SOLID AIR, OR THE SOUL OF ROMANTIC MELODIES
IN PRAISE OF THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO, IN LIFE, ARE HARDLY EVER THERE
BUT ARE ALL THERE, ALL THE SAME
The image is of the inscription on the back of Nick Drake's grave in Tanworth. It is a line taken from Nick's song "From the Morning."
"From The Morning"
A day once dawned and it was beautiful A day once dawned from the ground Then the night she fell and the air was beautiful The night she fell all around So look, see the days The endless coloured ways And go play the game that you learned From the morning And now we rise and we are everywhere And now we rise from the ground And see she flies, and she is everywhere See she flies all around So look, see the sights The endless summer nights And go play the game that you learned From the morning
I've been doing some reading, watching documentaries, and piecing together notes/clues in an attempt to unravel the sad story of the demise of Nick Drake. I had thought to write on the 'mystery' of Nick Drake, but I don't think there is one. 'Mystery' is the kind of thing those who know little and think less say when writing on Nick Drake. There's no mystery in cases like this, only ignorance. The more I have read on this, the more it has become clear that it is idle to speculate on something on which we know so little, particularly when what little we do know does seem to point very clearly to certain obvious conclusions. Any search for a mystery beyond that is an invitation into myth-making in the worst sense. Anything that anyone offers on Nick Drake beyond the known facts seems to be more like questions that they are asking of themselves, because Nick seems to be like the man who was hardly ever there. Even those who knew him best don't seem to know him too well at all. His father confirms this, admitting that we, in which he included himself, didn't know Nick very well at all. I'd suggest that they did know him, but that there wasn't actually that much to know about him other than his abstentionism from life - which is a significant detail - and that, searching for the concrete reasons behind his troubles, they draw an uncomprehending blank. Some say he was a mystery to them. It could be that the blank that stares us in the face on Nick indicates that he didn't actually have that much of a life, that he kept life at a distance, and that we are looking in the wrong place when we search for external facts. There are few details, few contacts, few events in his life. Whatever else that is, it's not a mystery. Nick took his ‘secret’ to his grave. Outside of the music, Nick Drake was a man without trace. I'd go to his mother and his sister first if I want to know about Nick. After that, it is guess work with respect to Nick’s inner life. And even his mother and sister were left guessing long before the end. But it's wrong to say that they, or others, didn't know Nick. That's not the problem. I've seen the documentaries and read the accounts of those who came into contact with him. There is no unity of opinion among those who knew him. That much is clear from interviews. I don't think there was any unity in Nick's life; it's fractured and compartmentalized. That's fact, not speculation. In my view, he speaks most of all through the music, because I don't think there was much else there, and what there was was confined within neat little boxes that Nick could enter and exit at will, and exit more than enter. He was plainly ill-at-ease in social gatherings, so it is no surprise that you will not find anything more than scattered recollections there. Other than his music, Nick made no firm commitment to anyone or anything. He's not so much elusive as non-existent in certain of life's social essentials and normalities. But he left an exceptional body of work; small, yes, but self-contained, a perfect case. His sister uses the word "obstinate." I think he had a view of who he was and what he was about, and didn't budge for anyone or anything. Critics think the arrangements on Bryter Layter succeeded in showcasing Nick's music. Nick himself thought they messed around with his music. He went back to a stripped down sound for the follow up Pink Moon. Nick didn't like to be messed around with. He had certain ideals. He was obstinate and uncompromising. He had reservations about social life, he was withdrawn from it. The world tends to demand a certain amount of compromise.
People are free to project their own problems and their own ideals on Nick Drake. He's a blank canvass to outsiders. No wonder he has been portrayed as so many different things by so many different people. Each has their own Nick Drake. People relate to the things they know, identify and find in others. It doesn't mean that any of it is the real Nick. There is little known about Nick's life and about what he really thought. That's not because of some mystery but because there really is little to know, at least with respect to his social life. His inner life is something that we will never know. He clearly had thoughts that troubled him, indicating a certain idealism and high expectation on his part. That refusal to accommodate life and others, or be accommodated by them, is a revealing detail. I've read critics say that Nick was someone who was unable to navigate his way through the troubles of adolescence. If that is true, and it may well be, then that makes Nick all the more interesting. Because he never got past that. That indicates more than growing pains. Life didn't measure up to whatever it was that Nick had in mind. He didn't think that he measured up to life's demands, either. Nick himself said that he had failed in everything he had tried to do. That's not true, and in Fruit Tree he gives some indication on his part that, deep down, he knew fine well the true quality of the songs he had recorded, and that one day his music would be come to be properly appreciated and valued. He once told his mother Molly that it would make him happy to know that his music may have helped just one person in the world. He didn't live long enough to see how many people his music came to help. It was a lot more than one. 'I hope he knows,' said Molly. It's takes time to know such things, and Nick craved recognition in the here and now. He didn't get it. And we know why.
