Nick Drake: The Quiet King of British Folk

It's now been 50 years since Nick Drake left us, having never seen the success he sought during his lifetime. Though tragically short (passing at just 26) his life was one of extraordinary talent juxtaposed with profound isolation. His music, with its haunting melodies and introspective lyrics, speaks to a depth of emotion rarely captured so beautifully. While his work was largely unrecognised during his lifetime, his posthumous influence has been immense, weaving a narrative as fascinating as the man himself.

A Creative and Quiet Upbringing

Nick Drake’s early years unfolded in a setting ripe for artistic development. Born on 19 June 1948 in Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar), his formative years were shaped by his mother, Molly Drake, a pianist and lyricist whose home recordings exude the same melancholy and intimacy later found in her son’s music. Molly’s songs can be found on some of the demos included in Nick's Spotify discography.

The family returned to England when Nick was two, settling in Tanworth-in-Arden, Warwickshire. Their home, Far Leys, became a sanctuary for creativity. Nick grew up playing the piano and later gravitated toward the guitar, a shift that would define his career. His sister Gabrielle Drake, who would go on to become a successful actress, recalled their idyllic childhood but also noted Nick’s introspection, which deepened as he grew older.

At Marlborough College, Nick was a reserved but talented student. Despite excelling in athletics and setting a record for the 100-yard dash, he rarely socialised. One anecdote from his school days paints a vivid picture of his personality: he once played the piano so softly in the common room that a teacher remarked, “Nick, are you going to play something we can hear?” His tendency to retreat into his thoughts became more pronounced during these years, foreshadowing his later struggles.

A Wanderlust Spirit: Travels Abroad

After Marlborough, Nick took a gap year to travel before university. In 1967, he spent several months in Aix-en-Provence, France, where he busked in cafés and explored the burgeoning counterculture. Fellow travellers recalled him as an enigmatic figure, often lost in thought but intensely focused when he played music. This period not only exposed him to French chanson but also gave him the space to develop his fingerpicking style, inspired by traditional folk and blues.

Nick’s travels extended to Morocco, a trip that profoundly influenced his musicality. The hypnotic rhythms of Gnawa music and the sprawling deserts inspired a sense of mysticism in his compositions. Anecdotes from fellow travellers describe Nick sitting silently for hours, listening to local musicians, absorbing their rhythms and unique tonalities. These experiences subtly informed the complex, layered arrangements found in his later albums.

Nick Drake's Cambridge and the Folk Scene

In 1967, Nick began studying English literature at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. However, his disinterest in academia was evident, and he often skipped lectures, spending hours in his room writing songs. It was here that he met Robert Kirby, a fellow student and arranger who would become a key collaborator. Kirby later recalled, “Nick was like no one I’d ever met—quiet, distant, but with this extraordinary presence.”

Cambridge also introduced Nick to the burgeoning British folk scene. He played sporadic gigs at local pubs, his deep, resonant voice and intricate guitar work captivating small audiences. It was during one such performance that Ashley Hutchings of Fairport Convention heard him and introduced him to Joe Boyd, the influential producer who ran Witchseason Productions. Boyd described his first impression of Nick as “a young man with an otherworldly air, carrying a guitar case and an aura of mystery.”

The Recording of Five Leaves Left

In 1968, Boyd signed Nick to Island Records, and work began on his debut album, Five Leaves Left. The album was recorded at Sound Techniques studio in Chelsea, with contributions from Fairport Convention’s Richard Thompson and Pentangle’s Danny Thompson. Boyd and Drake clashed during the sessions; Nick resisted the inclusion of certain arrangements, preferring a stripped-back sound.

The title, Five Leaves Left, referred to the warning printed on Rizla cigarette papers, a nod to Nick’s fondness for rolling his own cigarettes. The album’s lush arrangements, provided by Robert Kirby, complemented Nick’s melancholic songwriting. Tracks like "River Man," with its shifting time signatures and orchestral sweep, demonstrated his innovative approach to songwriting.

