Album: Five Leaves Left
The songwriting has the same lyrical quality found in Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, though the focus is less on autobiography and more on esoteric matters, nature and emotion, the stuff of Romantic poetry. Every song on this album is wonderful, but highlights are 'Cello Song ("strange face / with your eyes / so pale and sincere"), the mix of bass, cello and conga drums is mesmerising, and Time Has Told Me ("You came with the dawn / a soul with no footprint / a rose with no thorn"). Way To Blue is slightly out of step with the other songs, its melancholy strings and lyrics more intense than elsewhere on the album, hinting at the depression that would plague Drake throughout his adult life. Side 2 has a more relaxed, laid-back jazzy feel with the exception of Fruit Tree, a prophetic song about fame and legacy. Saturday Sun follows in more upbeat fashion, like a welcome break in the clouds, though again there's a sadness in the lyrics. Five Leaves Left was one of just three Nick Drake studio albums, and each one is perfect in its own way.
Artist: Nick Drake
Born: Tanworth-in-Arden, Warwickshire
Released: September 1969
Genre: Folk
Influenced: Kate Bush, REM, The Cure, Beth Orton, Belle & Sebastian
Nowadays, many English public school boys see music as a "career choice", but there was a time when dropping out of that well-trod path to Oxbridge was not a popular move. Nick Drake is, and always be, the most obvious exception to the rule that posh people can't make good music with something interesting to say. One of my favourite stories about the young Nick Drake is that, as a teenager, he decided with the rest of his jazz band not to let Chris de Burgh join since his tastes were "too poppy". At university, he'd spend most of his time listening to Dylan records and experimenting with guitar tunings. Ashley Hutchings of Fairport Convention spotted Drake playing in Camden Roundhouse in 1968 and introduced him to legendary producer, Joe Boyd, who signed him to Island Records. Boyd was keen to make Drake's first solo album sound like Songs of Leonard Cohen, drafting in Pentangle bassist Danny Thompson and Fairport's Richard Thompson. Drake managed to persuade Boyd to recruit his friend Robert Kirby to arrange some of the songs, though professional Harry Robertson was recruited for album centrepiece, River Man.
Nowadays, many English public school boys see music as a "career choice", but there was a time when dropping out of that well-trod path to Oxbridge was not a popular move. Nick Drake is, and always be, the most obvious exception to the rule that posh people can't make good music with something interesting to say. One of my favourite stories about the young Nick Drake is that, as a teenager, he decided with the rest of his jazz band not to let Chris de Burgh join since his tastes were "too poppy". At university, he'd spend most of his time listening to Dylan records and experimenting with guitar tunings. Ashley Hutchings of Fairport Convention spotted Drake playing in Camden Roundhouse in 1968 and introduced him to legendary producer, Joe Boyd, who signed him to Island Records. Boyd was keen to make Drake's first solo album sound like Songs of Leonard Cohen, drafting in Pentangle bassist Danny Thompson and Fairport's Richard Thompson. Drake managed to persuade Boyd to recruit his friend Robert Kirby to arrange some of the songs, though professional Harry Robertson was recruited for album centrepiece, River Man.
The songwriting has the same lyrical quality found in Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, though the focus is less on autobiography and more on esoteric matters, nature and emotion, the stuff of Romantic poetry. Every song on this album is wonderful, but highlights are 'Cello Song ("strange face / with your eyes / so pale and sincere"), the mix of bass, cello and conga drums is mesmerising, and Time Has Told Me ("You came with the dawn / a soul with no footprint / a rose with no thorn"). Way To Blue is slightly out of step with the other songs, its melancholy strings and lyrics more intense than elsewhere on the album, hinting at the depression that would plague Drake throughout his adult life. Side 2 has a more relaxed, laid-back jazzy feel with the exception of Fruit Tree, a prophetic song about fame and legacy. Saturday Sun follows in more upbeat fashion, like a welcome break in the clouds, though again there's a sadness in the lyrics. Five Leaves Left was one of just three Nick Drake studio albums, and each one is perfect in its own way.
Comments