Nick's music stands on it's own, regardless of any myth or 'mystery' surrounding his person. It is simply good music. You will find Nick in his songs. I can't find him anywhere else, not as a whole and well-balanced person, because the failure to develop and grow as such a person is precisely Nick's tragedy. We can speculate as to the reasons for that. His friends, his associates, the people he worked with, the people he met, all seem to be at loggerheads about who he really was. He compartmentalized his life. It's a life in pieces. He never put it all together, so we are left drawing large conclusions from small parts. The key is to see the fragments for what they are, and resist the craving for something more. That something more is the potential that can only be realized through its actual living, and not in any ideals, myths, and fantasies we may care to project upon it.
My hope in this sad tale is that there is some solace to be had in the fact that Nick's music lives on inside the hearts of so many these days. And in mother Molly's transcendent hope that there is some way that Nick has come to know this beyond his earthly demise. Without that, it's just another sad tale without any great point. You live, you die, and the joys and sorrows in between are merely transitory. The balance between them may be of personal concern to you as you negotiate your way from beginning to end, but it all goes the same way if the people who say that we live in godless, prophetless times, times in which love has gone out of fashion, are right and there's no underlying meaning. I don't believe that, but openly acknowledge that my transcendent hope is no more than a belief on my part, without any firm evidence to support it other than the fact that it most makes sense of the richness of human life and experience and the cosmic longing for belonging, identity, and meaning. Which is a cogent and compelling reason, I would say.
Had he lived, Nick Drake would have turned 70 in March 2018 and fêted as one of Britain's greatest songwriters. The songs he recorded in his young life have alone secured him that accolade. Who knows what he would have gone on to record had he lived. It's another invitation to speculate and fantasize. If we just stick to facts here, then let's proceed from the fact that his songs had the hallmark of quality. But he didn't live. As friends and fellow musicians testify, he wasn’t made for the times he lived in, and he wasn't equipped to withstand the pressures of making it in the music business. But that seems too simple. His sister Gabrielle has said that he was born with a skin too few. I like Linda Thompson's description of Nick as a heart with legs, but without a protective skin. Whilst we respond to the heart, he himself was incapable of protecting himself from life's hurts. There's no mystery. He wasn't made for any times. Music was his refuge, his work was his therapy, his compensation. Without it, he had nothing other than a life stalled in its living. He couldn't find a way of connection with others.
There's a good celebration of Nick here: MOJO 292 / March 2018.
Outside of the close circle in which he worked, Nick Drake was largely unknown and unheralded in his lifetime. Whilst this seems unfair, we should remember that there were very many talented singer-songwriters in the folk-rock genre in the early seventies. Nick was one of many in a crowded field. Part of his obscurity was also his own fault. Nick refused to perform live, tour, or even do sessions on radio. He didn't promote himself and his songs, and so it's no surprise at all that he went undiscovered. He was effectively relying on people to make the discovery by buying his albums, but that logic has things entirely the wrong way round. Why would anyone buy music they had not heard, that no-one had heard? Where would they have heard him or even heard of him? The people who did rave about Nick were hardly household names themselves. Decades later Brad Pitt would present a BBC documentary on Nick. But that was decades later, only after the handful of Nick Drake diehards had kept his name and his music alive against all odds. Nick is a marketing disaster. But maybe he couldn't promote himself. He doesn't seem to have had the personality you need to build and sustain a career in pop music, or in anything else besides. He was uncomfortable with people. He never overcame that. He would make the effort, and then quickly recoil. In the end, he was a man in retreat, going home only to withdraw even further into himself. He died in his bedroom. His mother found his body on his bed.
There's a world where I can go and tell my secrets to
In my room, in my room
In this world I lock out all my worries and my fears
In my room, in my room
Do my dreaming and my scheming
Lie awake and pray
Do my crying and my sighing
Laugh at yesterday
Now it's dark and I'm alone ...
In My Room, by Brian Wilson
I have a particular interest in the story of Nick Drake. One of the pitifully few artists who did discover him was none other than French singer-songwriter Françoise Hardy. She is my favourite female singer, by a distance, and it was through her that I took an interest in Nick Drake. I had heard of him, of course, but didn't much like the tale of the sensitive lost boy who was an introspective, isolated genius. I had heard that tale too often before, and had been less than impressed with the artists offered up as geniuses. I could hear why the public had given them a wide berth. It was only through discovering the music of Françoise Hardy that I decided to investigate Nick. She holds him and his songs in the highest regard, so I thought I really should try to see what the fuss was about. I didn't have to try hard. With Françoise's strong recommendation, I took the plunge with Nick and was immediately captivated. I bought Bryter Layter and heard the quality immediately. The next day I bought Five Leaves Left and Pink Moon. The music got better the more I listened.
