Although he recorded only three albums, critics and fellow musicians hold his work in very high esteem. Drake failed to find a wide audience during his lifetime and had a strong aversion to performing. Since his death, however, Drake's music has gained a significant cult following.
Drake's father worked as an engineer. Although he was born in Rangoon, Burma, Nick's family moved back to England soon afterward, and Drake was brought up in Tanworth-in-Arden, a small village in the English county of Warwickshire. He went to public school at Marlborough College, where he learned to play the clarinet and piano. As a young adult, Drake enrolled in Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, to study English. His older sister, Gabrielle Drake, is an actress.
Drake was a fan of British and the emerging American folk music scene, including artists Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs. While a university student, Drake began performing in local clubs and coffee houses. He was discovered by Ashley Hutchings, the bass player of the folk rock group Fairport Convention. Hutchings introduced Drake to the other members of Fairport Convention, folk singer John Martyn and producer Joe Boyd.
He delayed attendance to spend six months at the University of Aix-Marseille, France, beginning in February 1967. While in Aix, he began to practice guitar in earnest and to earn money would often busk with friends in the town centre. Drake began to smoke cannabis, and that spring he traveled with friends to Morocco, because, according to traveling companion Richard Charkin, "that was where you got the best pot". Drake's associates convinced Island Records to sign the young singer-songwriter to a three-album contract. Drake began recording his debut album Five Leaves Left later in 1968, with Boyd assuming the role of producer. The sessions took place in Sound Techniques studio, London, with Drake skipping lectures to travel by train to the capital. At the age of twenty, he released his first album Five Leaves Left (1969), which featured a chamber music quartet on several songs and had a light, breezy sound. Drake's second album Bryter Layter (1970) introduced a more upbeat, jazzier sound, with keyboards, horns and several brass instruments. Both albums were produced by Boyd and featured several members of Fairport Convention.
Many accounts of Drake focus on his mythology, but a large part of his enduring popularity is due to his meticulous songwriting, prosody, odd guitar tunings and lyricism.
Drake was pathologically shy and resented touring. The few concerts he did play were usually in support of other British folk acts of the time, such as Fairport Convention or John Martyn and were often brief and awkward. Partially because of this, his work received little attention and sold poorly. Whilst in the recording studio, he was so shy that he'd always play into the wall so as to avoid people's gazes.
Severely depressed and doubting his abilities as a musician, Drake recorded his final album Pink Moon (1972) in two two-hour sessions, both starting at midnight. The songs of Pink Moon were short (the album consists of eleven of them and lasts only 28 minutes) and emotionally bleak. Drake recorded them unaccompanied, in the presence of only a sound engineer (a piano was later overdubbed on the title track). Naked and sincere, it is widely thought to be his best work.
At this point, he considered other careers including the army and computer programming, but more suitably as a songwriter for other artists. However, none of Drake's plans materialized. In the next few months, Drake grew severely depressed and maintained relationships only with close friends such as John Martyn, who wrote the title song of his 1973 album Solid Air for and about Drake and with Sophia Ryde. He was hospitalized several times and lived with Hardy for a few months. Friends from that time have described how much his appearance changed: his nails grown, his hair and frame gaunt and thin.
In 1974, Drake felt well enough to write and record a few new songs. However, on November 25, he died of an overdose of antidepressants. The coroner concluded that the cause of Drake's death was suicide, although this was disputed by friends and relatives. Antidepressants of that time were quite lethal if ingested in any higher dosage than the one prescribed. His mother recounts that he must have had difficulty sleeping and had got up in the night to have a bowl of cornflakes. It's unclear whether he took more pills to help him sleep or to take his own life.
His simple gravestone in the Tanworth churchyard bears the line "And now we rise/And we are everywhere", taken from From the Morning - the last song on the last album Nick lived to complete.
