Last night I was flying back from Chennai to Delhi on a late night flight. I spent my entire flight tasting the dimly lit aircraft with songs from my ipod, soundtracking the jet black night outside the craft window with the blue eyed soul of the Doobie Brothers and the gruff rhythm and blues of Ray Charles.
My flight landed at the Delhi airport well past midnight. A knife edge cold gush of breeze brought a shivery grin on my face which faded to a warm glow when I sat snug in my pre-paid cab with my windows rolled up. My fingers stroked circularly the wheel of my ipod. I stopped at Nick Drake. I had never heard him. I wanted to hear someone new, something unfamiliar. I was tired of the playlist processions of floyd’s giving way to zeppelin’s to the stones and the beatles, the doors, Clapton…
I stopped at Nick Drake based on a thread of memory, a recommendation from a music store buddy of mine. I was getting into lyrics and singer-songwriters in a big way courtesy my girlfriend then (wife now) who was a lyrics devourer a post noon lyric luncher, a night poem mood setter and a turn of phrase taster. “Pick it up, he’s one of the best and the least known” beamed my music store buddy, he of the coterie’s of rare album aficionados, bootleg collecting boasters and cd collection kings!
I never heard Drake ‘til last night, speeding on the neon silence of late night Outer Ring Road towards home. The album was called Five Leaves Left. It was haunting! Lush, lost, sad, melancholic, baroque. Drake juxtaposed all life’s opposites to me on that listen, romantic and lush, sparse and cold, brooding and dreamy, full of longing at times and then far away, cynical and cut off. Life’s yin-yang of opposites and ambivalences on that cold night drive left me entering a silent, asleep house with the aftertaste of melancholy and intrigue. Who was he? I heard he died young. Was it another tragic rock ‘n’ roll plane crash a la John Denver, Randy Rhoads, Otis Redding, the kind of rock accident that spares no genre.
I stuck his album on again and and searched for his life story on the net. What followed was bizarre. His album unfolded his fate, foretold his death and wrapped-up his destiny 5 years before his death at age 26. A poetry prognosis! The album started with “Time Has Told Me:”
Listening, haunted again, by this young old voice:
“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”
I scanned allmusic.com’s profile of Drake, my laptop screen glow reflecting on the bedroom window.
“A singular talent who passed almost unnoticed during his brief lifetime, Nick Drake produced several albums of chilling, somber beauty. With hindsight, these have come to be recognized as peak achievements of both the British folk-rock scene and the entire rock singer/songwriter genre. Ironically, Drake has achieved a far greater stature in the decades following his death, with an avid cult following that grows by the year. Part of Drake's failure to attract a mass audience was attributable to his almost pathological reluctance to perform live.
Drake's debut, Five Leaves Left (1969), was the first in a series of three equally impressive, and quite disparate, albums. Drake created a vaguely mysterious, haunting atmosphere, occasionally embellished by tasteful Baroque strings. His economic, even pithy, lyrics hinted at melancholy, yet any thoughts of despair were alleviated by the gorgeous, uplifting melodies and Drake's calm, measured vocals. Neither album sold well, and Drake, already a brooding loner, plunged into serious depression that often found him unable to make music, work, or even walk and talk. Drake's final couple of years were marked by increasing psychiatric difficulties, which found him hospitalized at one point for several weeks. He had rarely played live during his days as a recording artist, and at one point declared his intention never to record again, On November 26, 1974, he died in his parents' home from an overdose of antidepressant medication; suicide has been speculated, although some of his family and friends dispute this. In the manner of the young Romantic poets of the 19th century who died before their time, Drake is revered by many listeners today, with a following that spans generations.”
I mulled over his tragic, solitary life, by which time the last track on the album played. I turned of the laptop and switched off the lights allowing the honey-like brooding darkness of his voice to take over:
“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 youre here
Remembered for a while
A much updated ruin
From a much outdated 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 the womb
Of an everlasting night
You find the darkness can
Give the brightest light.
Safe in your place deep in the earth
Thats when theyll know what you were really worth.
Forgotten while youre here
Remembered for a while
A much updated ruin
From a much outdated 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.
