Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left (1969)

Nick Drake is one of those artists I kept hearing about for a very long time, before I actually familiarised myself with his music. Now it seems quite mad how long it took me to start listening to him. I only really started listening to his music when I moved to London. Nick Drake must've been a strong influence to so many of the 90s and 00s singer-songwriters I adored as a young adult (and still do). His tragic death at a young age limits his discography to three albums, but they're all fantastic. His debut album Five Leaves Left is my favourite out of the three, probably because it's the most melancholic and, you know me, I like my songs sad. I bought this on a vinyl only a few years ago when they made a re-issue of all of Drake's albums. This is the kind of music that needs to be listened to on vinyl to get into a right mood.


The beautifully haunting sound of the album is quite phenomenal, considering that Drake played it live in a studio with strings without any overdubbing. A proof of his extraordinary talent. The guitars are phenomenal and to think that he's singing live while playing. He must've sounded amazing live. I've always envied people who can play acoustic guitar in a way that doesn't need much else in the background. Even though this album has a very strong string score as well, the guitar and vocals in themselves would be enough to call this a masterpiece.

The name of the album is from cigarette paper packages, a warning when there are only five left. You might've thought there would've been a more poetic meaning to those words. I guess cigarette papers were really familiar to Nick Drake as I think he was no stranger to all sorts of substances. He suffered from bad depression and died of overdose of depression medication.

The album starts with Time Has Told Me, which sounds almost cheery compared to the rest of the album. I feel like this first song sounds more similar to Drake's later two albums. River Man after it takes us straight to Drake's hypnotic and sad world where his velvety vocals soar beautifully above the innovative chords picked with amazing precision. When the strings come in, my skin goes to goosebumps. Three Hours shows some of the best guitar playing on the album. You can hear that Drake had spent a long time alone with his guitar to be able to play such complicated chords with such interesting and innovative picking patterns. Way to Blue is one of my favourite songs on the album. It starts with amazing string arrangements perfected by Drake's beautifully haunting vocals. The song almost sounds like a funeral song. Day Is Done shows some more phenomenal guitars. This type of folk is much closer to English traditional folk than Americana that dominates the folk music of today. This is a proof that you can make some really amazing stuff from the English folk tradition as well. Cello Song has amazing guitar picking. I first became familiar with this song actually through a cover version played by Jose Gonzales and Books. The Thoughts of Mary Jane has some beautiful flutes that point to the end of 60s and early 70s when this album was made. I don't think pop music has adopted flute in a same way afterwards. Man In a Shed sounds most like Drake's later albums with it's jazzy pianos. This song sounds a bit like early Belle & Sebastian. Fruit Tree has a proper fairy tale style in its orchestration. I really do like it when classical instruments are combined with folk instruments. The album ends with a beautiful piano ballad Saturday Sun, which sounds quite hopeful after so many crushingly melancholic tunes.

It wasn't really customary back in the day to have music videos and there are hardly any live performances either to be found of Nick Drake, so I'm linking a video made for River Man that features photographs showing just how young Drake was when he was recording these songs. Quite extraordinary.

It's strange how Nick Drake wasn't really that well-known in his time or even immediately afterwards. Now he is a cult figure who has influenced so many musicians. I don't know if there are that many other such people in the pop music history where the artists would not have found success during their lifetime but who have become such legends in the following decades.

Listen to the album on Spotify.