Nick Drake: why???

Yup, there was.

In my view, the great thing about Nick Drake is that he wrote these beautiful melodic songs, with very pastoral arrangements, no rough edges and a musical style that would have been considered "twee" hadn't it been for the lyrics and his tragic life history. And yet, this "twee" music has received a lot of critical acclaim. Which is great, but other "twee" artists should have just as much love too :)

-- Geir Hongro, Friday, 1 June 2007 11:34 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

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Pink moon is far from twee. So you are half right.

That was precisely the same rug in which his sister concealed Ronnie Corbett in No Sex Please We're British.

Seriously, y'all have to hear Sebadoh murdering "Pink Moon", its kind of awesome in the gall it has.

I can wait another decade or six.

Pft, I suppose you dont like Dino's cover of "Just Like Heaven" either?

i certainly don't.. sorry. i haven't heard the sebadoh pink moon though

Well you'd hate it I reckon, in that case Jim :)

In fairness, it isnt particularly amazingly great, the verses are nice but the chorus is FUCKED UP.

Dean Martin did "Just Like Heaven"????? Why didn't Nick Tosches tell me this?

I think a Dean Martin album of Nick Drake covers would have saved several lives.

Can I mention Elton John now?

Who would have thought that Nick Drake's best mate at school would have had a worldwide number one in the eighties about his wife when he was actually having it off with the nanny?

Me for a kick-off!

Pink moon is far from twee. So you are half right.

That's the one Nick Drake album I don't like.

Bryter Later is entwined with perfect early summer evenings over looking the Calverley Grounds at Tunbridge Wells in 2003. Perfect mesh of music, time and place.

I've not listened to it in about 5 years, but I seem to remember Pink Moon being perfect if I was in good mood and just as perfect if I was sad about something.

So yeah, it's probably twee.

Why is his music "twee"? Is all folk music twee?

Please. Nick Drake is not twee.

is this a u.k - u.s divide? i know twee is strictly pejorative over there and isn't over here (as much), though I don't think it qualifies as twee either way personally a case could be made.

Wait, where do you think twee is strictly pejorative? I often think it's funny the way twee is sometimes used as a favorable or neutral descriptor and other times as a sneering insult, depending on who says it and how it's said.

the u.k., i thought. My impression is that it didn't have any connotation over here (u.s.), so when people called sarah stuff or whatever 'twee' we just picked it up and ran with it as a neutral quasi-genre descriptor.
heh I've read 'twee as fuck' more than once, i have no excuse to be so fuzzy about such things.

xpost

I think of "twee" as being specifically associated with Sarah records, bands like Heavenly, Talulah Gosh or I guess even Belle & Sebastian. I normally don't like that kind of music, so to me it is pejorative. I don't think it has much to do with nationality, really.

Now is the time to confess, though, that what I dread even more than the term "twee" applied to Nick Drake is "emo". I do believe there are special torture chambers in hell for people who would call him that.

I didn't read the older parts of this thread earlie, but this:

No one wants Drake to turn out to the crowd and trying different things: his entire appeal is the way he stands in the corner with his back to you, clutching his guitar and mumbling mournfully. The whole point of listening is to somehow squeeze yourself between him and the corner walls, where you can hear him.

Is amazing. Nabisco, that is awesome, and spot on.

Yeah, I confess I'm a Nabsico fan, too. Amen.

So leave your house come into my shed
Please stop my world from raining through my head

Sigh. So lovely. So sad. So right.

I think the first time I heard "Road" off of Pink Moon was my awakening to quite how beautiful and powerful music can be.

Pretty much responsible for everything I've loved about music ever since.

"Road" is oftentimes my favorite Nick Drake song and is also proof that Nick Drake has the most incredible fingerpicking technique of anyone ever.

I can't make my thumb move like that.

"Road" is definitely some super badass guitar playing.

As for twee, the origin of the term as a musical descriptor is definitely British, but I've heard it used in the US.

I lived in England for a bit but I'm not sure I ever actually heard anyone say it over there. I believe that it may have started as a strictly pejorative term, but then so did "baroque." I think it's all about context, really. Some people love twee and some people hate it. I just think it's funny the way both groups seem to use the term without explanation and expect their audience to know whether they mean it as a compliment or an insult.

Dave Grohl, Heath Ledger and Norah Jones: why?

A forthcoming album celebrating the cult singer-songwriter will include controversial footage of the late Heath Ledger simulating suicide to Drake's Black Eyed Dog. Nice!

I'm sure the Drake family will be delighted, they've never accepted his death was suicide - but who cares what they think anyway, eh?

that footage in question is pretty cool. very sombre.

NJones did "Day is done" as the b-side to Nick Drake's own "River Man" single.

David Schulhof, co-founder and co-CEO of EverGreen Copyrights, made the announcement at the MidemNet conference this week. His company controls the US rights for several deceased artists, including Drake and Roy Orbison.
(...)

"Fans are willing to pay for (this) kind of product," Schulhof said, speaking of the tribute.

Blimey, tell it like it is or wot?

Saw the thread revive, read the exchanges at inception, and thought of the solo in Black Eyed Dog and then realised I'd already posted about it, so, here it is again:

I stand by what I said upthread, in that I love FFL pretty much whole, but only find other songs beyond that really compelling. I like Drake, and loved him, possibly, for a while when I was about 17.

Consistency or un-variation I don't see as a problem at all; in fact an artist exploring their aesthetic over a number of years and records is often very compelling.

Possibly the crux of Drake for me, and the moment which proves he's not just an emotional one-trick pony, is the miraculous, soaring, joyous (to me, at any rate) acoustic guitar solo which sears through the centre of "Black Eyed Dog"; possibly it's Drake's saddest tune, his most defeated - he certainly sounds to me as if he's crying as he sings it - and then this solo tears the song in two, elevates the mood incredibly, exposes blue skies where there was really only black before.

― Scik Mouthy, Friday, June 1, 2007 10:15 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder

A forthcoming album celebrating the cult singer-songwriter will include controversial footage of the late Heath Ledger simulating suicide to Drake's Black Eyed Dog

WTF! that's the strangest thing to put on a tribute album ever.

Are there any other songs that Ledger was filmed simulating suicide to? Is this something he did often?

that footage in question is pretty cool. very sombre.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/images/2006/10/19/dmu_head_in_hands_315x420.jpg

What was "the Ledge" listening to when he died, eh? Eh?

Meet On The Ledge?

Fleetwood Mac, "The Ledge"

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/1673/tedroslz8.jpg

"Close to the Ledit"

"Hey, what'd you do last night?"

"We decided to stay home-- wound up watching footage of Heath Ledger simulating suicide to Nick Drake's 'Black Eyed Dog'."

"Cool, what a nice way to celebrate the memory of Nick"

I'm holding out for:

Heath Ledger Simulating Suicide to the Music of Nick Drake: The Criterion Collection

yeah i was WEIRDED out by the news (i wrote that gruniad article) but uh edited out all my joke-joke-jokes after reflection on the whole er suicide angle.

There isn't anything about this thing that doesn't make me want to puke.