Falling From The Stars

 

 

When I first heard the music of Nick Drake twenty something years ago, I did not know what he looked like so I did not know he was beautiful, nor did I know that he committed suicide in 1974 at a young age or that he was from a posh upbringing in the English countryside or that he was severely mentally ill. I simply liked the music that I was introduced to through his album Five Leaves Left from 1969. I liked his soft, fragile voice singing the introspective lyrics he had written over his phenomenal guitar playing and the string arrangements. 

Nick Drake in 1969 at the beginning of his music career.

When I was ready, I listened to his next album, Bryter Layter from 1971, and what a surprise it held as if he had matured and taken on a more jazz and rock influenced style. The songwriting was solid and slightly more humorous with self effacement. Bryter Layter became my favorite album of his and by then I knew enough about him to know that he was tall with a deep dimple in his chin, had shy eyes, a goofy smile that was not seen enough and was a beautiful man. I also knew about his death. 

Nick Drake in 1971. In two years Nick was a different person.

He was largely unresponsive to the world during the photo shoot in 1971.

By the time I came to his third and final album released in his lifetime, Pink Moon from 1972, it was obvious from the lyrics and spare recording that something had been seriously wrong with him and that he had fallen into a terrible state in three short years. The last song on the album, From The Morning, from the moment it I first heard it until today has always sounded like goodbye. 

 

Nick recorded other music after Pink Moon, though he struggled to write much at all sequestered at his childhood home and had a final studio recording session in 1974 for his potential fourth album. During that session, he had declined to a degree that he was unable to sing and play at the same time. His voice and lyrics on those five songs (Black Eyed Dog, Hanging On A Star, Rider on the Wheel , Tow The Line & Voices) are that of a broken human being. There is something sad and uncomfortable that those recordings were released as they feel like exploitation of someone who was mentally ill.

After the music, I began to watch the documentaries and read the books about Nick Drake in hopes of understanding how this twenty-six year old fell from the stars so quickly. In the years since his death, it seems that many fans have placed more emphasis on his life and death instead of his music. He has been made out to be a handsome, romantic young poet that was wrongly overlooked in his time and could only be appreciated and mythologized after he had been sacrificed. The music is often secondary to the image that has been constructed around him like a brittle sarcophagus much like what has happened to Kurt Cobain. For those that wish to compare Drake to Vincent van Gogh, please seek out some decency within yourself.

Upon recently reading the 2023 biography, Nick Drake - The Life by Richard Morton Jack, did it seem a more honest portrait of him finally emerged from the misty veil of legend. Other books about Drake have only given the last three years of his life a superficial overview and neglected the details of how ill Nick Drake became at the end. Not only was he extremely ill with schizophrenia, under his parents care in the country, but his personality had become violent and destructive when he was not catatonic, running away at all hours and for days, in the hospital, getting detained by police or being erratic in every possible manner. He refused to take his medicines, was getting conflicting medical opinions, had one shock therapy treatment, was overly indulged by his well-meaning parents and he should have been sectioned as he was possibly a danger to others. He did prove to be a danger to himself when he committed suicide by swallowing sixty pills, stripping down to his underwear and laying atop his bed on November 25, 1974 to die.

Some fans and even some of his friends will quibble with the word suicide to describe what Nick did, but you do not ingest sixty pills that you know will kill you and hope to survive the same as placing the end of a barrel of a shotgun in your mouth. They suggest that because he did not leave a note that it could not be suicide, but Nick was no longer able to communicate through writing or speaking. He left his music as his final words and that is what should matter. By denying him of his last act of suicide, people contribute to the stigma of shame that people associate with it.

Another point of contention among Nick Drake fans is his sexuality and that is again discussed at points in this book. Some bristle at the suggestion that Nick was gay and claim that there is no way that he was anything but straight. Their argument is that if Nick was gay then why has no one of the same sex come forward to claim they had a tryst with him? I respond by asking, if Nick was straight then why have no women come forward after all these decades to claim they had a romantic relationship, or a one night stand with him? All that has come forward is that he had strictly platonic relationships with a couple of women, never discussed women with anyone in a sexual manner and that has been it. His life has been combed over again and again and there is equally no evidence that he was heterosexual. Perhaps, Nick did not even know what he was.

When I closed this book I realized that there was nothing to romanticize about Nick Drake or his life. He suffered in his last years and made those around him suffer too. After the countless biographies and documentaries, it is important to remember that it is best to enjoy his music as I do, but do not put him on a pedestal cast in bronze.

Nick's friend, John Martyn, recorded this song about him.