Nick Drake
Three albums that sold only a few thousand copies in his lifetime quietly found their listeners over the half century after he was gone.
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
Bandmates and peers ⏳🌊
- FamilyMolly Drake
His mother, whose lonely songs, written and sung at home, left a deep mark on her son's music.
- FamilyGabrielle Drake
His older sister and an actress, who took charge of her brother's legacy and brought their mother's recordings and a collection of her work into the world.
- FriendshipRobert Kirby
A friend from Cambridge who arranged the strings and brass on the first two albums.
- ProducerJoe Boyd
The man who discovered him and produced the first two of the three albums, as well as the final recordings.
- ProducerJohn Wood
An engineer at Sound Techniques, he recorded “Pink Moon” alone with Drake.
- FriendshipJohn Martyn
His closest fellow musician, who wrote “Solid Air” with him in mind.
I. The boy from Rangoon · 1948–1966
(Birth) He was born in June 1948 in Rangoon (now Yangon), Burma (now Myanmar), five months after Burma won its independence from Britain. His father, Rodney Drake, was an engineer with the timber firm the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation, and he had a sister, Gabrielle, four years his elder. In 1950 the family moved to Bombay (now Mumbai), India, and in 1951 they returned to England, settling at Far Leys, a house in the small Warwickshire village of Tanworth-in-Arden. All his life, that house would be the place he came back to. (Mother) His mother, Molly Drake, played the piano at home and wrote songs of her own. Preserved by Rodney on a domestic tape recorder, those songs were marked by lonely harmonies and a low, quiet voice. Nick grew up listening to that sound, and critics and family alike would later agree that her shadow fell long across her son's music. His sister Gabrielle grew up to become an actress. (School) After Eagle House, a boarding prep school in Berkshire, he entered the prestigious boarding school Marlborough College in 1962. Tall and long-legged, he stood out as a sprinter and played rugby as well. He learned piano, clarinet and saxophone, and with friends formed a band, the Perfumed Gardeners, playing jazz and blues. He first took up the guitar at around sixteen. Reserved and shy, he was nonetheless quietly trusted among his friends. His teachers noted that his studies were slack for one of his gifts.
II. Aix-en-Provence and Cambridge · 1966–1968
(Deferral) In 1966 he won a scholarship to Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, but deferred his entry and spent several months in early 1967 at the university in Aix-en-Provence, in the south of France. He threw himself into guitar practice rather than his classes, and traveled with friends as far as Morocco. This is also said to be when he first came into contact with cannabis. It was a period, too, when he delved into fingerpicking, plucking the strings one by one, and into tunings that alter the pitch of the strings to draw out a distinctive resonance. (Cambridge) In the autumn of 1967 he began reading English at Cambridge. He was drawn to William Blake and the French Symbolist poets, but spent more time with his guitar in his room than in the lecture hall. There he met Robert Kirby, who was studying music. Kirby would go on to arrange strings and winds for Drake's songs, and their collaboration defined the sound of the first two albums. (Discovery) Sometime between late 1967 and early 1968, Ashley Hutchings, the bassist of Fairport Convention, heard him play at a concert at London's Roundhouse and introduced him to the producer Joe Boyd. American-born, Boyd ran the production company Witchseason and had nurtured Fairport Convention and the Incredible String Band. After hearing tapes Drake had recorded at home, Boyd offered him a contract on the spot, and the records were to come out on Island Records. It was the moment a nineteen-year-old university freshman set foot at the very heart of British folk.
