albums individually? The answer is simply to go wherever the music takes us. There will be a lot of swapping back and forth between records, and no way to do an effective track-by-track breakdown (personal favorite Man In A Shed falls victim to this.) But I think you’ll find the worlds within Nick’s songs are quite connected.

I find Nick’s music especially appropriate for the transitional seasons, both of nature and life. I’m 25 as of me publishing this; not much younger than Nick was when he passed. In the next year or so, I’m going to have to make lots of choices. There will be big business decisions to be made. Whether or not I cash in on a relationship. Where I’d like to live. Me and my collection have outgrown this space. It’s time to move on from old ways of living.

I know I’m not the only one who finds peace in Nick’s music. Over the past 50 years, his small yet powerful output has garnered a devoted cult following. Of course it did! These albums are utterly timeless. They were designed to be. Producer Joe Boyd had Judy Collins’s In My Life and Leonard Cohen’s first album on the brain. Both have bells and whistles and strings, but at their best, the arrangements don’t ever sit on top of the music. They mesh with them. This was a tricky balance to strike: in the words of engineer (and producer of Pink Moon) John Wood, “Joe’s weak point as a producer was choosing arrangers.” (Richard Morton Jack, Nick Drake: The Life, 2024) After firing their first arranger, Nick lobbied to have his college buddy work on the record: 19-year-old Robert Kirby. It took some lobbying, but once they recorded Way To Blue, Joe and John were sold:

“The individual lines were tantalizing, unusual, and strong. When, at last, John opened all the channels and we heard Robert’s arrangement...I almost wept with joy and relief.”

(Joe Boyd, White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s, 2010)

The closest we ever got to the core of Nick’s artistic being on record was Pink Moon. After all, it’s literally just Nick! Both preceding albums have woodwinds, strings, brass, bass, and drums. At times, Robert’sarrangements could be a bit “much.” But when they worked, they meshed so well with Nick’s voice and guitar. It’s one of their unique strengths of their short-lived partnership. However, this does mean theawkward moments stick out even more. I think of the steel guitar on “Time Has Told Me.” It’s a rare moment in which the American influence on singer-songwriters of the late ’60s seeps into Nick’s work. But because he’s so British, it feels out of place.

I get annoyed when people say, “Oh there’s too much extra stuff,” and call it inauthentic to Nick. This “extra stuff” was the artistic foot Nick wanted to put forward. He loved Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks – the strings and harpsichord on Fly are no coincidence. I immediately clocked the Astral influence.

I know it’s cliché, but Nick’s music is very British. Austere, yet heartfelt and perceptive. It’s the thruline of all the strongest tracks on these two albums.

I think it was Joe Boyd in A Skin Too Few who described some of Nick’s songs as autumnal; traversing the London streets in rainy October. Though these songs couldn’t be more different in styling, you don’t get more rainy October than River Man and At The Chime of A City Clock.

If you listen through Nick’s full discography (which I highly recommend – it’s short, manageable, and lovely,) “River Man” is the moment when he first comes into focus for the listener. In short, it’s fucking brilliant.

Firstly, “River Man” is in 5/4 time. No one in folk wrote in 5/4 in 1969. The only place most people would’ve heard 5/4 before this was “Take Five,” and that’s jazz! This arrangement is notably not by Robert Kirby for a refreshingly juvenile reason: his music class simply hadn’t gotten to that chapter yet. In his own words, “I could not for the life of me work out how to write a piece of music that didn’t stagger along like a spider missing a leg…” (Richard Morton Jack, Nick Drake: The Life, 2023) Enter Harry Robinson to finish the job. Though “River Man” is in 5/4, if you pay close attention you’ll notice the strings aren’t always in 5/4! There’s measures of 4/4 thrown in there to switch the bend; not unlike a winding river. It’s funny Robert likened his failure in arranging this song to a spider; Nick, his guitar, and the string ensemble weave together like a web. So strong, yet delicate in the wind.

If I had a nickel for every time a Hermann Hesse text came up on Vinyl Monday – ahh, you know the joke.

