Nick Drake
Five leaves left

The voice comes from immeasurable distances, telling the story of a wandering girl and a mysterious river man.

The words are a whisper at the edge of the lips over a hypnotic and undulating music (the effect, those who know say, of an unusual five-four rhythm). Here's "River Man," or chamber blues, “the mix of honey and sadness for the dry biscuit of the soul,” as the vampire says.

"River Man," a gentle guitar, a bossa nova voice from the deep, with the last syllable of each verse stretched to the unbelievable. With strings that arrive like a kiss, like a caress to a desolate child and gradually become sad and dark and instead of welcoming and embracing, they stand there, as if they were the echo of internal dissonances.

The wandering girl that is your soul has faith, but you do not, and what the river man can tell you about the prohibition of feeling free will not help you... “I said goodbye to the world with kinds of romances” someone poeticized a hundred years earlier.

Paola De Angelis is right, "River Man," despite its lyrical and majestic flow, is a hot air balloon trying to rise and fly, but then falls back to the ground. It's a bit like the same concept (that of Uncle Robyn, remember?) of butterflies tied to an anchor.

That you are not the river man and the time of lilacs will not come... and the soul/wandering girl can say whatever she wants.

And on this track, my inner voice tells me to stop here. And so, even in the grip of some frustration, I stop. It's never been said that I don't listen to good advice.

"Three Hours" is a labyrinth song, with many roads and side streets, like throwing a stone into the water of a river would produce circles into infinity. It's known, virtuosity is almost always annoying, like a frog that saying I seeks applause. Here, however, it is not annoying at all.

And that guitar that goes in all directions genuinely takes you everywhere, aided by a surprising punctuation of congas, creating an incredible expansive effect, as if the circles from the water were reflected in the sky, in the green of the meadows, or wherever you want.

And how the voice enters! That tenderness and melancholy have sewn themselves a new dress and that breath seems deeper than ever and the words, the words are those of the blues. That "to the east of the city and down in the cave" you go "in search of a master"... "in search of a slave"... "in search of a life to tell when you are home"... "and everyone flies away"... "and no one wants to be seen alone." And in the end, everything slowly fades, the guitars, the congas... then, creating an extraordinary disorienting effect, which even the vampire admits, the strings of "Way to Blue" arrive, which "Three Hours" is track three and "Way to Blue is track four".

So after the urban wandering, an invocation to seek the azure or the blue, as you prefer, to enter the world with a little more courage compared to the shadows.

And with "Way to Blue" we are a millimeter from ridicule, perhaps even less, we are where it risks being cruelly sentimental, namely in the heart of the heart of lack, among questions whispered with an evocative tone and answers entrusted to the most reassuring areas of that honey voice.

"Way to Blue," no need to say more to a Drakian, but I’ve put in stuff to fall in love with this song, which here I really hated the strings and that voice I would have left alone.

That voice that asks for grace, that asks for knowledge, that asks that one can be in agreement (in rhyme) with time, as if we and the world could be two rhymes of the same poem.

And in any case, I am now old and waste my time on the tube in search of wonders. Well, I found one, an old gentleman who redoes "Way to Blue," only voice and guitar, changing a little the time and melody and turning it into a sparkling little folk song, managing to say more by saying less. Have I already told you about that science called the economy of sensation?

But I have made peace with “Way to Blue” for a long time now. Which now seems almost like a spiritual to me, the important thing, as it says in the end, is not to fall when the light goes out.

Yes, I've made peace. The vampire hasn't, he still sings it alone.

There is a great classicism in "Day is Done" and an absolute sadness "when the day is gone, when the night is cold, some make it, others grow old." I have always loved this track, with its sprightly and melancholic arrangement, with Nick singing almost at a run.

I loved it while keeping a certain perplexity under the radar., that here Nick is a classy singer-songwriter, something almost French, not my cup of tea, therefore. And yet. yet, if you get caught up in that rush, if you let yourself be carried away without thinking too much, the cup of tea fades into the background, to the point that this was my morning song for a while, waking up and "Five Leaves Left"...track five...with the repeat button...

These four songs are the heart of "Five Leaves Left" and they are of unbearable beauty.

