hanging on a star

Four songs from the new Nick Drake tribute LP The Endless Coloured Ways, by the artists who cover them

fly (original on Bryter Layter, Island, 1971)

PHILIP SELWAY (RADIOHEAD): I wanted to cover Fly because there is a home demo recorded in his room that really spoke to me; you can hear birdsong, and you feel Nick’s right in front of you performing – and it’s such a beautiful melody. I was also thinking of Joni Mitchell’s orchestral LP of her older songs [Travelogue, 2002], where her voice is much lower, so I imagined Nick was still alive and reimagining his own material, so my version is in a much lower key. You just want to do the best for his songs. If I had to boil my record collection down to one artist, it would be Nick – I think everybody has somebody who speaks to you, and for you, and I feel that about him. But then his music does seem to inspire this deep attachment. He wasn’t the music du jour at the time, but once you get beyond the tastemakers and prevalent genres of the day, you hear the quality of the work, the intimacy and the vulnerability of his expression. There’s this whole community of Nick Drake lovers out there, but it’s not like we’ve come together in a forum; we’ve all just found that deep connection to the music individually.

poor boy (original on Bryter Layter, Island, 1971)

NADIA REID: I was just reflecting that it was a year ago that we recorded it. We were still in somewhat of a lockdown in New Zealand. And, to be honest, I didn’t really think too much about how I would approach the song. I just wanted to get my band in the room, find a good key for me to sing it in, and kind of just let the magic pour out! Obviously, I know the Bryter Layter version really well – Nick Drake gets under your skin, doesn’t he? I think I read somewhere that he wrote it about Leonard Cohen – like he was kind of taking the piss out of a certain kind of singer-songwriter’s self-pity. The song certainly brought a couple of people to mind!

I was given Pink Moon as a teenager, when I was possibly in my last year of high school. I hadn’t heard music quite like that before, so understated and intimate and kind of dark in places. It was definitely one of the records that I really held onto during tumultuous times. I don’t think we should shy away from that darkness. Nick Drake offers that release, or that connection through song that makes people feel less alone.

three hours (original on Five Leaves Left, Island, 1969)

JOHN PARISH: I was asked to sing a duet with Aldous Harding, so we chose Three Hours because the lyric is more abstract, whilst other songs of Nick’s are too personal to carry more than one voice, or even a background harmony. Three Hours is quite a driving track, both from the words and the guitar part, so I gave it a classic driving, motorik beat.

It’s only with time that people have recognised how unique Nick was. His guitar and voice are so central and defined that it works no matter how they’re arranged, and all three of his albums are different in that respect. My favourite is

Pink Moon. It wasn’t until I heard a remastered vinyl reissue that I was struck by quite how brilliant it is: a perfect rendition of acoustic guitar and voice. It became a benchmark record for me, in regard to recording artists in a sparse way. It’s got nothing to do with technical excellence, such as microphone placement or room ambience; it’s about getting a feeling, an indefinable quality that becomes so engaging that it’s impossible to turn away from.

day is done (original on Five Leaves Left, Island, 1969)

JOHN GRANT: This song was tough for me, because how do you approach something that’s perfect? That chord structure for me is heaven. That’s what my heart is shaped like. And I really connect to his story – I wonder if he felt invisible too. “And then, when the party’s through/ Seems so very sad for you/Didn’t do the things you meant to do/Now, there’s no time to start anew” – those lines speak to my heart.

I was introduced to his music in the ’90s but it took me a long time to get into him, because he was like an accusation. He was himself in a way I was incapable of being at the time. Day Is Done, Three Hours, Fruit Tree, River Man – the lyrics, the chord progressions and the orchestrations… I mean, holy fuck. It’s getting people to think about things that they don’t want to think about, but in this exquisitely beautiful way. It helps you look at these things without entering the abyss.

The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs Of Nick Drake is out July 7 on Chrysalis.