How Nick Drake’s “River Man” Has Captivated Technology after Technology of Listeners

In 1999, Volk­swa­gen aired a tele­vi­sion com­mer­cial for the Golf Mk3 Cabrio. Deal­er­ships had been quickly inun­dat­ed with calls, as pop­u­lar cul­ture his­to­ry remem­bers it, however not from peo­ple inquir­ing in regards to the automotive. Quite, they had been des­per­ate to know the identify of the tune sound­observe­ing the advert’s footage of a top-down evening dri­ve to a home par­ty. For all they knew, it was a brand new sin­gle from an up-and-com­ing younger man with an acoustic gui­tar and sen­si­tiv­i­ty exquis­ite sufficient to chop by way of the sound and fury of turn-of-the-mil­len­ni­um pop. Actually, the tune had come out 27 years earlier than, and the artist had been lifeless for 25 of them. Thus started the obscure Eng­lish singer-song­author Nick Drake’s belat­ed ascent to star­dom.

“Pink Moon,” the tune from the VW Spot (a late change­ment for The Church’s eight­ies hit “Under the Milky Way”), was the title lower from Drake’s third and remaining album, which closed a report­ing profession not even three years lengthy. It had begun in 1969, with the debut Five Leaves Left. If lis­ten­ers of the late nineties curi­ous sufficient to select it up — or, as had simply turn out to be pos­si­ble, down­load it from file-shar­ing internet­works — may onerous­ly have been dis­ap­level­ed, they nonetheless would­n’t have been pre­pared for its sec­ond observe, “Riv­er Man.”

Described by Ian Mac­Don­ald as “one of many sky-high clas­sics of post-war Eng­lish pop­u­lar music,” the tune com­bines Drake’s hang-out­ing­ly evoca­tive lyri­cism and uncon­ven­tion­al gui­tar tun­ing with a wealthy lay­er of orches­trat­ed strings that stops simply wanting cloy­ing, all in jazzy 5/4 time.

As music YouTu­ber Charles Cor­nell factors out in the video at the top of the post, you’ll little doubt rec­og­nize that point sig­na­ture from Dave Brubeck­’s “Take Five,” which makes that prime­ly unusu­al rhythm really feel nat­ur­al. So does “Riv­er Man,” although the extra shut­ly you lis­ten to it, the extra musi­cal­ly dar­ing it sounds, even when you don’t have the the­o­ret­i­cal lan­guage to clarify it as Cor­nell does. There’s, for examination­ple, no cho­rus, which may­n’t have helped its possibilities of radio air­play on the time, nor may the tune’s somber and reflec­tive temper. “The coun­ter­cul­ture was automotive­ni­va­lesque, its opti­mism com­pul­so­ry,” Mac­Don­ald writes. “Drake noticed deep­er.” It’s onerous­ly implau­si­ble, the truth is, to learn the tune as a Blakean and Bud­dhis­tic alle­go­ry of an indi­vid­ual confronted with a alternative between the con­crete, cycli­cal actual­i­ty of human affairs and the unknown realms past.

Drake com­posed “Riv­er Man” dur­ing his temporary time at Cam­bridge, and the books writ­ten about him quote acquain­tances from that peri­od describ­ing it as a comment­ready step for­ward in his artis­tic evo­lu­tion. Dur­ing the 5 Leaves Left ses­sions, he sang and performed gui­tar reside with the orches­tra, whose prepare­ments (by the band­chief Har­ry Robin­son, then identified on British TV for his nov­el­ty band Lord Rock­ing­ham’s XI) stuffed area Drake had delib­er­ate­ly left within the com­po­si­tion. The strings, in oth­er phrases, weren’t an incon­gru­ous try at candy­en­ing, as Phil Spec­tor would per­type on the Bea­t­les’ “The Lengthy and Wind­ing Highway” the fol­low­ing 12 months, however an inte­gral a part of the tune. Drake’s solo per­for­mance of it on BBC Radio 2’s Night Ride (a broad­solid host­ed by none oth­er than John Peel) sounds cap­ti­vat­ing, however incom­plete. On the 5 Leaves Left ver­sion, each ele­ment works togeth­er to make “Riv­er Man” endur­ing — and, in each sense, tran­scen­dent.

Relat­ed con­tent:

A Doc­u­men­tary Intro­duc­tion to Nick Drake, Whose Haunt­ing & Influ­en­tial Songs Came Into the World 50 Years Ago Today

How John Lennon Wrote the Bea­t­les’ Best Song, “A Day in the Life”

How Joni Mitchell Wrote “Wood­stock,” the Song that Defined the Leg­endary Music Fes­ti­val, Even Though She Wasn’t There (1969)

How Grace Slick Wrote “White Rab­bit”: The 1960s Clas­sic Inspired by LSD, Lewis Car­roll, Miles Davis’ Sketch­es of Spain, and Hyp­o­crit­i­cal Par­ents

Paul Simon Tells the Sto­ry of How He Wrote “Bridge Over Trou­bled Water” (1970)

How a Fake Car­toon Band Made “Sug­ar Sug­ar” the Biggest Sell­ing Hit Sin­gle of 1969

Based mostly in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the creator of the newslet­ter Books on Cities in addition to the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social internet­work for­mer­ly referred to as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.