Comments on: When You Met Nick Drake

By: molly

molly — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:54:08 +0000

i don’t know what made me look him up, i had heard the name before.. i searched him on the internet and heard pink moon for the first time. at that moment i fell in love

By: Textlinktausch

Textlinktausch — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 08:19:59 +0000

Nick Drake’s music for me now has merged with a specific type of nostalgia to the point that I rarely hear his music as though for the first time anymore. His music is draped in reminiscing of my admittedly late blooming.I was introduced to Nick Drake through a musician friend of mine sometime around 2001 or 2002ish because I’d cited liking Belle & Sebastian and he thought I might like Nick Drake too…. and he was right.

By: isyankargencler

isyankargencler — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:28:37 +0000

thanks

By: Esmerelda

Esmerelda — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 06:20:43 +0000

I met Nick Drake when I needed him the most.

I’d just arrived at University and was bewildered by the sudden change of country, and fending for myself for the first time.

I think I’ve been depressed in different ways ever since a series of very disturbing events at the start of my teenage years, and it’s only when I came to the wonderful but dark, dark city of Glasgow that all those feelings fully crystallized, stealing the light from y soul before I realised it was gone.

I’d been introduced by my boyfriend to a wonderful place, the only place that felt like a bit of home, a small, grubby and intimate tea-house called Tchaiovna. The staff play whatever music they fancy, the less known the better, and I think it was in that cosy atmosphere, made hazy by shisha smoke, that I first fell under Nick’s spell. I’m pretty certain it was the ‘Treasury’ album, which seemed to be omnipresent at the time – my boyfriend was surprised I’d never heard of Nick’s music, and put the album on quite often after I asked about it.

I remember one particular day when I went to his flat to seek some kind of refuge from the nameless dread that followed me around like a curse, I couldn’t even speak, let alone find words to describe the living void that was draining all my life and joy and light, and no energy to try and see the cause – the darkness had a life of its own by then. I can’t remember if I asked him to put the album on, or if he just knew without asking, but I do remember vividly the incredible rush of feelings…

All depressed people are profoundly alone, by their very nature cut off from the only thing that they most need : understanding, true compassion rather than empty words and helplessness, no matter how good intentions may be.

On that day Nick Drake’s music burst the bubble of terrible emotions welling inside me, and I could finally let everything out – because every chord, every soft inflexion echoed exactly my own state, someone finally understood!

Over the fairly short time I’ve known his music, I’ve come to feel like so many others that I know Nick personally, that – dare I say – we share a special bond, so profoundly does his music express his innermost feelings and secrets. For music that is often very melancholy, there is such an beautiful and powerful outpouring of emotion in every track, that the feeling of the song transcends mere sadness into something more complex and shaded, a emotion that is profoundly heartfelt and human.

Today I no longer wish for the quiet of darkness and an end to the enduring pain of depression. I’ve thought a lot of things through, and seen a lot of things that can’t be anything but magic, and gradually built up the faith that I can face the future and be my true self in light and joy. I’m not a religious person in the traditional sense, and I don’t believe there is such a thing as angels with big golden wings who are somehow above us. But when my time comes, I do hope it will be Nick who ‘lends a hand and lifts me, to his place in the clouds’…

By: tv izle

tv izle — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:22:06 +0000

thanks

By: Justin

Justin — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 01:52:31 +0000

I “met” Nick Drake through a conversation I had with a stranger

I “met” Nick Drake through a conversation I had with a stranger. I was raving on about a John Martin’s album I’d just discovered called “Solid Air” to her. It was while I was miles away from home and was staying at a very pretentious convention for new-age circus performers. I was talking so over-animatedly to her really just to try and cover up how uncomfortable I felt.

I didn’t fit in there. I had short hair and I even had to leave early to get back for my job (which I hated). And I remember that before I left I ended up getting really drunk and offending all the hippies by being insulting and aggressive to everybody. Still the girl who’s name I didn’t even know (who’d told me “check out Nick Drake”) had, it turns out, given me good advice. The year was 1987.

When I got back to Manchester I went round to a guy I spuriously knew ‘cos he lived in the bed-sit below a friend of mine. I really was stuck in bed-sit land in those days (and so were all the other people I knew) It was depressing.

This friend of mine lived above a guy who had long hair. The guy seemed to live in some sort of 60s time warp. However he also had the best collection of records I’d ever seen.

It seemed to me like he’d be the sort of guy to have something like this and it turns out that I was right. Still though I did feel a bit weird knocking on his door and just asking him “Do you have any Nick Drake”. I was dressed in my postman’s uniform at the time having just finished my round.