It seems clear that the interest and respect here was mutual. Nick Drake certainly knew Françoise Hardy's music. In Patrick Humphries' book Nick Drake: The Biography, Drake's arranger Robert Kirby declares an interest on his and Nick's part in Françoise Hardy:
“He was exactly the same age as me, and I was madly in love with Françoise Hardy … She was beautiful, and I'm sure that's where it started. Nick hadn't got a voice, but he used his voice perfectly on his own stuff. Françoise Hardy also hadn't got a voice. The French also came from a culture where they declaim the words, rather than have to have much of a melody. It's the lyrics that carry the song. French chanson culture has always been totally different to German, English, American, Italian in that it's the words that matter. They don't write strong melodies.
It is the concept, the atmosphere of the whole. It is not based on a catchy tune … I think that attracted Nick as well, because in fact his vocal melodies aren't that strong: if somebody asked you to sing a Nick Drake song, it's very hard to do. I think that made him think perhaps Françoise Hardy could do his stuff well: to deliver, to declaim atmospherically a lyric.”
OK, let's move quickly past the obligatory tales of Françoise's beauty, which bore me rigid. Each to their own when it comes to attraction, people come in all shapes, sizes, and styles. I heard Françoise before I saw her, or even knew her name or who she was. I heard La Question on Stuart Maconie's Critical List on BBC Radio 2, and was enchanted immediately. I remember sitting on the edge of my bed hoping and praying that Maconie would tell us who this singer was, fearing an electricity failure or some other disaster would be visited on the house by some malign demon, ending radio connection before the song had finished. I had no idea who she was or when she was or what she looked like: all I knew is that she was singing my song. That's where it started for me, the song and the voice on radio. I don't give a damn about looks. I don't rule anyone in or out on looks. The next day I mounted a raid on HMV to see what they had on her. Not much, an album containing a selection of her sixties material. The songs were very good, and had me hot in pursuit of more. A trip to Liverpool quickly followed. As for looks, she seemed to be a woman in her early twenties with long hair. Like we'd never seen anything fitting that description before.
So, to the real business beyond the superficial: looks aside, there was a musical attraction at work from Nick's direction. And it seems that this attraction was mutual. The story presented from various sources goes like this: Françoise contacted Nick's producer Joe Boyd to tell him that she thought Nick's songs were great and that she would like Nick to write some songs for her. Or ... seeing as Françoise herself says something very different, Nick's producer Joe Boyd, upon hearing that Françoise liked Nick's songs, contacted her with a view to having her record original material from Nick. That was what Boyd had on his mind, anyway. Whether that was on Françoise's mind is another question entirely. She says not. All the same, a meeting was arranged in her Paris apartment. Nick was depressed, so Joe Boyd traveled with him to Paris, in the hope that they would hit it off and a fertile musical collaboration would follow. This is Boyd's recollection. He continues the story:
“I went with Nick to visit Françoise Hardy, who was interested in recording some of his songs. We went and had tea with Françoise. That began because there was some guy called Tony Cox, who was a producer who worked at Sound Techniques, and he played Nick's songs to her, because the album was her attempt to break the English market. She loved them, thought they were wonderful. He put me in touch with her, and I arranged to go and visit her with Nick, and we went to Paris together. It was while making Bryter Later, I think, May or June of 1970. We climbed to her beautiful flat, at the top of one of those old buildings on the Ile St Louis. We had tea.”
Note that well: Joe Boyd states clearly that Françoise had expressed an interest in recording Nick's songs. That's important to note, because in certain interviews Françoise herself says it never occurred to her to record any of Nick's songs. If that is true, then what on earth is going on with these meetings? It could well be that Joe Boyd is trying to interest Françoise in recording original material from Nick. Boyd's recollection above is not vague but is incredibly detailed, from the rationale to the description of Françoise's apartment. Bear this in mind when we come to read Françoise claiming that her first meeting with Nick was at the studio in London. Here is where that plan to record in London was hatched. And Nick was present, according to Boyd. Maybe a silent presence that was easily overlooked and forgotten in time.
Unfortunately, this first meeting was something of a nightmare. Boyd continues:
“Nick said not a word the entire time. There was an agreement he would send her more songs; we might have sent her a tape of the rough mixes of Bryter Layter, so there was a follow up, but nothing happened.”
Note the vagueness of the statement 'there was an agreement.' Between who? Did Françoise ask and Nick agree? Or were the people trying to advance Nick's career and publicize his name pushing for an agreement that the artists concerned were themselves not even aware of, let alone keen on? I'll say more later.
