NICK DRAKE. Let's take a moment.

by Susan D. Taylor

When I moved to Nashville July 2004, the music scene was a turn around from what I was accustomed down in Miami (Florida). Not better. Not worse. Just wholly different.
 Instead of getting a dose of country, which I do adore the oh-so-many flavors, I found Nick Drake's songs and fell in love.


"And I was strong, strong in the sun
I thought I'd see when day is done
Now I'm weaker than the palest blue
Oh, so weak in this need for you." --
Nick Drake, Place to Be

To say soul-touching doesn't even come close to the emotionally encapsulating melodies and lyrics created and produced by a man who lived during the hay day of my parents. Nick Drake's songs are immediate and I still can't quite conceptualize all that's happening within each lyric, each stanza.

Of course, when I first sampled these slices what I can only term heavenly torture, I didn't know the history, only that each one reached into my being, and got under my skin, divesting me from any sense of complacency. I still have to take care in listening, for the wealth of history these songs all too easy tap.

There's nothing in my mind that compares with Drake's music...or his life.

Tragically, short. Drake's music is symphonic, mercurial, and melancholy. I can't listen without a sense of awe mixed with a bit of sadness. Evocative, inspiring, and magical.

This is absolutely one artist that deserves to be discovered. Again and again.
 
 





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