III. Five leaves left · 1968–1969
(Recording) In 1968, shuttling to London during term, he recorded his first album at Sound Techniques, a small studio in Chelsea. Engineer John Wood sat at the console, and Pentangle's bassist Danny Thompson and Fairport Convention's guitarist Richard Thompson added their playing. Wood and Boyd's approach was to capture Drake's guitar and voice up close, creating an intimate sound in which even his breathing could be heard. (Arrangement) The first string arrangements, by Richard Hewson, did not please Drake. He brought in his Cambridge friend Kirby, who wrote the restrained strings those songs called for. Only the most ambitious song, “River Man,” left Kirby daunted, and Boyd recalled calling in the seasoned arranger Harry Robinson. That a student poet's songs came dressed in a sound woven like chamber music owed something to both this friendship and this stubbornness. (Silence) The album came out in the summer of 1969 under the title “Five Leaves Left.” The title came from the notice slipped in near the end of a packet of cigarette papers, warning that only five sheets remained. A few reviews were favorable, but sales were negligible. Drake gave almost no interviews and almost no concerts. That same year he left Cambridge, nine months short of graduating, and went to London. His father wrote letters urging him again and again at least to finish his degree, but he is said to have replied that a degree would only become a safety net keeping him from committing himself fully to music.
The first album, made by a Cambridge undergraduate shuttling to London, on which his friend Robert Kirby's string arrangements and John Wood's intimate recording first brought his sound to the world.
- “Way to Blue,” chosen as the signature track, has no guitar at all. Built from Drake's voice and a small string ensemble written by Kirby, it makes his voice sound like a single part in a work of chamber music.
- In the opening track, “Time Has Told Me,” Richard Thompson's electric guitar slips brief replies in between the lines of the song. Follow that slender melody on the right.
- Voice and guitar were recorded close to the microphone, so you can hear even his fingers sliding along the strings and his breathing. On headphones, the intimacy comes alive, as if the singer were sitting right beside you.
- Danny Thompson's double bass lies low beneath the guitar rather than pushing the rhythm hard. Listen for how, in songs with almost no drums, it is this bass that holds up the beat.
The very song Kirby, feeling daunted, passed to Harry Robinson, and the most ambitious moment on the first album.
- It is in a rare meter of five beats to the bar (5/4 time). Count to five on your fingers as you listen, and you will hear why the song always sways as if not quite finished.
- Harry Robinson's strings are said to have been recorded with Drake playing live in the studio alongside them. Listen for the passage after the first verse where the strings slowly swell.
- Robinson's arrangement is often said to recall the English composer Delius. The passages where the strings draw out long chords and spread like mist give that impression.
- The voice stays low and calm to the end. As if speaking to a figure by the river, it never soars, keeping to a manner close to talking to oneself.
IV. The bright sound of London · 1969–1971
(London) He lived in a rented room near Hampstead in north London, getting by on the meager retainer the label sent him. He spent long stretches alone, and many recall that he would stay at a friend's place for days and then leave without a word. The noise of the city and his isolation seeped into the songs of the second album. (Lineup) Recorded in 1970, “Bryter Layter” was the album Boyd made in hopes of reaching a wider audience. Fairport Convention members Richard Thompson, Dave Pegg and Dave Mattacks held down the rhythm, and John Cale, formerly of the Velvet Underground, played keyboards and viola on two songs. Kirby's brass arrangements, female backing vocals and jazz saxophone were added, and three instrumentals opened and closed the album. The release, planned for November 1970, was pushed back to March 1971, and sales were poor once again. Around the same time, Boyd sold Witchseason to Island and left for America to work on film music. For Drake, it meant losing his staunchest champion. (Stage) Performing was an ordeal for him. Because he had to retune for each song, long silences fell between numbers, and he barely spoke to the audience. He is said to have all but stopped performing after he broke off mid-set and walked off the stage at a 1970 concert in Ewell, Surrey. The musician closest to him in this period was John Martyn. Martyn said he wrote “Solid Air,” the title track of his 1973 album, with Drake in mind. An interview with the music paper Sounds in March 1971 is regarded as the only press interview he gave in his lifetime.
Released during his lonely London years, it is the closest thing to a happy love song in his work. John Cale played the keyboards.
- John Cale played piano, organ and the celesta, a keyboard instrument with a clear, bell-like tone. Listen for the celesta glinting behind the song.
