3 posts tagged “nick drake”
Oh god. I just looked at my sponsored google ads and there were four all lined up in a row with the title "Nick Drake Ringtones." This makes me sad and scared.
I understand that the greatest hope of advertisers is to deliver ads that are tailored to their audience. I have Nick Drake on my interests list, so maybe I would like Nick Drake ringtones? I can't remember the last time an ad on the internet or elsewhere actually made me excited about a product or service. Not only am I becoming immune to ads, but I am actually developing an allergy. We have cable tv at work now, so whenever we go to hook up a laptop to our big screen we have a few moments of daytime tv or commercials. 3 seconds of a dish liquid commercial cause me to want to punch someone in the face. Did the "women's movement" (whatever that was) NOT WORK AT ALL?? I think I actually shrieked. Then there was the sexy tic tac tongue juggling which made me put my face on my laptop keyboard and weep.
No. I don't want a Nick Drake ringtone. The man killed himself, probably because he had the foresight to realize that one day his songs would be sold off for .99 each as compressed electronic crap for mobile phones. I would kill myself if I knew that was the future. I really would.
It continues.
This song is for the pensive winter-day-at-the-ocean scene...
Nick Drake - Day is Done
On a whim I went down to Elliott Bay Books for an Americano, a new moleskine notepad, and an Iris Murdoch novel - just in time to catch a reading by Joe Boyd who has released a memoir of his years producing music in the 1960's, White Bicycles.
From what he read the book seems to be beautifully written and steeped in nostalgia for the time before utopian idealism turned ugly. While he was talking about his experience at Woodstock I couldn't help but think of my dad, somewhere out there in the mud-caked sea of hippie kids; two years before I was born some bit of my DNA was soaking up LSD and Joan Baez.
The only question anyone wanted to ask the author was: "what was so-and-so like to work with?" When asked about Nick Drake he read the section about meeting the fragile young man whose shyness did not match his good looks and posh accent. He was just a boy, attending Cambridge, smoking nervously, embarassed by his own talent, and horrified by performing for an audience. Boyd believes that if his music had been publicly revered then as it is now he might still be with us. It must be horrible to be blessed with a talent that large and to think that it is not wanted.
Of course someone had to ask what Syd Barrett was like, before his mind disintegrated. Boyd said it was like a flip was switched. One week Barrett was lucid and intelligent and rational, and the next he wasn't making sense and could barely lift a guitar.
People are fascinated by those who have slipped away from the fragile space we think is safe and steady. I think the fascination comes from the innate awareness that each of us stands only inches from the edge o a cliff we cannot see, and it only takes one step to find the solid ground is not there any longer.
