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Rating: Nick Drake November 26, 1974 - November 26, 2004. We are now just two months away from the end of this 1969, which will almost certainly be remembered as one of the happiest musical years of the decade we are about to bid farewell to: between the great Woodstock event, the boom of the American Creedence Clearwater Revival, the emerging transgressive rock of the Led Zeppelin (the most popular band of the moment), the new ambitious project by The Who, and the very recent marvel from the Beatles (despite the increasingly insistent, so far refuted, rumors of their possible breakup), we vinyl happiness enthusiasts have been spoiled for choice. Many artists have finally found the winning opportunity for their consecration in front of the world's audience, with original and innovative proposals: and despite everything, there is still great anticipation for the new release from the Rolling Stones, coming soon, which will be their return to the scene after Brian Jones' tragic end last July. However, this week I wanted to introduce you to an album that came out rather quietly, on the Island label, and hasn't yet received the promotion it undoubtedly deserves: the album in question is called "Five Leaves Left" and the artist is Nick Drake. A name certainly still unknown to most, but trust me when I say this is the debut album of the year! Indeed, this 21-year-old Cambridge student is not the classic singer-songwriter/troubadour à la Donovan, of which countless imitators now abound worldwide, but his proposal is decidedly more particular, and for this reason, strikes straight at the listener's heart. Unlike Dylan, Drake doesn't want to impose himself as an "engaged" protest singer (a courageous choice, these days), he doesn't have the ambition to represent his generation (like Simon & Garfunkel, for example), nor does he take on the role of the umpteenth storyteller. In his music, one might find at most some debts to Van Morrison (a name that has now become a benchmark for all British songwriters) and the folk of Fairport Convention, but that doesn't change the fact that the main theme of this album is none other than himself, the desire to communicate to others his loves, hopes, passions for art and poetry: to finally communicate himself. He is shy, Drake: you can sense it from the photo on the cover, from the subdued, detached, almost impersonal tone of his voice. He doesn't give interviews, he doesn't perform live. He is shy and shadowy, but not enough to hide his great talent and ambition to be discovered and appreciated by the general public: in fact, for the realization and production of the ten songs that make up this "Five Leaves Left" (the title references a phrase on his favorite cigarette papers), he relies on the help of his friend Robert Kirby, called at the last moment to arrange strings, betraying his passion for symphonic music. In the sweet country-tinged ballad "Time Has Told Me," the complexity of Drake's sensitive nature can be summed up in the simple line "I’ll leave the roads that are making me love what I don't really want to love." The atmosphere turns tense and painful in "River Man," an unsettling song that seems to hide Drake's personal ghosts behind the story of the unhappy Betty. A small bongo sets the time for the long and hypnotic "Three Hours," but probably the true masterpiece is the sad and sweet "Way To Blue," where Drake's voice shines over the small orchestra like a comet in a starry night at the North Pole. After a few listens, it's hard to choose one piece over another; it's almost as if each song becomes dear to you as if they were real people: the fatalistic "Day Is Done" ("When the day is done / you hope that your race has been run / then you find it's just begun / and you have to come back to where you started"), the love & death pairing of "'Cello Song" ("Forget this cruel world to which I belong / I'll just sit and wait and sing my song / and if one day you should see me in the crowd / lend me a hand and lift me / to your place on the cloud"), the sweet and enigmatic "The Thoughts Of Mary Jane" ("She has come from a strange world / and left her mind behind / her long lost sighs / and her shining colored eyes / tell her story to the wind"), and the bizarre jazzy "Man In Shed" (the album's most relaxed and "cheerful" moment). This stunning debut concludes with two songs that, due to continuous listening, are wearing out the needle on my record player: the sublime "Fruit Free," which in my opinion is a true artistic and conceptual manifesto of this young singer-songwriter ("Life is but a memory / happened long ago / theater full of sadness / for a play drowned in started rows"), and the delicate blues of "Saturday Sun" ("And the Saturday sun has turned to Sunday's rain / so, Sunday sat on Saturday's sun / and wept for a day gone"). Drake's work is therefore minimalist and introspective, inspired by literature (from John Keats to Oscar Wilde, even recalling Leopardi), but decidedly personal. This beautiful album, in the end, speaks of him; it is him. And if you fall in love with it as I did for the emotions it can convey, then I truly believe this will be the beginning of a bright career for Drake: the potential for breakthrough is there. So, everyone, leave your favorite singers for a moment and buy this record from your local shop, I repeat: his name is Nick Drake, the album is "Five Leaves Left", on the Island label. You won't regret it. Buy it, please.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Time Has Told Me (04:27)
Time has told me
You're a rare rare find
A troubled cure
For a troubled mind
And time has told me
Not to ask for more
Someday our ocean
Will find its shore
So I`ll leave the ways that are making me be
What I really don't want to be
Leave the ways that are making me love
What I really don't want to love
Time has told me
You came with the dawn
A soul with no footprint
A rose with no thorn
Your tears they tell me
There's really no way
Of ending your troubles
With things you can say
And time will tell you
To stay by my side
To keep on trying
'til there's no more to hide
So leave the ways that are making you be
What you really don't want to be
Leave the ways that are making you love
What you really don't want to love
Time has told me
You're a rare rare find
A troubled cure
For a troubled mind
And time has told me
Not to ask for more
For some day our ocean
Will find its shore
02 River Man (04:21)
Betty came by on her way
Said she had a word to say
About things today
And fallen leaves.