Posthumous popularity
Since Drake’s death, his music has grown steadily in popularity. Several modern musicians, such as Lucinda Williams, Badly Drawn Boy, Matthew Good, Sebadoh's Lou Barlow, R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck, Blur’s Graham Coxon, and Belle and Sebastian, consider Drake an important influence. In early 1999, BBC2 aired a 40-minute Nick Drake documentary, "A Stranger Among Us — In Search of Nick Drake", as part of its Picture This strand. The following year saw the release of a documentary by Dutch director Jeroen Berkvens, titled A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake and featuring interviews with Joe Boyd, Gabrielle Drake, audio engineer John Wood, and arranger Robert Kirby. Brad Pitt is a fan of Drake and, in 2004, he narrated a BBC radio documentary about the singer.
Island has responded to Drake’s popularity with several new releases including Time of No Reply (1986), an album of unreleased material including four new songs recorded in 1974, Way to Blue: An Introduction to Nick Drake (1994), a "best of" album, remastered HDCD releases of his three studio albums in 2000, and Made to Love Magic (2004), featuring one new track and some newly recorded orchestration for a previously released track. A replacement for Way to Blue called A Treasury was also released in 2004 on Hybrid-SACD.
In 2000, Volkswagen licensed the track Pink Moon, the title track from Nick's third release, for a particularly serene car commercial in the US. The advertisement caused a significant bounce in Drake’s popularity, bolstered by uses of Drake's music on a number of film soundtracks, including 1998's Hideous Kinky and Practical Magic (featuring "Road" from Pink Moon and "Black Eyed Dog" from Time of No Reply, respectively). In 2001, two Bryter Layter tracks appeared in mainstream films: "Northern Sky" in Serendipity, and "Fly" in The Royal Tenenbaums. In the same year, "Cello Song" from Five Leaves Left was featured in Me Without You. In 2004, "One of These Things First" appeared in Garden State and "Northern Sky" was featured again, this time in Fever Pitch.
Drake's "River Man" has become quite popular among Jazz musicians. A piano improvisation based on the melody was released by Brad Mehldau on the album "Progression: Art Of The Trio, Volume 5", and a Jazz vocal version by Claire Martin appears on the album Take My Heart.
Drake's posthumous popularity has made many fans consider the lyrics to "Fruit Tree" a song from Five Leaves Left prophetic: “Fame is but a fruit tree / So very unsound. / It can never flourish / Till its stock is in the ground. / So men of fame / Can never find a way / Till time has flown / Far from their dying day.” In 2004 two of his singles reached low positions in the UK charts - "Magic" and "River Man".
Most recently, Nick Drake has emerged as a key influence in the resurgence of 1960's and 1970's folk traditions, apparent in the works of artists including Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, and Six Organs of Admittance.
In 2005, performer Beck updated his website during Christmas time with covers of three songs from Pink Moon: "Pink Moon", "Which Will" and "Parasite."
Family Tree, the next Bryter Music/Island record was released in July 2007.
Blues Runs The Game
Nick Drake Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Maybe to spain
Wherever I have gone
Wherever I've been and gone
Wherever I have gone, the blues I'd to sing
Go bring me whiskey, baby
Go bring me gin
Me and room service
Me and room service, well we're living like a sin
When I'm not drinking, baby
You are on my mind
When I'm not sleeping
When I'm not sleeping
When I'm not sleeping, well you know, you'll find me crying
Try another city, baby
Try another town
Wherever I have gone
Wherever I've been and gone
Wherever I have gone, the blues run the game
Well maybe someday, baby
Somewhere down the line
I'll wake up older, honey
So much older
I'll wake up older and just stop all my trying
Catch a boat to England, baby
Maybe to spain
Wherever I have gone
Wherever I've been and gone
Wherever I have gone, the blues run the game
The song "Blues Run the Game" by Nick Drake is a haunting and poignant ballad about the loneliness and despair that accompanies a life of wandering, trying to escape the blues that seem to follow the singer wherever he goes. The opening lines set the tone for the rest of the song, as the singer suggests that he is constantly on the move, trying to outrun his troubles and find some measure of happiness, but inevitably finds that the blues always catch up to him.
