Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left
NME.COM feature on Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left album including album review, artwork, tracks, listen now, tour dates, discography and more.
Release date: 19 June 2000
Tracklisting click track to read more
- Time Has Told Me
- River Man
- Three Hours
- Way To Blue
- Day Is Done
- ' Cello Song
- Thoughts Of Mary Jane
- Man In A Shed
- Fruit Tree
- Saturday Sun
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Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left: Wikipedia Album Entry
It's little wonder why Drake felt frustrated at the lack of commercial success his music initially gathered, considering the help he had on his debut record. Besides fine production from Joe Boyd and assistance from folks like Fairport Convention's Richard Thompson and his unrelated bass counterpart from Pentangle, Danny Thompson, Drake also recruited school friend Robert Kirby to create most of the just-right string and wind arrangements. His own performance itself steered a careful balance between too-easy accessibility and maudlin self-reflection, combining the best of both worlds while avoiding the pitfalls on either side. The result was a fantastic debut appearance, and if the cult of Drake consistently reads more into his work than is perhaps deserved, Five Leaves Left is still a most successful effort. Having grown out of the amiable but derivative styles captured on the long-circulating series of bootleg home recordings, Drake assays his tunes with just enough drama -- world-weariness in the vocals, carefully paced playing, and more -- to make it all work. His lyrics capture a subtle poetry of emotion, as on the pastoral semi-fantasia of "The Thoughts of Mary Jane," which his soft, articulate singing brings even more to the full. Sometimes he projects a little more clearly, as on the astonishing voice-and-strings combination "Way to Blue," while elsewhere he's not so clear, suggesting rather than outlining the mood. Understatement is the key to his songs and performances' general success, which makes the combination of his vocals and Rocky Dzidzornu's congas on "Three Hours" and the lovely "'Cello Song," to name two instances, so effective. Danny Thompson is the most regular side performer on the album, his bass work providing subtle heft while never standing in the way of the song -- kudos well deserved for Boyd's production as well.
According to the River Man Songfacts, the album title referred to the warning found towards the end of a packet of Rizla cigarette papers, that there were only five leaves left.
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Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left Lyrics
Nick Drake - Time Has Told Me Lyrics
Time has told me
You're a rare, rare find
A troubled cure
For a troubled mind
Nick Drake - River Man Lyrics
Betty came by on her way
Said she had a word to say
About things today and fallen leaves
Nick Drake - Three Hours Lyrics
Three hours from sundown, Jeremy flies
Hoping to keep the sun from his eyes
East from the city and down to the cave
In search of a master in search of a slave
Nick Drake - Way to Blue Lyrics
Don't you have a word to show what may be done
Have you never heard a way to find the sun
Tell me all that you may know
Nick Drake - Day is Done Lyrics
When the day is done
Down to earth then sinks the sun
Along with everything
That was lost and won
Nick Drake - 'cello Song Lyrics
Strange face, with your eyes
So pale and sincere
Underneath you know well
You have nothing to fear
Nick Drake - The Thoughts of Mary Jane Lyrics
Who can know
The thoughts of Mary Jane
Why she flies
Or goes out in the rain
Nick Drake - Man in a Shed Lyrics
Well, there was a man who lived in a shed
Spent most of his days out of his head
For his shed was rotten let in the rain
Said it was enough to drive any man insane
Nick Drake - Fruit Tree Lyrics
Fame is but a fruit tree, so very unsound
It can never flourish, till its stalk is in the ground
So men of fame, can never find a way
Till time has flown far from their dying day
Nick Drake - Saturday Sun Lyrics
Saturday sun came early one morning
In a sky so clear and blue
Saturday sun came without warning
So no-one knew what to do