Said she hadn't heard the news
Hadn't had the time to choose
A way to lose
But she believes.
Going to see the river man
Going to tell him all I can
About the plan
For lilac time.
If he tells me all he knows
About the way his river flows
And all night shows
In summertime.
Betty said she prayed today
For the sky to blow away
Or maybe stay
She wasn't sure.
For when she thought of summer rain
Calling for her mind again
She lost the pain
And stayed for more.
Going to see the river man
Going to tell him all I can
About the ban
On feeling free.
If he tells me all he knows
About the way his river flows
I don't suppose
It's meant for me.
Oh, how they come and go
Oh, how they come and go.
03 Three Hours (06:16)
Three hours from sundown
Jeremy flies
Hoping to keep
The sun from his eyes
East from the city
And down to the cave
In search of a master
In search of a slave
Three hours from London
Jacomo's free
Taking his woes
Down to the sea
In search of a lifetime
To tell when he's home
In search of a story
That's never been known
Three hours from speaking
Everyone's flown
Not wanting to be
Seen on their own
Three hours is needed
To leave from them all
Three hours to wonder
And three hours to fall
Three hours from sundown
Jeremy flies
Hoping to keep
The sun from his eyes
East from the city
And down to the cave
In search for a master
In search for a slave
04 Way to Blue (03:11)
Don't you have a word to show what may be done
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
Can you understand a light among the trees
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?
05 Day Is Done (02:29)
When the day is done
Down to earth then sinks the sun
Along with everything that was lost and won
When the day is done.
When the day is done
Hope so much your race will be all run
Then you find you jumped the gun
Have to go back where you began
When the day is done.
When the night is cold
Some get by but some get old
Just to show life's not made of gold
When the night is cold.
When the bird has flown
Got no-one to call your own
Got no place to call your home
When the bird has flown.
When the game's been fought
You speed the ball across the court
Lost much sooner than you would have thought
Now the game's been fought.
When the party's through
Seems so very sad for you
Didn't do the things you meant to do
Now there's no time to start anew
Now the party's through.
When the day is done
Down to earth then sinks the sun
Along with everything that was lost and won
When the day is done.
09 Fruit Tree (04:50)
Fame is but a fruit tree
So very unsound
It can never flourish
Till its stalk is in the ground
So men of fame
Can never find a way
Till time has flown
Far from their dying day
Forgotten while you're here
Remembered for a while
A much updated rain
From a much updated style
Life is but a memory
Happened long ago
Theatre full of sadness
For a long forgotten show
Seems so easy
Just to let it go on by
Till you stop and wonder
Why you never wondered why
Safe in a womb of an everlasting night
You find the darkness can give the brightest light
Safe in your place deep in the earth
That's when they'll know
What you are really worth
Forgotten while you're here
Remembered for a while
A much updated rain
From a much updated style
Fame is but a fruit tree
So very unsound
It can never flourish
Till its stalk is in the ground
So men of fame can never find a way
Till time has flown far from their dying day
Fruit tree
Fruit tree
No one knows you but the rain and the air
Don't you worry
They'll stand and stare when you're gone
Fruit tree
Fruit tree
Open your eyes to another year
They will know that you were here
when you are gone
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Other reviews
By zaireeka
Nick Drake knew how to put the universe into music, the real one and the 'imaginary' one, under sweet blankets of notes called 'Fruit Tree,' 'Day is Done,' 'Three Hours.'
Nick Drake was not a sad person, it’s the hindsight of posterity that painted him that way.
By luludia
The voice comes from immeasurable distances, telling the story of a wandering girl and a mysterious river man.
"River Man," a gentle guitar, a bossa nova voice from the deep, with strings that arrive like a kiss, like a caress to a desolate child.
