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.
Cello Song
Nick Drake Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
So pale and sincere
Underneath you know well
You have nothing to fear
For the dreams that came to you when so young
Told of a life
Where spring is sprung
In the cold of the night
When the armies of emotion
Go out to fight
But while the earth sinks to its grave
You sail to the sky
On the crest of a wave
So forget this cruel world
Where I belong
I'll just sit and wait
And sing my song
And if one day you should see me in the crowd
Lend a hand and lift me
To your place in the cloud
Nick Drake’s “Cello Song” begins with vivid imagery of a “strange face” that is both pale and sincere. The following lines offer a comforting message; beneath the surface, the face has nothing to fear because the dreams that were woven in the fabric of its youth foretold a life where spring would always arrive. The next verse features Drake’s distinctive voice, singing about frailty and the armies of emotion that go to war in our minds. But while a person may seem so weak and small, there is the possibility of transcendence; he sings that as the earth sinks into its grave, a person can sail to the sky on the crest of a wave.
Drake's lyrics talk about the wonders that one can experience, that are just out of reach, and the hope and determination to obtain them. According to some interpretations, they’re also a commentary on Drake's own life, as he may have been talking about his own struggles with depression and the rather unrelenting nature of fame. It could also be about the passage of time, and the feeling of being left behind after it’s moved on without you. Ultimately the song ends on a hopeful note, with Drake asking for a little bit of help in navigating his way through life, but also acknowledging the existence of a “place in the cloud” where everything is pure and perfect.
Line by Line Meaning
Strange face, with your eyes
You have an unusual countenance, and your eyes are particularly striking
So pale and sincere
Your face is very light in color, suggesting a degree of purity or honesty
Underneath you know well
Despite your exterior appearance, you are deeply aware of your true self
You have nothing to fear
There is no reason for you to be afraid, as you have no enemies and are secure in yourself
For the dreams that came to you when so young
The aspirations and visions that you had as a child continue to influence you today
Told of a life
These dreams painted a picture of what your existence would look like
Where spring is sprung
Your ideal world is represented by the renewal and growth of springtime
You would seem so frail
At times, you appear delicate and fragile
In the cold of the night
During moments of darkness and difficulty
When the armies of emotion
When strong, conflicting feelings are causing chaos
Go out to fight
These emotions are engaged in a struggle
But while the earth sinks to its grave
While the world around us deteriorates and fades away
You sail to the sky
You are able to rise above the negativity and transcend the earthly realm
On the crest of a wave
You are able to ride the swells of your emotions and remain balanced
So forget this cruel world
It is wise to detach oneself from the harsh reality of everyday existence
Where I belong
This is the place where I am most comfortable and familiar
I'll just sit and wait
I will be patient and await the right opportunities
And sing my song
I will express myself through music and creativity
And if one day you should see me in the crowd
If you happen to recognize me amidst the throngs of people
Lend a hand and lift me
Please assist me and elevate me
To your place in the cloud
Take me to where you are, a higher state of being
Lyrics © Reservoir Media Management, Inc.
Written by: Nick Drake
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@kennethwatt5392
‘Cello Song
Strange face
With your eyes
So pale and sincere
Underneath you know well
You have nothing to fear
For the dreams that came
To you when so young
Told of a life
Where spring is sprung
You would seem so frail
In the cold of the night
When the armies of emotion
Go out to fight
But while the earth
Sinks to it’s grave
You sail to the sky
On the crest of a wave
So forget this cruel world
Where I belong
I’ll just sit and wait
And sing my song
And if one day you should see me in the crowd
Lend a hand and lift me
To your place in the cloud
@RichardPrickles
please tell me that you still listen to Nick Drake and that you will never stop listening to Nick Drake and that he is safe in the womb of his everlasting night
@yasmin9473
if you have good taste in music, God will lead you to nick drake in some way
@UnknownDamone
Truest thing I've read in the last 10 years
@shaunadamson4634
In my case, He worked via Al Pacino who did his first ever commercial for Vittoria Coffee (very good coffee). My life is richer now for looking further into what that amazing backing music to those ad's was, and here I am!
@bugsbacon3025
If you find Nick Drake you will find God. Talent like this shines out. It touches you like no other.
@asifulalamakash3650
Hello! I'm from Bangladesh too! Can we be friend on facebook? Please!!
@JasonSchmidt-1979
Amen
@garymurray8903
I quite like the fact that I don't know anyone else who likes Nick Drake the way I do. It makes the magic and mystery seem all too real.
@blaumausfrau
I am on a crusade in life to turn as many people as possible onto this guy. He is getting more and more famous. But its never enough for me. This man was a one in a trillion. A generational genius
@stoopidpants
I've been doing a similar thing for the past..jeez 23 years. It's odd many people don't know his name but his influence is huge. Uniquely gifted guy.