Nick Drake: Pink Moon

When I was 13, my dad set up a bedroom at his place for me, for when I visited every other weekend. His house was only halfway across town from mine, but it felt further. There was nothing in the room but the bed. Beyond that it was bare, totally un-lived-in, with plain institutional white walls and hardwood floors. I remember lying there in the drafty darkness, maybe with some muffled sound drifting up from the living room stereo but more likely in total silence, feeling completely, insanely alone. Like there was nothing left in the universe to comfort me. I was a pretty dramatic 8th-grader.

Not surprisingly, those feelings were drudged back up when listening to this album. It's so personal and intimate, it could have been recorded in that room. Could have been written in that room. There's nothing I can detect on the record other than Drake's voice and his guitar, plucked and strummed delicately, softly, like he can barely even compel himself to play. You can feel fingers on frets, hear the occasional string twang out of tune. Most of the songs wind up sounding similar, giving the eerie feeling that no matter how hard he tries, Drake never truly gets catharsis. Not surprisingly, after this album's release, and failure to be a commercial success, he withdrew completely and died of an overdose of medication that may have been accidental, maybe not. I'm not about stories like these when it comes to enjoying music, but it helps give a way to think about the music itself.

Because for all his weary sadness, Drake's voice has a warmth to it. Maybe it's his accent or his quiet, whispery way of singing, but it feels very not-dead-yet. The title track, with lyrics that foresee doom, has more awe and wonder at the prospect when he sings, "Pink, pink, pink, pink." The lyrics on that song, as throughout the album, are spare and repetitive, trapped in themselves. The lyrics throughout the album shun the world, shun the self, shun the song. On "Know," he can barely stand to make syllables while he plucks his progressively less melodic guitar over and over. "Know that I love you / Know that I don't care / Know that I see you / Know I'm not there" Then there's the slow, solemn articulation and descent of the instrumental "Horn." There's a mystical, unearthly quality to his despair.

I could go on. At times it seems like Drake is doing a very bad job convincing himself that better times are ahead ("I can take a road that'll see me through") but it takes a very dark mood to come up with "Take a look, you may see me in the dirt / I am the parasite that hangs from your skirt." There's a delicate touch that goes into making a record this achingly personal, this heartbreaking, without making it seem overwrought, forced, or desperate for attention. When I'm mad, I don't go off into spastic fits of rage, but I do sulk, deep and long, and try not to signify it to others, though I usually can't keep it from showing somehow. It seems like a very private pain that was caught on record.

So that brings me to "From The Morning" the album closer, mellow, sweet and sentimental, (as are a few other the other tracks,) but there's a sigh in his voice when he sings, "A day once dawned, and it was beautiful." There's beauty in the world, at least there was once, for Nick Drake. And that's the sad truth, even the beauty of the world can be hurtful from a certain vantage point.

There's a paradox to a record like this. You can't possibly listen to it when you're in a good mood. But if you're down, real low, and you need music that shares your pain, you'll put it on, or a record like this, and by the end, maybe you'll feel like you're not alone. Drake's tragedy was maybe that he didn't have that feeling, but how amazingly he was able to share it with others, even if he wasn't discovered until after his death. Haunting, beautiful.

Buy this album from iTunes now!