Despite critical praise, Five Leaves Left sold poorly, partly because Nick refused to perform live or engage in promotional activities,  apart from a session for a late-night Radio 2 arts programme presented by John Peel. His reluctance stemmed from crippling stage fright and a disdain for the music industry’s commercial machinery. A now-famous anecdote recalls Nick playing to an audience of three people at a London club before walking off mid-set, disheartened.

The album itself was released on 4 July 1969, a few months before he dropped out of university. The music press was dominated by the news of Brian Jones' death on 3 July and the Rolling Stones concert in Hyde Park two days later.

Nick's last proper live performance ever was in 1970 and he played little more than 30 shows in his whole career. He simply didn't enjoy it.

"There were only two or three concerts that felt right, and there was something wrong with all the others,"

he said in one of those two press interviews, in 1971 with Sounds magazine. He had champions in the celebrated producer Joe Boyd and in the Velvet Underground's John Cale, who had insisted on working with him, but it wasn't enough. Drake became seriously depressed and returned to live with his parents, telling his mother

"I've failed in every single thing I've ever tried to do".

He saw psychiatrists, spent five weeks in a psychiatric facility and was even treated with electroconvulsive therapy.

The Optimism of Bryter Layter

For his second album, Bryter Layter (1971), Nick aimed for a brighter, more accessible sound. Recorded with contributions from John Cale, Chris McGregor, and members of Fairport Convention, the album featured tracks like "Hazey Jane II" and "Northern Sky." Boyd described "Northern Sky" as a “perfect love song,” though Nick reportedly dismissed it as “too cheerful.”

Despite its upbeat tone, Bryter Layter fared no better commercially than its predecessor. Critics praised its sophistication, but audiences remained elusive. Nick’s disappointment grew, and his depression deepened.

The Stark Minimalism of Pink Moon

By 1972, Nick’s mental health had deteriorated significantly. For his third album, Pink Moon, he abandoned the layered arrangements of his earlier work, recording in just two nights with only his voice and guitar. The result was a stark, haunting album that captured his despair with aching clarity. The title track and songs like "Place to Be" laid bare his sense of alienation.

When Pink Moon was released, it received little attention, and Nick’s behaviour became increasingly erratic. He withdrew from friends and family, often driving aimlessly across the countryside.

Nick’s relationship to the finished album is unknown, and it’s likely his family and friends were unaware of it until it was released. [His friend] Brian Wells is convinced Molly and Rodney didn’t listen to it closely, and Gabrielle doesn’t recall doing so, either; by the time it appeared they were more focused on his day-to-day condition than on his musical output. Rodney later wrote that it was made “when Nick was getting pretty bad, and it’s rather ‘way out’, as they say”. In another letter he admitted: “The material on Pink Moon has always bewildered us a little (except From the Morning, which we love).”

Joe Boyd [who produced Drake’s first two albums] had nothing whatsoever to do with Pink Moon. The first he knew of it was when Island sent a copy to him in Los Angeles. “When I saw the cover I was horrified, and when I played it I was even more horrified. I interpreted its starkness as a rebuke to me. I thought it was self-destructive, a capitulation, as if he were saying: ‘Fuck it, I don’t care whether people listen to it or not.’ I listened to it once.”

“I was appalled by Pink Moon,” remembers Drake’s university friend Paul Wheeler. “I found it incredibly upsetting. I thought the songs were frightening. To this day I cannot ever imagine listening to it for pleasure. It’s like opening some terrible Pandora’s box.”

Folk singer Beverley Martyn had similar concerns. “I thought: ‘This boy’s gone, we’ve lost him. We can’t reach him any more, and he can’t reach us.’ I wondered why he’d bothered to record some of the tracks, and who had thought it was a good idea to let him go into the studio and do so. They were so dark and sad, and telling about the state of his mind: doom, gloom and despair, with apocalyptic elements. People listen to it and say: ‘That’s a great line!’, and talk about the songs and the surreal cover like they’re a puzzle they can solve, but Pink Moon is like the Book of Revelation. It doesn’t make sense and it’s a manifestation of illness, of madness. When people are really ill they don’t know what they’re saying, they don’t hear what’s coming out of their own mouth. I thought those songs, those words were the product of a sick person.”

