Song 4 – A song that makes you sad – ‘Black Eyed Dog' – Nick Drake.
Nick Drake
Nick Drake’s been a huge favourite of mine since I first heard him, courtesy of my sister, in 1995.He’s a lot better known these days, but it’s fair to say he was gathering a fair head of steam even back then, the re-issuing of his back catalogue on CD allowing a lot of people to hear him the first time.I think his slow rise to fame, mostly by word of mouth, has been a part of so many people coming to hold him so close.Of the people I know who’ve heard of Nick Drake, he’s in everyone’s top 10 favourite artists and this is perhaps because we all came to him without knowing anything about him and without associating his songs with any particular period.We didn’t hear him on the radio, on a soundtrack or an advert.He was ours alone for a little while and we had the pleasure of introducing him to some of our friends too.
There is a timelessness to this brand of pastoral folk that makes it stand out.It’s not a part of the traditional English folk scene that saw such a huge revival in the 1960’s before disappearing in a druggy, self indulgent, prog-rock-esque mess in the 1970’s.It’s not part of the self-consciously serious ‘real music’ style that MTV Unplugged created in the early 1990s and that aging rock fans clung too along with ‘Mojo’ magazine and the wreckage of their youth.It doesn’t sound like anything else.Just that powerful distinctive guitar style, those lush almost classical arrangements and that very English voice.
So why pick this as a song that makes me sad?This was one of the last songs that Nick Drake ever recorded, in February 1974, about 9 months before his death.He’d been suffering from depression for years.A couple of unrequited loves, the failure of his musical career (none of his albums had sold more than 5000 copies) despite huge critical acclaim, probably due to crippling stage-fright and anxiety.He’d declined physically to the point that this vocal had to be over-dubbed (one take alone being too fragile) although this guitar sounds as clean and strong.The huge talent is as evident as ever but the lyrics are those of a man tormented.The ‘Black Eyed Dog’ is, of course, depression and it’s horrible and painful to imagine Nick haunted by the feelings that would lead him to take his own life, by accident or design.So, it’s an easy song to feel sad about.This magnificent, talented, man in such pain and pouring it out in such beautiful music.
A few years ago I saw ‘The Royal Tennenbaums’ at the cinema and half-way through the film, over Richie and Margot meeting in a tent, Nick Drake’s song ‘Fly’ started to play on the soundtrack.The soundtrack had been a ‘who’s who’ of great and influential bands and performers, The Ramones, The Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, The Clash and there was Nick Drake, in the middle of a big Hollywood movie, up there with the best of them.I had a huge lump in my throat and felt so proud of him and wished he could have seen it.
He's not a miserable song-writer by any means and I do recommend you take the time to listen to more of his work.
There does seem to be a respect and an acceptance towards older music that didn’t really exist when I was a teenager.I’ll cite the club night, held at the Bodega (aka The Social) in Nottingham last week, where they played Radiohead’s entire back catalogue, from the 'Drill' EP to 'The King of Limbs' from start to finish.Now I admire Radiohead hugely, they’re probably as significant a band as there’s ever been, I’ve even got a white label of the Drill EP kicking around somewhere, but I can’t imagine I would have been interested in listening to the entire works of any band in my time at Uni, even if there had been a band who were still respected by the critics after 18 years of producing music.I’d have been contemptuous of this ‘music by old people and for old people’ and would have wanted to hear something with a bit more attitude and that spoke to me more directly.
Maybe it’s because the ripples of punk were still being felt through the guitar music scene, even if they did take a while to reach all way through that terrible 80’s hair metal to give us grunge.Maybe it’s because the hip-hop crossover happened.Maybe it’s because of the rise of electronic music, sampling and dance that continued through the 80’s and kept things interesting and fresh meaning no-one had the time or inclination to delve much into the past.Probably it’s because with the creation of the web and then Napster, iTunes and Youtube, everything is available and free(ish).Probably also the huge number of festivals that have sprung up in the last 10 years, with their seemingly endless appetite for performers, keep old bands going past their sell by date.I expect it’s also because of all the Gen-X (people born between ‘61 and ’71 by the way – this tends to be misquoted all the time – go and read the book if you don’t believe me, although Coupland has written better since) and Gen-Y people who are still going to gigs.Bands don’t get to die out so much these days.