Whether or not this was intentional I’m not sure, but “River Man” invokes Siddhartha. The ferryman teaches our titular character to listen to the river for wisdom, on his journey to discover both light and dark is necessary for living. There’s beauty in gray area and ambiguity: “Betty said she prayed today for the sky to blow away/Or maybe stay, she wasn’t sure…”

If “River Man” is the dark night rain, “Chime of A City Clock” is rain while it’s sunny out. Of course, I can’t fully analyze this song without showcasing….

That’s right! Leitmotifs!! After hearing Astral, Nick got wrapped up in the idea of a concept album. (That term held a very different definition in 1970. Think a cohesive body of work as opposed to a handful of singles with slop in the middle; like Rubber Soul or Pet Sounds.) Joe thought them a waste of space on the record, but Nick persisted. not of them all are necessary (Sunday feels superfluous,) Bryter Layter’s instrumentals are its connective tissue.

“A city freeze, get on your knees/Pray for warmth and green paper” This song is about a city coming alive after a long, bitter winter. There’s an almost Dickensian romance about it with the string swells. “City Clock” has one of Robert’smost memorable and gorgeous arrangements, up there with Cello Song and Way To Blue off the previous LP. As friends emerge in twos, threes, and fours, bright saxophone enters. I love how Nick’s dead strings pop up in between; these dull, percussive hits. But our narrator remains sequestered, observing from afar. Nick would revisit this theme – though much darker and more desolate – in “Things Behind The Sun” and “Parasite” off Pink Moon. Though we’re supposed to be more connected than ever thanks to the internet, modern life is quite isolating.

Such is the evergreen nature of Nick’s writing. “Fame is but a fruit tree, so very unsound/It can never flourish til its stalk is in the ground... ”

At this point, I am legally liable to tell you that Fruit Tree is a “Stairway” song.

Not unlike “City Clock,” “Things Behind The Sun,” and “Parasite’”s commentary on modern life, “Fruit Tree” is some spooky foreshadowing. Nick no doubt had the famous British writers of yore in mind writing this song. But Brian Jones died on the day of FLL’s release. More icons of the sixties were to follow. Nick didn’t write it because he knew he himself was going to die, that’s a myth.

“Life is but a memory, happened long ago/Theater full of sadness for a long-forgotten show…” Instead, Nick had this uncanny ability to write from an almost out-of-body perspective. It’s like his inner world is a play and he is the unseen narrator. Sometimes he dare break the fourth wall, like on Hazey Jane I. It’s my favorite of the Hazey Janes; withslightly medieval drum taps and incredible strings. We follow Nick’s playing through rivers and meadows, and his voice warm like sunlight. We don’t talk about his vocal phrasing enough: his delivery of “Try to be true, even if it’s just in your hazey way” is sublime. His words reach out and pull right in: “Do you feel like a remnant of something that’s past? Do you find things are moving just a little too fast?”

...yes. I do.

Nick isn’t plainly austere and British, though. He can have fun! Hazey Jane II is Nick in full pop mode. Poor Boy is a cheeky, Stax Records-ified bossa nova jaunt poking fun at self-pitying folk. “Nobody feels the worn-down heels” might even be a self-deprecating joke; Nick’s mother and all his friends said he didn’t care much for dressing and frequently wore his shoes until they broke! He referenced jazz before on Saturday Sun, with its sauntering pace and Milt Jackson-esque vibraphone. The perky piano and rolling guitar on One Of These Things First show off Nick’s playful side. You know...even if he’s contemplating the meaning of life and existence. He lists off all the goofy things he could’ve been: a sailor, a statue, a lamppost, a book, a clock.Then he switches to speaking to a lost love: “I could’ve been your pillar, I could’ve been your door. I could’ve stayed beside you, could’ve stayed for more.” Our narrator recognizes he could’ve stayed all his life, but he’s a free spirit. He simply wasn’t one of those things first. Whether boot, flute, or lover.