- The drums are absent at first and enter cautiously midway through. Feel the whole song slowly brighten from there.
- The tone is that of someone who has just discovered love, confessing it quietly. Many say Drake's voice sounds noticeably warmer here than on his other songs.
- In the final section, Cale's piano and organ overlap and spread wide. It is an ending in which a song sung alone seems to open up like the sky.
His most lavish album, for which Boyd, hoping for a larger audience, gathered Fairport Convention members along with brass and jazz players.
- “Hazey Jane II,” chosen as the signature track, opens with Richard Thompson's jaunty electric guitar. Soon after, Kirby's brass arrangement bursts in brightly.
- Dave Pegg's bass and Dave Mattacks's drums lay down Fairport Convention's trademark tight rhythm. Unlike on the first album, there is a groove that sets the body moving of its own accord.
- The three instrumentals “Introduction,” “Bryter Layter” and “Sunday” link the album's beginning, middle and end. They are a device for changing scenes without singing, using only strings, flute and guitar.
- Even amid the lavish instrumentation, Drake's voice never steps forward but stays slightly behind the instruments. The distance between the bright sound and the lonely voice is the emotional heart of the album.
V. The pink moon · 1971–1972
(Depression) Around 1971, Drake sank into a deep depression. He avoided people and fell silent, and he saw a London psychiatrist who prescribed antidepressants. Friends recalled that he was ashamed of taking the pills and feared they would dull his creativity. It is also said that Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records, lent him his place in Spain, where he stayed for a time. (Recording) In October 1971 he contacted John Wood and said he wanted to record again. The two worked alone at Sound Techniques over two nights. With no arranger and no session players, they recorded only voice and guitar; the sole overdub was a single piano line he played himself on the title track. It was an album of eleven songs, under 30 minutes in all. Stripped of the rich arrangements of the two earlier albums, this spare sound seemed to mirror just how little remained in his life at that time. (Release) “Pink Moon” came out in February 1972. The story spread widely that he left the tapes at the reception desk of Island's office without a word, but those involved testify that he handed them over in person. The label ran advertisements in the music papers, but sales were once again negligible. Drake is said to have let those around him know that he would make no more records.
Recorded in the depths of depression over just two nights, alone with John Wood, the album strips away all the arrangements of the two records before it.
- “Place to Be,” chosen as the representative track, is nothing but voice and guitar. It sounds like the quiet confession of someone looking back on a youth that has already slipped away.
- All eleven songs together run to less than 30 minutes. The short pieces follow one another without pause, so it is best heard in one sitting from beginning to end.
- The guitar is played by plucking the strings one at a time with the fingers (fingerpicking), and in a tuning that alters the pitch of the strings (open tuning) the open strings ring on and on. Listen for the lingering resonance of the low strings sounding between the chords.
- “Horn” is a guitar instrumental of little more than a minute. The silence between the notes sounds as loud as the playing itself, a moment that distills the mood of the whole album.
VI. Last days at Far Leys · 1972–1974
(Homecoming) In 1972 he returned to his parents' house in Tanworth-in-Arden. That year he also spent several weeks in a psychiatric hospital. Rodney and Molly watched over their son as he stayed silently in his room, and the father's careful notes on his son's condition later became an important source for biographers. He would take his mother's car and drive aimlessly, then run out of petrol and phone his parents to come and fetch him. (Frustration) He felt deeply frustrated that his music had gone unrecognized. Joe Boyd recalled that when he saw Drake again in 1974, Drake angrily demanded to know why he had not succeeded. For a man who had never once raised his voice against the world, that anger had been building for a long time. (Revival) In 1974 he recorded four songs with Boyd at Sound Techniques. These songs, “Black Eyed Dog” among them, were even barer and more precarious than Pink Moon. That summer he stayed in Paris, living on a boat on the Seine, and friends remembered him as noticeably brighter. There are also reports that he discussed writing songs with the circle of the French singer Françoise Hardy. (Death) On the morning of 25 November 1974 he was found dead in his room at Far Leys. He had taken an overdose of the antidepressant amitriptyline. The inquest returned a verdict of suicide, but some among his family and friends believed it may have been an accident while he was trying to get to sleep. He was twenty-six. He was buried in the churchyard of St Mary Magdalene in the village.