Musician Richard Thompson, who had collaborated with Drake, heard Pink Moon when [producer] John Wood played it to him in Sound Techniques: “I was disturbed. Part of what had made Nick’s earlier music so appealing was a balance between dark and light. The sadness inherent in the music had been veiled behind beautiful arrangements and an intriguing voice that drew you in. However, his third album seemed a stark cry for help, the voice of a man teetering on the edge of sanity.”

A Tragic End

On 25 November 1974, Nick was found dead in his bedroom at Far Leys. He had overdosed on amitriptyline, a prescription antidepressant. His death was ruled a suicide, though some close to him believed it was accidental. Gabrielle Drake recalled that Nick had shown signs of improvement shortly before his death, adding to the ambiguity.

Nick's father Rodney kept a diary religiously, his entry for that day is as follows -

MONDAY NOVEMBER 25

The worst day of our lives.

Naw (the Drakes’ housemaid) had looked in on Nick at 11.45, found him lying across the bed and called to Molly.

She went in and found him dead.

After desperate phone calls we got Ackroyd and, shortly after, an ambulance which was, of course, too late.

Ackroyd had declared Nick to be dead and to have been so for some hours.

The contents of a Tryptizol were missing.

So ends in tragedy our three-year struggle.

In the book Nick Drake: Remembered For A While (compiled by Nick's sister Gabrielle), Consultant psychotherapist Gerald Dickens, the one specialist who seemed to work best with Nick, later wrote to Rodney and Molly, who were still seeking answers.

“I believe that Nick was suffering from an illness which is called in the text books simple schizophrenia,” he said. “But I must add that such labels are meaningless and, to a large extent, cover our lack of understanding of such illnesses.

“I have but little doubt that you, as his parents did all that you possible could to encourage Nick to seek the help he required, and I believe also that the doctors concerned did their best in the circumstances.

“I am afraid that we must all accept that Nick posed an insoluble problem.”

Dr Dickens added that Nick’s flirtation with drugs had “simply been a manifestation of the need he had to try to understand the changes that were taking place within him” and that his behaviour was the result of his illness.

Nick’s funeral took place at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Tanworth-in-Arden, where he was buried in a simple grave. The inscription on his headstone reads, “Now we rise, and we are everywhere,” a lyric from his song "From the Morning."

Posthumous Rediscovery

Within a couple of years of his death, something unexpected started happening. The first sign was when a 21-year-old American woman began ringing the Drakes' house in March 1976. She had bought Pink Moon at a record store in Houston, Texas, and wanted to find out everything she could about the mysterious artist behind it, even travelling to England to learn more. Nick's mum and dad invited her in and let her stay the night. She was just the first of many ardent fans who would make the same pilgrimage as Drake's reputation grew and grew. In due course, compilation albums were released and soon major artists such as REM, Kate Bush The Cure and Everything But the Girl were citing Drake as an important influence.

After a very popular 1999 VW advert, according to US music journalist Amanda Petrusich's 2007 book on Pink Moon, sales of the album "increased nearly 500% during the first 10 weeks of 2000, when Drake shifted more than 4,700 copies of Pink Moon, compared to 815 in the same period in 1999". The New York Times reported in 2001 that sales had jumped from about 6,000 copies a year to more than 74,000.

So it is that Drake has gone from relative obscurity during his lifetime to appearing on the cover of music magazines, being the subject of a Radio 2 documentary presented by Brad Pitt, and having his music appear in mainstream Hollywood movies such as A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood and hit TV shows such as Normal People. He's even had a beer named after one of his songs by a Californian craft brewery.

Musician Paul Weller, comedian and broadcaster Sue Perkins, microbiologist Sharon Peacock and award-winning Jamaican writer Marlon James are among the guests who have selected Nick Drake numbers on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. James said he put a Drake record in his CD player in 1993 and did not take it out until 1998: "I played it nearly every night… every time it plays there is this ghost in the room."

While Nick may not have lived to see the impact of his work, it would be nice to think that some how he knows how the world feels about his music, how it offers solace and inspiration to listeners worldwide and how 50 years later his quiet voice is still heard.

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