Not all the dressed-up moments work. Thoughts of Mary Jane and “Fly” in particular air on the side of sappy. Nick and everyone else was a delicate balance to strike, due in part to the alternate tunings he’d play in. Why did he favor complex tunings and chords? It’s in his DNA. Nick’s mother was quite musical, her instrument of choice was the piano. The piano has 88 keys; a much wider range of notes than a guitar. In order to capture those piano sounds he heard growing up, Nick would have to tune up his guitar differently. It makes songs like Three Hours and Cello Song haunting. Both these Five Leaves Left cuts strike expert balance between Nick’s articulate playing and his guest musicians: the haunting hollow percussion on “Three Hours” and titular exotic, intoxicating cello. That “Cello Song” motif has existed long before us. Nick just happened to be the conduit of its electric energy. Or maybe it picked him to express, with his voice of velvet.

I’ve deliberately saved this song for last, because I feel it was the summation of everything Nick was capable of.

John Cale lent a hand on Northern Sky. You’d never know it. While working on Nico’s Desertshore, co-producer Joe Boyd played Cale some of Nick’s demos. It’s safe to say he liked them: his response was, “Who the fuck is this guy? I have to meet him. Where is he right now?”

And so, the anecdote in which John Cale of the Velvet Underground showed up to Nick’s apartment unannounced! Their first meeting was “an absolute collision of two separate, disparate personalities – the tornade of Welsh energy from a working-class background...and the shy and diffident public school boy...I think Nick was kind of overwhelmed.” (“Kaleidoscope” BBC Radio 4, 12/20/1997)

“Northern Sky” is warm, sincere, and heartfelt. You know. The opposite of every adjective I associate John Cale’s VU contributions with! Every element is balanced perfectly against Nick’s twinkling guitar, the keys in particular bathe you in a warm pink light. And it’s utterly modern due in part to John’s celeste; shining like the sky itself. I don’t think I’d want this song made today, but it could be done.

If I’m not mistaken, “Northern Sky” is the only straight love song in Nick’s catalog. It directly addresses one person: “I never felt magic crazy as this/I never saw moons, knew the meaning of the sea/I never held emotion in the palm of my hand...” Even reserved Nick’s heart has been brought out and put on his sleeve. Brighten my northern sky, straighten my new mind’s eye, come blow your horn on high. Our narrator invites his object of affection to come change his world. But like all the greatest love songs, there’s uncertainty. “Would you love me for my money? Would you love me for my head? Would you love me through the winter? Would you love me til I’m dead, oh if you would and you could…” This song is a grand gesture, an invitation.

Island should be taken to task for refusing to release this as a single. Had they - and Nick - done their part and thrown a little weight behind it, it would’ve been his a-ha moment.

To think Nick's extraordinary output happened in just a handful of years. Any songwriter would be thrilled with just a “River Man.” Just a “Fruit Tree.” Just one of the Hazey Janes, a “Northern Sky” if they’re lucky. Nick had them all and more. His entire career with such a high caliber of songwriting lasted just five years. That’s utterly remarkable.

50 years later, what lessons can we learn from Nick Drake? It may seem cliché, but the big lesson to learn from him is that life is always worth living. I said in my Pink Moon episode that where there is beauty in simply being alive, there is Nick Drake. I don’t know I could possibly top those closing remarks. Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter are artifacts of a true artist coming into his own. Coming into command of the fantastic power he held as a writer, singer, player, and voice. If only he could’ve held onto that. In being the creative beacon he was, Nick’s work shines light on the overlooked and downtrodden. It expresses all the thrills and lows. It shows the lonely they are never alone, because there was someone, sometime, who felt just like they did. 50 years later, that act no longer goes unappreciated and cannot be ignored.

“Fruit tree, fruit tree, open your eyes to another year. They’ll all know that you were here...”

Personal favorites: “River Man,” “Cello Song,” “Man In A Shed,” “Fruit Tree” – Hazey Janes I and II, “At The Chime of A City Clock,” “One Of These Things First,” “Northern Sky”

– AD ☆

Watch the full episode above!