Dont you worry
Theyll stand and stare when youre gone.
Fruit tree, fruit tree
Open your eyes to another year.
Theyll all know
That you were here when youre gone.”
My flight landed at the Delhi airport well past midnight. A knife edge cold gush of breeze brought a shivery grin on my face which faded to a warm glow when I sat snug in my pre-paid cab with my windows rolled up. My fingers stroked circularly the wheel of my ipod. I stopped at Nick Drake. I had never heard him. I wanted to hear someone new, something unfamiliar. I was tired of the playlist processions of floyd’s giving way to zeppelin’s to the stones and the beatles, the doors, Clapton…
I stopped at Nick Drake based on a thread of memory, a recommendation from a music store buddy of mine. I was getting into lyrics and singer-songwriters in a big way courtesy my girlfriend then (wife now) who was a lyrics devourer a post noon lyric luncher, a night poem mood setter and a turn of phrase taster. “Pick it up, he’s one of the best and the least known” beamed my music store buddy, he of the coterie’s of rare album aficionados, bootleg collecting boasters and cd collection kings!
I never heard Drake ‘til last night, speeding on the neon silence of late night Outer Ring Road towards home. The album was called Five Leaves Left. It was haunting! Lush, lost, sad, melancholic, baroque. Drake juxtaposed all life’s opposites to me on that listen, romantic and lush, sparse and cold, brooding and dreamy, full of longing at times and then far away, cynical and cut off. Life’s yin-yang of opposites and ambivalences on that cold night drive left me entering a silent, asleep house with the aftertaste of melancholy and intrigue. Who was he? I heard he died young. Was it another tragic rock ‘n’ roll plane crash a la John Denver, Randy Rhoads, Otis Redding, the kind of rock accident that spares no genre.
I stuck his album on again and and searched for his life story on the net. What followed was bizarre. His album unfolded his fate, foretold his death and wrapped-up his destiny 5 years before his death at age 26. A poetry prognosis! The album started with “Time Has Told Me:”
Listening, haunted again, by this young old voice:
“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”
I scanned allmusic.com’s profile of Drake, my laptop screen glow reflecting on the bedroom window.
“A singular talent who passed almost unnoticed during his brief lifetime, Nick Drake produced several albums of chilling, somber beauty. With hindsight, these have come to be recognized as peak achievements of both the British folk-rock scene and the entire rock singer/songwriter genre. Ironically, Drake has achieved a far greater stature in the decades following his death, with an avid cult following that grows by the year. Part of Drake's failure to attract a mass audience was attributable to his almost pathological reluctance to perform live.
Drake's debut, Five Leaves Left (1969), was the first in a series of three equally impressive, and quite disparate, albums. Drake created a vaguely mysterious, haunting atmosphere, occasionally embellished by tasteful Baroque strings. His economic, even pithy, lyrics hinted at melancholy, yet any thoughts of despair were alleviated by the gorgeous, uplifting melodies and Drake's calm, measured vocals. Neither album sold well, and Drake, already a brooding loner, plunged into serious depression that often found him unable to make music, work, or even walk and talk. Drake's final couple of years were marked by increasing psychiatric difficulties, which found him hospitalized at one point for several weeks. He had rarely played live during his days as a recording artist, and at one point declared his intention never to record again, On November 26, 1974, he died in his parents' home from an overdose of antidepressant medication; suicide has been speculated, although some of his family and friends dispute this. In the manner of the young Romantic poets of the 19th century who died before their time, Drake is revered by many listeners today, with a following that spans generations.”
I mulled over his tragic, solitary life, by which time the last track on the album played. I turned of the laptop and switched off the lights allowing the honey-like brooding darkness of his voice to take over:
“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 youre here
Remembered for a while
A much updated ruin
From a much outdated 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 the womb
Of an everlasting night
You find the darkness can
Give the brightest light.
Safe in your place deep in the earth
Thats when theyll know what you were really worth.
Forgotten while youre here
Remembered for a while
A much updated ruin
From a much outdated 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.
Dont you worry
Theyll stand and stare when youre gone.
Fruit tree, fruit tree
Open your eyes to another year.
Theyll all know
That you were here when youre gone.”
