Nick Drake – Five Leaves Left (Island 1969)

Legendary album by this troubled, wonderful soul that achieved no commersial success or even attention in his short life. I have never understood why. His music is not strange, but it’s certainly special – in all the right ways. The music he made, over only three albums, was also obviously very personal. I can’t really add much, if anything, to what has already been said about this artist or this album. But I will say that ‘Five Leaves Left’ is, without a single doubt, one of my favourite albums ever – and not just within the folk or singer/songwriter genres. Why so? Well, it’s just something about that multifaceted voice, the ‘dreamy’ quality of his music (and never was it more dreamy than on this album) and of course the songwriting. ‘Five Leaves Left’ is simply a perfect album, and a true winner for me every time the fall comes along. And fall is of course the best season. EVERY single song on here is a personal favourite, but if hard pressed, I would say my absolute favourites are ‘Day Is Done’, ‘Way to Blue’, ‘River Man’ (probably his most well known song besides ‘Northern Sky’) and not at least ‘Fruit Tree’. The latter is extra special, and its lyrics could be said to be highly prophetic. This masterpiece ends with the words: ‘Fruit tree, fruit tree, open your eyes to another year. They’ll all know that you were here when you’re gone’. Thankfully, Nick Drake at least post mortem has achived the recognition and respect that he always deserved. It didn’t happen until the early 2000’s, and it’s kind of sad that this happened through a VW commercial, but that’s another story. The art he made through his music and highly poetic words is of course all that matters, and that art is surely immortal.