Looking at my record collection (now there’s an old school term!) there’s actually very little from the 60’s and 70’s and what I do have was added relatively late as I earned relatively more money and so could afford to buy a few selected ‘Old School’ classics.There’s only really been Dylan since I was a teenager, mostly his folk period.I added a load of soul/funk compilations since, as well as various classic 70’s soul albums (recorded between the commercial straightjackets of the 60’s and 80’s).I’ve a couple of dozen ‘cool Jazz’ recordings and a decent scattering of ‘classic’ albums (Big Star, The Who, Love, The Doors, Pistols, Marvin Gaye, Gram Parsons, Scott Walker – the usual suspects) that I don’t much listen to.Nick Drake would probably be the person I come back to the most and who’s been with me for the longest, but then his late fame and relative obscurity have kept him fresh in a way that very few artists can be.
I don’t know if I think that this respect for the past is a good thing or not.It is probably the best time ever to be a music fan.Everything is more accessible and cheaper than it’s ever been.There are more genres than ever before and lots happening in these genres.I’m lucky enough to live in Nottingham which has some excellent live venues and club nights (I’m looking at the Boedga and Sounddism in particular here) and you could easily go to a couple of worthwhile gigs a week, usually more.While the record shops have mostly died (hang in there Fopp!), it’s all there on the web to download at the touch of a button, much of it free to at least sample.
And yet something seems to me to have been lost.Once upon a time, if someone had heard of a band, it meant that they’d worked hard to find out about them.We heard our music on John Peel, or via crackly mix tapes passed from person to person, or playing on the stereo in the cool record shop.You needed to know the cool kids at school to find out what they were listening to (some of them even knew students*gasp*).You saw the occasional handwritten fanzine.You poured over the NME each week to find out what was happening.An Indie Band scraping into the top 40 felt like a personal triumph.I’d listen at the radio each week to hear if The Wonderstuff or Northside or Morrissey had made it, like a football fan listening to the final scores at Saturday tea-time.If you saw someone in a cool band t-shirt you knew they were a fan and not just some hipster, they’d have to have bought it from a gig as there’d be no-where else to buy it.You knew they were one of your tribe.It wasn’t an easy tribe to be in but it was worth the effort for the sheer pleasure of the music.And because in those days it was the only tribe we had, at least in my provincial town and lots of others like it.
I suppose that really the only thing that’s been lost is the exclusivity.The snob value.The knowing that you know best.The huge musical currency that used to belong to me, that I built up over years and years has been devalued.The records that I painstakingly researched, saved for, tracked down and treasured are now available to anyone with a computer and a few hours of free time. We cheered each little victory when a song or band crossed over, made endless mixtapes for friends to bring them into our gang, argued passionately (and no doubt arrogantly and annoyingly) at parties about why our bands were better. And now everyone's 'got' them, we feel a little lost and cheated. We thought it'd make everyone else in the world more like us, whereas they took our bands and carried on as before. Watching them in bland arenas instead of sticky floored clubs, clutching popcorn, cokes and hotdogs. Talking through the songs rather than hanging on every word.
It’s not much to mourn really is it? My tribe is now huge and open to all.It should be a cause for celebration.And it is. I’m really pleased that the records I love and loved are there for everyone to share.I wouldn’t turn back the clock or have it any other way.But I do sometimes feel a little lost amidst all these people.And the music.So much damn music, stretching away back for 50 years and ahead for as far as I can see.How will we ever have time to listen to it all? And I do still want to listen to it all, as much as I ever did. ‘Lost in music, caught in a trap’ indeed.
And if you only listen to one link from this post and the last and you don’t already know him – make it Nick Drake.