Not that the rest is worth little, there may be only a few minor creaks. But if you're not Drakians of the "Pink Moon" current, those who would always want to hear him with only voice and guitar, you won’t notice.

But these four songs have a pre and post (preface and postface) in the initial “Time Has Told Me,” a wonderful ballad punctuated by the electric of Richard Thompson, and in the incredibly airy "Cello Song," a track that takes you straight among the clouds.

Oh, believe me, from one to six, it's a mystical experience, with tracks even quite different from each other united by a splendid voice and a magic that gives no respite.

But let's get to the creaks.

"Mary Jane" is a dreamy female figure, but also a perfect self-portrait. Many have written about the use of female doubles in his writing. Likely quite accurately.

The self-portrait is a bit too ideal, a bit too naive, a bit too romantic. But we have the screen of English to help us, because we always have to translate anyway, and in translating, the words are caught by the leash, a long leash that reaches into a distant sky.

So distant that that naivety arrives much, much attenuated. (Is it a good thing, is it a bad thing?)

Sure, as you get closer, those words lose some of their perfect rhetoric and let themselves be petted like cats. But if we want to enjoy their insinuating immediacy, we have to forget them and let ourselves go to the melody, listen, as the vampire listens, with a nocturnal ear,

It's not easy, because without the words and only with the melody (and with that honey voice) for us everything is confused, sweet, but confused...a kind of fog, something clear and white, feminine and maternal. For the vampire, no, for the vampire there's no vagueness and a figure emerges that has the luminosity and mystery of nocturnal tarot cards.

And so this "Mary Jane," "who flies and goes out in the rain" "and travels to the stars"... "who has colored and bright rings" "who comes from a different world" and who is "the princess of the sky" (I told you we are really in the most disarming naivety)... and so this “Mary Jane,” the vampire sees her truly, exactly as you see that wall at this moment... ah what an effort though!!!... even here there are all those strings or creaks.

(Rereading this delirium on the thoughts of "Mary Jane" I myself do not quite understand what I wrote. These are jokes that happen while traveling between songs, so that's fine).

"Saturday Sun" I imagine it sung by Billie Holiday or Karen Dalton, sad nightingales, or by my aunt, who also had a birdlike voice, just, just slightly cracked as if from a slight shortness of breath or perhaps arriving a little late. Listening to her, one was pervaded by a kind of limping grace, a flickering candle over the sound of an old radio. Perhaps she was just humming, but humming, in certain cases, is once again saying more by saying less. Have I already mentioned the science known as... oh yes, I've already talked about it. Perhaps I didn’t tell you that it was invented by the vampire.

But there is a guy called Joe Something, a teddy bear type with glasses and a beard, who knows that science.

Joe Something is one who puts his stuff on the tube, among other things, a lot of Nick covers.

Well, the one of "Saturday Sun" is fantastic and stripped to the bone, just a basic guitar riff and the right voice. What you need to tell about a sunny Saturday, about the wonder of a quiet joy that returns and returns, idealized, but sad, because the Saturday sun is now only the Sunday rain.

Oh yes, just a few blue notes are needed, depiction of melancholy and its cure.

Let's be clear, Nick's version in "Five Leaves Left" is wonderful, but too cool, too perfect. Better the version with only piano (which I think can be found in “Second Grace”) that at least makes us think of his mother.

That then the mother's thing is interesting: according to Joe Boyd, Nick's particular guitar style would derive from trying to imitate the chords she played on the piano, see how things happen.

But let's get back to the old Joe Something, who magically, manages to do justice to a masterpiece song... oh he sings slower than he can and gives light to the melody, to those words so simple and touching, and the voice is fragile with that just a hint of uncertainty of the sad nightingales...

But perhaps Joe Something and the other old gentleman of "Way to Blue" are just my dreams.

Then of course there is "Fruit Tree," considered by most to be a masterpiece. I find it pretentious. But anyway, I love it to death, because it's also gloomy, doleful. And my dream is that one day an outtake will emerge with only voice and guitar.

What do you want, I'm a Drakian "Pink Moon" current.

Stop.

Actually, no. I forgot "Man in a Shed": what can I tell you, it's a beautiful song.