The first stanza suggests that the singer has no fixed destination in mind, as he contemplates catching a boat to England or Spain, both of which are far from his current location. He reflects on all the places he has been, but no matter where he goes, he finds himself singing the blues. The second stanza is a cry for help, as the singer turns to alcohol to escape his pain, but finds that it only exacerbates his problems. The reference to room service suggests that he is in a hotel, adding to the sense of rootlessness and transience.
The final stanza offers a glimmer of hope that the singer may one day find peace, but it is tempered by a sense of resignation and weariness. He suggests that he may one day wake up older and wiser, but at the moment, he is trapped in a cycle of trying to escape the blues, only to find that they are always one step ahead of him.
Overall, "Blues Run the Game" is a powerful meditation on the human condition, and the ways in which we try to cope with the pain and loneliness of existence. It is a testament to Nick Drake's unparalleled talent as a songwriter and musician, and remains a timeless classic of folk music to this day.
Line by Line Meaning
Catch a boat to England, baby
I'm leaving and traveling far away
Maybe to Spain
I'm searching for something new
Wherever I have gone
No matter where I travel to
Wherever I've been and gone
No matter where I've been
Wherever I have gone, the blues I'd to sing
I can't escape my sadness
Go bring me whiskey, baby
I'm drowning my sorrows
Go bring me gin
I need something stronger to forget
Me and room service, honey
I'm living a lonely lifestyle
Me and room service
I'm all alone in this hotel room
Me and room service, well we're living like a sin
My life is a sinful and depressing mess
When I'm not drinking, baby
When I'm not numbing my pain
You are on my mind
I can't stop thinking about you
When I'm not sleeping
When I can't escape to dreams
When I'm not sleeping
When insomnia keeps me up
When I'm not sleeping, well you know, you'll find me crying
I cry when I'm alone and can't hide my emotions
Try another city, baby
I'm always searching for a new start
Try another town
I'm looking for a place to call home
Wherever I have gone
No matter where I travel to
Wherever I've been and gone
No matter where I've been
Wherever I have gone, the blues run the game
I can't escape my sadness
Well maybe someday, baby
Maybe one day in the future
Somewhere down the line
In the future, far away
I'll wake up older, honey
I'll age and change
So much older
I'll be a completely different person
I'll wake up older and just stop all my trying
I'll give up and stop trying to escape my pain
Catch a boat to England, baby
I'm leaving and traveling far away
Maybe to Spain
I'm searching for something new
Wherever I have gone
No matter where I travel to
Wherever I've been and gone
No matter where I've been
Wherever I have gone, the blues run the game
I can't escape my sadness
Lyrics © OBO APRA/AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Heather Autumn
Nick Drake was obviously very influenced by Jackson C. Frank, although their singing styles differ quite a bit. It was interesting to hear Nick holding notes out like this; not his usual style. Beautiful cover. Both artists deserved all the fame and recognition in the world, yet, tragically, neither got it until after they died. RIP. Nick and Jackson.
ClydeBuilt SonofAlexander
I think there's a bit of Bert Jansch influence in there too
Kin Barksdale
Nick did very soon songs that weren't his own. A lot of people have done this song and his version is one of the best.
Mikey August
+Walter Barksdale Totally agree with you Walter
richard evans
The original is one of my top five songs of all time. Bought the record in 1965/6 when it first came out. I still have it. Quite wonderful. Met an old friend some years ago. Hadn’t seen him in forty years. His first question was “ have you still got the Jackson C
Elizabeth N
I agree - and ive heard them all. His phrasing transforms it and takes it to another level.
EverDownward
One of my favorite folk artists covering a song from one of my other favorite folk artists. Beauty.
Tonya Johnson
Love Nicks’ voice and guitar.
TOR Music
Great cover. Beautifully melancholic.
Richard Wicksteed
Beautiful - never knew he did this song, til tonight. Came via Bert Jansch. Thank you YouTube & Uploader.