Pink Moon by Nick Drake
Have nearly 36 years really passed? That’s ten more years than the span of Nick’s all-too-short life. He was 26 when he left abruptly on that dreary November day.
As the years go on, I grow fonder of Nick. How could I not? There’s a direct honesty to his quivering voice, at once tentative and precise. I’ve had debates with friends over the years about that voice – they say “Oh, he’s a great songwriter and all, but that voice – it’s chalkboard and fingernails for me.” I can’t hear that at all – or perhaps I have a fondness for chalkboards and nails, though I seriously doubt that.
It’s hard to pick out the quintessential Nick Drake song or album. Though we have only three fully-realized albums and a couple handfuls of half-finished demos and sketches, each of Nick’s works – Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter, and Pink Moon – are real, finely cut gems. I wouldn’t change a quivering note for the world.
A tune by Nick played a few moments ago on Deeper Into Music and as I sat here transfixed by its vitality, its bleakness, its purity, its freshness, I was stunned when I realized that this song was over 38 years old. I must have heard it 250 or more times in my life. And, yet, it seemed out of time and just newly hewn.
When you read in the wikipedia article that “none of the albums sold more than 5,000 copies on their initial release” it’s too heartbreaking to continue. Just a few lines later you come to this sentence: “Upon completion of his third album, 1972′s Pink Moon, he withdrew from both live performance and recording, retreating to his parents’ home in rural Warwickshire. On 25 November 1974, Drake died from an overdose of amitriptyline, a prescribed antidepressant; he was 26 years old.”
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I first encountered Nick’s albums about 8 years after his death, as a college student DJ. Our music director at the time was beside himself upon discovery of the three Drake albums in the cheap used bin at a local used record/book shop in Durham, NC. He snagged them and quickly added them to the library, announcing to the core DJs at the time their arrival. At first I wasn’t thrilled. Acquired tastes. Over a short time, though, the magic cloaked in those grooves exposed itself.
His intricate guitar figures can still transfix and stop me in my tracks. The world is a better place because of the music of Nick Drake. I wish it were possible for Nick to know the high esteem many now accord his work. Nick, come anytime and brighten our “Northern Skies”.
Note: the song “Life in a Northern Town” by The Dream Academy is a tribute to Nick:
They sat on the stoney ground
And he took a cigarette out
And everyone else came down
To listen.
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