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.
From the Morning
Nick Drake Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
A day once dawned from the ground
Then the night, she fell
And the air was beautiful
The night, she fell all around
So look, see the days
The endless colored ways
From the morning
And now we rise
We are everywhere
And now we rise from the ground
See, she flies
She is everywhere
See, she flies all around
So look, see the sights
The endless summer nights
And go play the game that you learned
From the morning
Nick Drake’s "From The Morning" is a song about the beauty and endless possibilities of life. The first two lines of the song, “A day once dawned, and it was beautiful/A day once dawned from the ground,” suggest that there was a beautiful moment in time that occurred spontaneously, without any human intervention. This could refer to the pure, unadulterated beauty of nature, or simply the beauty of a moment that was lost forever. The song then takes a darker turn as it describes how the night fell, and everything changed. “Then the night, she fell/And the air was beautiful/The night, she fell all around." The contrast between the light and dark, and the beauty and ugliness, creates a sense of tension.
The verses then switch to a more positive message of rebirth, where Drake sings about rising from the ground, mirroring the way that the day once dawned from the ground. “And now we rise/We are everywhere/And now we rise from the ground.” The scene shifts again to Drake urging listeners to “see the sights/The endless summer nights," in a message of optimism and encouragement. Finally, Drake repeats the refrain to "go play the game that you learned/From the morning." This line is an encouraging reminder to stay true to oneself, and to trust your intuition and instincts.
Line by Line Meaning
A day once dawned, and it was beautiful
There was a daybreak that was breathtakingly beautiful
A day once dawned from the ground
The sun rose over the horizon from the earth's surface
Then the night, she fell
As the day came to an end, the darkness of the night descended upon us
And the air was beautiful
The atmosphere was serene and exquisite
The night, she fell all around
The night surrounded us and encased us completely
So look, see the days
Take a close look at the days that unfold before you
The endless colored ways
The infinite possibilities and experiences that life has to offer
And go play the game that you learned
Embrace the skills and knowledge you've acquired and use them to your advantage
From the morning
As early as the dawn of your day, begin applying those skills.
And now we rise
We begin to ascend to new heights
We are everywhere
Our influence and impact can be felt across vast stretches of the world
And now we rise from the ground
We lift ourselves up from the lowest point and strive to achieve great things
See, she flies
Observe the way she soars through the sky
She is everywhere
Her presence can be felt all around
See, she flies all around
She flies freely, uninhibited by any constraints
So look, see the sights
Take a good look at the mesmerizing sights and views
The endless summer nights
Experience the warm, unending summer nights that offer so much joy
And go play the game that you learned
Use the acquired skills to navigate through the challenges of life
From the morning
From the early hours of daylight, begin your journey.
Lyrics © Reservoir Media Management, Inc.
Written by: Nick Drake
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@Garabella
A day once dawned
And it was beautiful
A day once dawned from the ground
Then the night she fell
And the air was beautiful
The night she fell all around
So look see the days
The endless coloured ways
And go play the game that you learnt
From the morning
And now we rise
And we are everywhere
And now we rise from the ground
And see she flies
And she is everywhere
See she flies all around
So look see the sights
The endless summer nights
And go play the game that you learnt
From the morning
@thekingsservant1793
Such a beautiful song....hard to believe someone wrote this. It's the Van Gogh of acoustic music.
@reducecotwo
A lot of brilliant lyrics came out of the '70's.
@blaumausfrau
I have often compared Nick to Van Gogh. They both had so much in common. They gave all their heart to the world and the world rejected them both. But now we have them here in our collective heart and conscience. And we can thank GOD for them both. They both will stay in our hearts forever.
@chrisarchard2009
@reduce cotwo sure, but not top tier genius magnum opuses written like Mozarts requiem prior to death...and there will never ever be another Nick Drake, right down to that distinct other worldly vocal tone he has ..which thousands of cringe indie acoustic artists have ripped off and copied
@ZippzoppzibbiddyZoop
So interesting. I just finished writing my thoughts and had included Van Goghs" Starry Starry Night" , then read Your comment. Agreed
@JMORIZIO
This is the last song on his last album and it is a 2 minute summary of the beauty that came from all his previous songs. After I heard it, there was silence that filled my room and I realized that there was no more of Nick's work to be heard. I wasn't sad since every time I hear a song of his, there's something new that comes from it. He didn't only record three albums, he recorded an infinite amount. Thanks again for your music Nick.
@ip5799
there is plenty more on youtube that aren't on his three albums, you must search! rider on the wheel for example, a classic.
@ip5799
its been 11 years since you commented that, hope you are doing well man
@pipi3126HD
From The Morning makes me want to apologise to everyone I ever hurt, and forgive anyone that ever hurt me. People wanna talk about psychedelic music? THIS is psychedelic music. This song is a portal. From The Morning makes me want to be a better man.
@nathanael8612
Let's grow