One of the last recordings of 1974, its sound — even barer and more precarious than Pink Moon — captures his life at that time just as it was.
- In England the black dog has long been a figure for depression. The song sounds like the uneasy monologue of someone who senses something drawing near.
- The guitar repeats the same short figure over and over. The harmony barely changes, giving the sense of circling with no way out.
- The voice is high and thin, cracking as if it trembles. Set beside the gentle voice of the earlier albums, it lets you guess what happened in between.
- It first appeared on the 1979 box set Fruit Tree. A short song of just over 3 minutes, it ends abruptly, without any ornament.
VII. The audience that arrived late · 1974–2023
(Rediscovery) His death went almost unnoticed. In 1979 Island released the box set Fruit Tree, gathering the three albums along with the last recordings of 1974, and with it his name quietly began to pass among musicians. In 1985 R.E.M. recorded their third album, Fables of the Reconstruction, in London with Joe Boyd producing. The band reportedly chose Boyd largely because he was the man who had made the records of Drake and Fairport Convention. (The commercial) The turning point was a 1999 American television commercial for Volkswagen. When “Pink Moon” played over a scene of young people driving under the moonlight, sales of his albums in the United States surged. His songs went on to appear in film after film and series after series, and albums that had sold only a few thousand copies in his lifetime became steadily selling classics. (Legacy) His father Rodney died in 1988, his mother Molly in 1993. His older sister Gabrielle took charge of her brother's estate, releasing their mother's home recordings in 2013 and compiling the book Remembered for a While in 2014. In 2023 Richard Morton Jack's authorized biography, written with the family's cooperation, appeared, and in place of the simple myth of the melancholy genius, the figure of a young man with humor, friendships and ambition came into sharper focus.
The song that, used in a 1999 Volkswagen commercial, introduced his music to the world all over again.
- The piano on this track is the only overdub on the entire album. Listen for the moment when a short piano melody, played by Drake himself, enters above the guitar and voice.
- A short song of just over 2 minutes. As if foretelling an approaching fate, yet in a calm, matter-of-fact tone, it is compressed into that brief span.
- The guitar mixes hard-strummed rhythm with finger-plucked notes. That rhythm and melody can be heard at once even though he plays alone is a hallmark of Drake's guitar.
- In the commercial it accompanied a moonlit drive and was taken as a dreamy song. Heard again within the flow of the album, it sounds far darker and harder.
Lesser-known stories
Molly Drake's songs long sat only in the family's box of tapes. Recorded at home by Rodney in the 1950s, they were not released on record until 2013. Critics who heard them remarked that the lonely movement of the harmonies and the low, sunken voice resembled her son's songs to a startling degree. The most important clue to where Drake's music came from was made public almost 40 years after his death. The story that he silently left the Pink Moon tapes at the reception desk of Island's office spread widely as an anecdote emblematic of his solitude. Yet the testimony of John Wood and label staff, along with later biographies, records that he handed over the tapes in person. The anecdote seems to have been inflated in the posthumous mythmaking that sought to paint him as a shy, ghostlike figure. He never wrote down his tunings anywhere. Guitarists who wanted to play his songs had to listen to the recordings again and again, working backward to guess the pitch of each string. Many of the tuning charts for his songs in use today were reconstructed in this way by fans and players. “Tow the Line,” one of the last recordings of 1974, lay forgotten for 30 years until it was found among Island's archive tapes in 2004 and released for the first time. That the last song he left behind became known so late shows, in reverse, how few people paid him any attention in his lifetime. In his Marlborough days he was closer to an athlete than a melancholy poet. He is said to have set some of the best sprinting times in the school, and his classmates remembered him as a quiet friend who was good at sports. Behind the posthumous image of the melancholy genius lay this ordinary, healthy boyhood.
