So I’m randomly drifting through my music collection, late at night, and this track comes up – normally part of the flow through Bryter Layter – and so not normally noticed as a separate song.
But this time, I’m frankly half cut, and Drake’s words trip me up a bit. The delivery is always a bit unclear – is he being prissy, laid back or desperate in his smooth enunciation?
I put it on repeat play, where it is still playing, many times later. I google it and notice it’s got accompaniment from Jon Cale on viola and harpsichord, almost from the very beginning of the song. Now I think it’s the soothing scrape of the viola sweetened with the golden brown harpsichord tickling Drake’s voice that makes the song. My ears drift off with the viola and forget the halfhearted plaintive, then reconciled words.
I don’t know what it would be without the antique sound of the harpsichord or the drones of the viola together making resonant space for Drake’s pleading and guitar plucking. They improve his song, but do his words add to their music?
I also don’t know what to make of the song just stopping, like he’s tried to give his career a relaunch and it’s just flopped down out of the (northern) sky.
My inexpert reading is that the quality of the song lies in its clear expression of its writer’s feelings and temperament at the time of writing – somewhere between the warmth and measured confidence of Five Leaves Left and the abandoned desperation of Pink Moon.
It’s only music, but it so rewards attention.
According to Joe Boyd, Cale was in London recording Desertshore at Sound Techniques. He asked to hear what else Boyd and John Wood were working on. When he heard Nick Drake, he was instantly animated and wanting to meet Nick straightaway:
“The next morning I had a call from Cale. ‘We’re going to need a pickup for the viola, an amp, a Fender bass, a celeste and a Hammond B-3 organ. This afternoon.’ I had scheduled a mix on another project that day but Cale had decided it was time to record ‘Northern Sky’ and ‘Fly’.
“They arrived together, John with a wild look in his eyes and Nick trailing behind. Despite his domineering manner, Cale was very solicitous towards Nick, who seemed to be guardedly enjoying himself. His only choice was to relax and be carried along.”
Thanks, Nick – fascinating detail. Wikipedia suggests Cale was on heroin at the time – would that explain the wild eyes, I wonder?
ND came to hate all the additional instrumentation of course. I’m not sure it makes the song, but then I’ve always preferred the vulnerability of the unadorned demo:
Thanks for posting that version, Bartleby – new to me. I like how it gets a proper ending, with time for his particular style of guitar playing to be heard, uncoloured by other sounds. I used to love trying to play long to some of his more simple tunes – ‘Know’ and ‘Horn’ from the last album, mainly.
Looking at the lyrics, I’m now left puzzling – is ‘Fly’ meant to be a verb or an insect?
It’s a question I’ve only recently been grappling with too Sal. I’d always thought it was ‘the fly’, but the lyrics insist it’s ‘to fly’. So likely verb I think.
I also play some of his songs and, like you, the later ones. Place to Be and Pink Moon are my favourites.
With your guitar tuned CGCFCE for those two you can also play Introduction from Bryter Layter. I love that album. I have an original vinyl copy, still in VG condition.
As do I. One of my most prized posessions. I’ll give Introduction a go…
Do you have the other two? I have an original Pink Moon, but FLL is silly money.
No, I only have Bryter. I have Pink Moon on CD but I’ve never owned a copy of Five Leaves. Always felt the programming of it was all wrong. It would have been better kicking off with Fruit Tree and Cello Song. It used to bug me that whenever there was a compilation with a ND track they’d invariably use Time Has Told Me. I just don’t rate it.
I quite like its jauntiness. And this cover is superb:
Huh. Seemed all right at the time. I was one of the 12 people who bought it when it came out. Sold it for unsilly money way too early 🙄
To be clear, I love individual songs from FLL. River Man is a masterpiece. It’s just the sequencing I disagree with.
Ah. I’ve never been that enamoured of Fruit Tree myself. Agreed re River Man. Wonderful orchestration too.
I love FLL just as it is, sequencing and all.
THTM is almost the best side one, track one of any musical career ever.
I also got the impression from the various docs/books that Nick was very much trailing along in Cale’s wake and maybe somewhat in awe of what was happening or just simply incapable of saying no. Unfortunately no-one will ever know what was going on Nick’s head and whether he 100% approved of how Bryter Layter turned out – although he very firmly went in the total opposite direction for the follow up Pink Moon which is about as naked and raw as anything Ive ever heard. Having said that BL remains one of my all time top 3 albums and I suspect always will.
My take is that he embraced the band arrangements and you can hear the confidence in his playing and singing on Hazey Jane II. But he also wanted his acoustic material featured prominently which is why he held back other songs from Boyd to allow for the three instrumentals.
Which Boyd loathed of course, but they are spectral wonders imv. If there’s any Mantovani on that album, it’s (John Hewson’s?) orchestration for Hazey Jane II.
Yes, Nick pushed back but JB didn’t dislike them. He and John Wood have said several times Bryter Layter is the one album they wouldn’t change a single thing on.
I have a remaindered copy of the book Gabrielle Drake put together containing family letters and articles by Nick’s friends. It’s a fascinating document not just of one young upper middle class man’s life but of the times he lived in. Some fabulous accounts of his gap year in Europe and Morocco. But some of the family diaries and correspondence are heart-wrenching. The letter his father sent Nick trying to persuade him not to drop out of Cambridge (9 months before graduating) gives some idea of how ill-equipped Nick would have been when things didn’t turn out like he imagined.
My favourite Nick Drake song.
I’d be curious to read what makes you say that, Arthur. (I do like people talking about their enthusiasms, particularly when it comes to music).
I genuinely love this song to such an extent, and it’s the contrast between the lush arrangement and Nick Drake’s rough (by his standards) singing. It’s perfect counterpoint. Perhaps it took a highly intense heroin addict to spot what just “worked” here. A form of “this boy is as messed up as me, but just differently, what can I do to showcase this quality?” But in my head this song is almost Black Eyed Dog but with cello and harpsichord. Which disguises the Black Eyed Dog quality.
Is there a sadder line in a song than “It’s really too hard for to fly”? I am struggling to think of one.
I’d argue – and have done – that “Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true/or is it something worse” (The River) is ne of the best pieces of lyric writing around.
But in the Nick Drake type stuff? “I would be, I should be/But how?”