![]() As Drake’s own depression now reaches its peak, we find our final batch of songs. Pink Moon received good reviews, but its stripped back bleakness limited its commercial success. ‘Pink Moon’, the title track, later used on a 1999 Volkswagen advert that would finally fire Nick Drake to commercial recognition, remains a masterpiece. Amongst the starkness of these tracks, the warmth of ‘From The Morning’ also make it onto our play list. Songs such as ‘Place To Be’, ‘Which Will’, ‘Road’ and ‘Know’ are some of Drake’s most affecting. He had already fought with his producer for a stripped back approach and he had finally got his wish. Drake has often been portrayed as a shy man, yet he was extremely vocal over his art. In stark contrast to Drake’s previous efforts, this third album contained only Drake, bar a single piano line in the title track. Out of this isolation and depression came Drake’s greatest and final work, Pink Moon. With Bryter Layter proving to be another commercial flop, Drake, who had always been shy and withdrawn, began to retreat dramatically within himself. These two songs coupled with Drake’s previous exploration on ‘Thoughts of Mary Jane’ on Five Leaves Left, cement the growing relationship between his well-documented smoking habits and feelings of separation. ‘Hazey Jane I’ and ‘Hazey Jane II’ both centre around isolation from the world, as Drake muses on his inability to understand greater society. The two other tracks we have selected from this album share the same name and a similar theme. Similarly, ‘At The Chime Of A City Clock’ and ‘Northern Sky’, the ballad that both Drake and his producer Joe Boyd believed would fire him into the limelight, contains added piano, organ and harmonium that adds a delightful depth to Drake’s wandering, bleak lyrics. ‘One Of These Things First’ is accompanied by a bubbling piano and rhythm section, making for a tune as charming and effervescent as it gets. Once again we find stand out performances alongside Drake’s mercurial playing. The earlier baroque folk style had proven unsuccessful commercially and as a result Drake was determined to make Bryter Layter more buoyant. Moving onto Nick Drake’s second album, Bryter Layter, we witness a change in approach. Drake sings that only when you are “Safe in your place deep in the earth will your worth be recognised”, a particularly pertinent prophecy for his own work. The final track we visit is ‘Fruit Tree’ a cautionary musing on the fickleness of fame. Here he is supported by Danny Thompson, whose double bass provides the beating pulse upon which Drake lays his famous lingering vocals. ![]() Listen to the best Nick Drake songs on Apple Music and Spotify, and scroll down for our 20 best Paul McCartney songs.Ĭontinuing in the spirit of collaboration we’ve also picked ‘Three Hours’, a driving number unusual for Drake’s normal meandering style. ![]() Conspicuously “un-street”, with no cultured Jagger cockney accent and unmistakably English in persuasion, he appeared almost as a throwback to those great 19th century romantics. ![]() Despite this challenge, we have chosen a selection of songs that not only demonstrate Drake’s consummate skill but also afford us a glimpse into the life of a man so posthumously admired.īorn on 19 June 1948 in Rangoon, Burma where his father Rodney was an engineer, educated at a prep school in Berkshire, later at Marlborough College and then Cambridge University, Drake did not fall in with the contemporary crop of artists. ![]() Drake’s captivating use of melodic textures, mesmerising fingerpicking and his masterful use of lyric makes for a body of work that has been almost entirely inducted into the folk hall of fame. Although Nick Drake only recorded three albums during his brief lifetime before his death on 25 November 1974, choosing 20 songs that best capture his ethereal magic is still a challenge. ![]()
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