The Artist: Nick Drake
Nick Drake didn’t play the game.
Born in 1948, raised in rural England, he studied at Cambridge but left before finishing. He signed to Island Records at 20. He barely performed live, rarely gave interviews and refused to tour. His albums sold poorly. But the songs...
Whispered vocals, open tunings, a sense of something vast behind the stillness.
Drake released three albums between 1969 and 1972. The first two, Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter, featured lush arrangements and jazz flourishes. But they felt somehow apart from him - beautiful, yes, but distant.
Then came Pink Moon. No strings. No band. Just voice and guitar.
It was the last thing he’d release before fading into silence.
Drake died in 1974 at just 26. For years, barely anyone noticed.
Now, he’s a cult figure - a symbol of misunderstood beauty.
The Record: Pink Moon (1972)
Pink Moon is quiet. But it’s not gentle.
It’s a 28-minute descent into something solitary and unguarded.
Eleven songs, one man, one guitar and a few faint traces of piano.
It opens with the title track: a riddle of a song, with the only overdub on the album - a brief, eerie piano line that feels like a ghost drifting in.
From there, things don’t get louder. They get lonelier.
Place to Be sounds like memory unraveling.
Road is half prophecy, half lullaby.
Which Will is full of quiet ache - Drake asking life to show him what’s next, knowing it may never answer.
There’s no studio sheen. No orchestration.
Just the creak of the fretboard, the hush of the room.
The sound of someone trying to hold it all together.
Play Now:
🔊 Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube
Start With:
- Pink Moon - Short, strange, unforgettable
- Place to Be - A warm ache
- Which Will - Fragile, questioning, deeply human