Well the guy had two albums. These were “Five Leaves Left” and “Bryter Layter” I asked him if I could sit with him and listen to them and maybe even be cheeky enough to tape them off him. He was very accommodating and he let me do this. I may have had a horrible job then but still it gave me my afternoons free and it brought me into contact with people living in the strange land of having nothing to do all day.

The guy didn’t seem to mind sitting round taping his records for someone he barely knew all at. It was about 1.30 in the afternoon. It just didn’t phase him. We didn’t talk much either. We just sat there and listened while I wrote down the track-listings. Then I went away with my recording

I still have that C90 tape now.

Somehow over the years (and in the early 90s ) a CD of “Pink Moon” came along to join my old TDK cassette. I liked the music but even though I knew that my tape was somewhat muffled and had distorted the sound of the original somehow a magnetic recording of the vinal recording meant that a lot of it’s full atmousphere was still there. Pink moon seemed a bit “flatter” because of the way that it had been converted to digital.

People think I’m being a wanker when I say this but my feeling about listening to vinol over CD is a bit like how I feel about watching film versus video tape. It seems to me that some ways of capturing sound and vision just lend more authenticity to the recording.

Finally another tape came into my possession “Time of No reply” I just fell in love with the opening song “I was made to love Magic” because it is ME!! I’m also a relic. They have left me behind too. I also feel like I’m a remnant.

I wrote a poem once about an experience I had in Manchester City centre. I came round a corner and I saw a small group of Salvation Army Band musicians playing some old Hymnal being ignored by everyone racing past to get home from work and it did something to me.

Also when I write songs they hurt me. Its like I’m birthing something. It’s Painful.

Listening to Nick Drake is similar.

I have no absolutely no idea of how half of my collection of his songs ever came into my possession. I think that the CD belonged to somebody who lived briefly in my house for a while and who then left having forgotton to pack it. The thing is while they were staying with me I had never heard them playing it and I didn’t even know that they liked him.

Even more curiously the hand –writing on the sleave of my “Time of No reply” tape is definitely mine but I don’t ever remember sitting there writing down the list of tracks. I know that I never taped it off anyone and I know that I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA AT ALL of how it came in to my posession.

I also think its strange that not one of the Nick Drake songs that I own I have ever paid for. Its like they are meant to be in my life.

One time I went on holiday and I took the two cassettes with me because my girlfriend had been loaned the use of a car and it happened to have a radio cassette built into the dashboard. We’d been loaned a car and we’d been loaned the use of a caravan in the Yorkshire Dales and I had these tapes so I brought them.

I had the weirdest feeling on that holiday about how I’d been MEANT to listen to these songs in this context and how this dead guy had meant to speak to me like this.

I was the most depressed on that holiday with my girlfriend than I had ever been in the whole of that four year relationship and the music kept me alive. Also the beauty of the countryside around us and the peace of staying in that caravan meant that I could actually feel my pain. It was not like when I’m back in the city where mostly its all covered over (until that is I turn a corner and then I’m confronted with another band of throwbacks like myself)

Still though she didn’t even know.

She just thought I was being “quiet”

I “met” Nick Drake through a conversation I had with a stranger and sometimes I do feel that I’ve always remained a stranger even to those closest to me

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 07:05:26 +0000

One Spring about a decade ago I was in my driveway bending over to pick up a pencil when I felt a boot kick my fat ass. It was my neighbor trying to scare the shit out of me. He invited me over and we sat on his porch drinking lemonade while the the sun went down. His wife was in the kitchen playing Nick Drake while fussing with the baby. He is my favorite artist of the 60’s hands down.

By: Landon

Landon — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:53:58 +0000

I was making love to a fat girl named Novela in Belgium in the late 80’s. She got up and put her pants back on and put on a Nick Drake album. I believe it was called Hazy Jane. I gently rubbed her back while listening to Nick Drake. Nick Drake has been a favorite of mine ever since.

By: Samuel

Samuel — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:46:29 +0000

I walked into my girlfriend Sheila’s apartment in the late 70’s. She had this really ugly cat named Max who used to scratch the shit out of my legs. She was lying on the floor naked rolling around without her underwear on. The cat was racing around the apartment like it was tripping balls. Nick Drake was playing in the background. Nick Drake is amazing, I’ve been listening to him ever since. I especially like the song Hazy Jane part I. I think it’s the best song with a flute ever written.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:40:50 +0000

I was taking off my pants but decided to put them back on in Manassas, Virginia and I heard Nick Drake when a Mexican drove by blaring it. I was stoned off my ass.