Glossary 📚🔎
Open tuning
(Meaning) The English word open means not closed. The name comes from tuning the guitar so that a chord rings out even when it is strummed with the strings left open, no strings pressed by the left hand. (In rock) A way of tuning the six strings of the guitar to pitches different from the usual. Even when the strings are simply strummed without being pressed, a beautiful chord sounds, and the unpressed strings ring on, leaving a distinctive resonance. Drake used a different tuning for each song, so at concerts long silences fell between songs as he retuned. Just as taping over a few holes of a recorder makes the same fingering produce entirely different notes, it is a way of getting different sounds from the same hand shape.
Fingerpicking
(Meaning) The English word finger means a digit of the hand, and picking means plucking. It means plucking the strings with the fingers. (In rock) A guitar technique in which, instead of strumming all the strings at once with a pick (a small piece of plastic), the fingers of the right hand pluck the strings one by one. While the thumb marks the beat on the low strings, the other fingers can play a melody on the high strings, so a single player can deliver accompaniment and melody at the same time. It is similar to playing the piano, where the left hand takes the accompaniment and the right hand the melody.
Arrangement
(Meaning) Pyeongok (編曲) means weaving together (編) a piece (曲). It is the work of reworking an existing song — deciding which instruments will play it and how. (In rock) The work of deciding, for the melody and harmony a composer has written, which instruments come in when and what sounds they make. The same song is modest when sung with a single guitar and grand when several strings are added. On Drake's first two albums his friend Robert Kirby wrote the string and brass arrangements. It is like rolling kimbap: with the same ingredients, the flavor changes depending on which ones you put where, and how much.
Overdubbing
(Meaning) The English word over means on top, and dub means to lay down sound. It means laying new sound over sound that has already been recorded. (In rock) A method in which a previously recorded performance is played back while another instrument or voice is recorded separately along with it, layering them together. It lets a single musician sound as if they were playing many instruments. On Pink Moon only the single piano line on the title track was added this way; everything else was recorded straight, voice and guitar. It is similar to painting a picture and then, once it has dried, laying another coat of color on top.
Meter
(Meaning) In bakja (拍子), bak (拍) means clapping the hands. It refers to a unit of counting that comes around regularly, like clapping. (In rock) The framework that determines how many beats make up a group before the music cycles back. Most rock and pop is in quadruple time, counted in groups of four. Drake's “River Man” is in the rare quintuple time, counted in groups of five, so the song always seems to sway, slightly off-kilter. It is like jumping rope to one-two-three-four and then switching to one-two-three-four-five — the rhythm suddenly feels strange. (Elsewhere) In everyday Korean, when work or words fit well together, people also say the bakja ('beat') is in step.
Engineer
(Meaning) The English word engineer means a technician who handles machines; in the studio it refers to the technician who handles the recording equipment. (In rock) The recording technician who decides where to place the microphones, how loud to capture the sound and how to blend the instruments. If the producer sets the direction of the whole album, the engineer turns that direction into actual sound. John Wood captured Drake's voice and guitar close to the microphone, creating a sound in which even his breathing can be heard. It is similar to what the friend in the school broadcasting club does, adjusting the microphones and the volume. (Elsewhere) In general it means a technician who designs and builds bridges, machines or computer programs.
Session musician
(Meaning) The English word session means a gathering held for a set period of time. It means a person called in to play during recording time. (In rock) A musician who is not an official member of the band but comes in to play the instruments needed when an album is recorded. Because Drake was a solo singer with no band, musicians such as Richard Thompson and John Cale contributed their playing at each recording. It is similar to a friend from another class dropping by a school play to accompany it on the piano.