So Why Nick Drake?!
I first came across Nick Drake while in my mid-teens through a review in Q magazine which gave the impression that his songs may well provide me with the Ultimate Musical Salvation my sensitive angst-ridden teenage soul was looking for.
(It may have been in this issue but I'm not entirely sure)
As this was Ye Olden Dayes Of Pre-Internet Tymes and before I met anyone who’d heard of him, the only way I could get to hear the albums was to buy them from a record shop.
However...
I didn’t own a CD player back then and while I found his first two albums on record easily, the third one, Pink Moon, was for some reason only available on CD. And though I liked the other LPs it was really the third one I was after as it was a more stripped-down affair with just him playing guitar in a room without any other accompaniments and string quartets, etc.
In the end it took me 6 months to finally get hold of it, and it turned out to be the greatest thing I’d ever heard.
So all was well.
(Or was it...?)
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Nick's Part In My Musical Downfall
Because my teenage self considered Pink Moon the ultimate pinnacle of all that music could ever possibly hope to be, making up songs of my own felt pointless in comparison, so I stopped trying and focussed on painting and drawing instead.
Here's a drawing of me.
Who's a pretty boy then?
Happily, it only took me another 20-odd years to get over my concerns about whether I could sound like my musical idols, accept my limitations, and just get on with writing and recording my own stuff instead.
(And our hero was finally born)
Because of all this, it felt apt to cover a song from Pink Moon in a Pumpkin style, by way of a nod to Nick for his part in my musical journey. Although taking the song down a more synthy, dancey route, I’d still intended it to have some element of heart-felt poignancy about it but, alas, I think it may have turned out sounding largely like a novelty record.
Never mind.
Pink Moon is still one of my all-time favourite albums and Road one of my favourite songs. Apologies if you feel my version insensitively tramples over the hallowed, sacred ground of the original - if it's of any comfort, there’s a part of me which very much agrees with you.
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