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.
Way To Blue
Nick Drake Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Have you never heard a way to find the sun
Tell me all that you may know
Show me what you have to show
Won't you come and say
If you know the way to blue?
Have you seen the land living by the breeze
Tell me all that you may know
Show me what you have to show
Tell us all today
If you know the way to blue?
Look through time and find your rhyme
Tell us what you find
We will wait at your gate
Hoping like the blind.
Can you now recall all that you have known?
Will you never fall
When the light has flown?
Tell me all that you may know
Show me what you have to show
Won't you come and say
If you know the way to blue?
In "Way to Blue," Nick Drake explores themes of uncertainty, seeking guidance, and finding one's purpose. The song speaks to the listener directly, asking if they have any insight on how to find a direction in life. Drake questions the ability of the listener to understand the subtle workings of the world around them, asking if they have ever "heard a way to find the sun" or "seen the land living by the breeze."
He then urges them to share any knowledge they possess, saying "tell me all that you may know, show me what you have to show." But ultimately, the questioning leads to a sense of frustration and longing for something more concrete. Drake's final plea to the listener is simple yet profound: "If you know the way to blue?"
The phrase "way to blue" itself is left open to interpretation, but it's believed to refer to a sense of profound sadness or emotional emptiness that Drake experienced throughout his life. Some have interpreted it as a metaphor for depression, while others see it as a reflection of his deep, introspective nature. In any case, the song is a haunting meditation on the search for meaning and purpose in life.
Line by Line Meaning
Don't you have a word to show what may be done
Is there nothing you can say to indicate what can be accomplished?
Have you never heard a way to find the sun
You've never come across a path to discover happiness, have you?
Tell me all that you may know
Share with me any knowledge or insight you possess
Show me what you have to show
Demonstrate any skills or talents you possess
Won't you come and say
Please speak up and share with us
If you know the way to blue?
Do you know the path to inner tranquility and calm?
Have you seen the land living by the breeze
Have you witnessed a world at peace with itself and its surroundings?
Can you understand a light among the trees
Are you capable of experiencing the beauty of nature’s subtle simplicity?
Tell us all today
Share your observations and insights with us right now
If you know the way to blue?
If you know the way towards contentment and peacefulness, please enlighten us
Look through time and find your rhyme
Reflect upon your past experiences and find meaning in patterns and repetition
Tell us what you find
Share your observations and musings with us
We will wait at your gate
We will be patient and eager to hear what you have learned
Hoping like the blind
Eager for knowledge and insight despite a lack of clarity
Can you now recall all that you have known?
Have you forgotten what you’ve learned up until this point?
Will you never fall
Will you always maintain your sense of self and direction?
When the light has flown?
Even when the path and direction appear unclear?
Tell me all that you may know
Share your insights and understanding
Show me what you have to show
Demonstrate any talents or knowledge you might possess
Won't you come and say
Don’t hold back, speak up and share your findings with us
If you know the way to blue?
Do you have insight into how to find inner peace and contentment?
Lyrics © Reservoir Media Management, Inc.
Written by: Nick Drake
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Syndarel
Oh, how I love his voice on this arrangement. A little hoarse, sounds not perfect, but more expressive, to me, anyway. The stark piano chords in the beginning announce that there is a lot of effort behind this song, and a personal depth which one might miss with the overabundance of strings on the lusher arrangement.
Love them both, but his voice is masculine and raw here. Love it. Thanks for putting it up on YT, Jontez.
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Gilles Serrigny
If I had heard this song by a young man with his incredible talent, I would have though, that he probably wouldn't live long.
AbsolutShyam
I prefer this to the recorded version; the audio quality is not as good, but there is something so pure and plain about it. Thanks for uploading!
s ewind
A lot of his songs are much better without the additional arrangements, which are at times too overpowering; they dominate the music, which they shouldn't.
Carlito Mazzoni
Pure gold...