Those who speculate that Nick wrote songs for Françoise claim that these could only have been those which ended up on Pink Moon. Boyd states that they were already making Bryter Layter, so the songs on that album may well not have been the songs destined for Françoise. He also says, however, that they may have sent her a tape of the rough mixes of Bryter. Why? He says "nothing happened." What was supposed to have happened? I see an affinity between the material on Bryter Layter and some of Françoise's songs from this time. Compare Hazey Jane to Oui Je Dis Adieu, for instance.
It seems clear that any agreement concluded here involved a promise by Nick - or a promise made on Nick's behalf - for him to write original material for her, material that he either never got round to writing or to presenting. That's Boyd's consistent view of the meeting:
“It was excruciating. Nick sat there, head down, drinking his tea and didn’t say a word the whole time; and I had to fill in the awkward silences. Nonetheless, the meeting ended with a resolution for Drake to write some songs. But somehow he never got round to it.”
Joe Boyd in The Sad Ballad of Nick Drake – Mick Brown in The Telegraph, July 12, 1997.
Either way, Nick’s shyness got the better of him, neither for the first nor for the last time, which is unfortunate seeing as Françoise herself is noted for being somewhat reserved. It didn't make for much by way of conversation between them. Nick's misfortune was to have been discovered by an artist who was almost as introverted as he was. Nick was an introvert who withdrew almost completely into himself; Françoise, too, admits to being shy (others add neurotic) when it comes to meeting strangers. Understanding both personalities is the key to unraveling the problem of non-communication that unfolded here. Let me quote from an article on Françoise to reveal something of her character:
'To truly understand how enigmatic Hardy remains, it’s helpful to think about what nearly anyone else in her situation would have done. She’s been a multimedia-spanning star since the early ‘60s, the girl the world’s rock n’ roll heroes tried to woo and a meteoric influence on fashion ever since. But in later interviews, Hardy betrayed a deep insecurity that had dogged her since a child. She related her toxic relationship with her grandmother to the Daily Mail, saying “She had told me throughout my childhood that I was ugly and that I was the worst creature on earth. I was concerned I would never meet anybody and that I would become a nun.” Even after she conquered the fashion and music spheres, she is still unfailingly humble; when the word “icon” was broached in the same interview, Hardy basically shuddered: “The word ‘icon’ – that’s sometimes used about me. I don’t recognize it. It’s as if you’re talking about someone else.”'
It doesn't matter how much success she would come to have, that fear and that deep insecurity has remained with her to the present day. It would have been there in the early seventies. My word, the sparks must have simply have flown when Nick met Françoise! Any expectations that Françoise would have been open and confident after a decade or so of success were completely unwarranted. Françoise describes herself as a "sentimental introvert." That does seem to sum up her music to me. And it sums up the appeal of her music to me. Frankly, I am something of a sentimental introvert who keeps away from a world that can’t stop shouting. "I consider books as a refuge," she said in an interview with Le Figaro. "When you are, like me, a sentimental introvert, you are inclined to read." There was nothing in Françoise's personality to bring Nick out of his shell. She would take refuge in her own protective shell. She doesn't say much; she reads a lot. As for Nick Drake, he was even more introverted than her. “He never said a word,” Françoise says in the documentary A Skin Too Few. And I very much doubt that Françoise was that much more forthcoming. I see neither as chatty individuals. Such personalities could make for very long silences in a meeting of like minds. I love the songs of both of them and always saw a connection and affinity between them. The approach is soft and introspective. It is music by and for introverts. I read a lot, too. And writing is my music, my voice.
Nick Drake: requiem for a solitary man – a classic feature from the vaults
It was nevertheless agreed that Nick would come to write some songs for Françoise, which she would record in London. That's what those involved understand to have been the outcome of the first meeting. “Joe Boyd came up with this brilliant idea that Nick was going to write an album of songs for Françoise,” says producer and arranger Tony Cox. “I was going to produce it. So we traveled over to Paris – it was all pretty weird because Nick was a painfully shy bloke. Françoise is incredibly neurotic. She won’t do things like shaking hands, because she’s scared of catching germs from people.”
That's a revealing statement in more ways than one. Note well what Cox says: "Joe Boyd came up with this brilliant idea ..." I'm just left wondering how much, if anything, Nick and Françoise knew about it.
That recording session that was planned took place nevertheless, in London, at Sound Techniques, the very studio where Nick Drake recorded all his albums. And Tony Cox was indeed the producer.
Françoise herself seems to dispute the idea that she ever had any intentions of recording Nick's songs, which makes little sense of what we know about how these recording sessions in London in 1971 came about. Françoise recalls in interview:
“I no longer remember how I discovered Nick Drake's songs. Maybe I bought his first record [Five Leaves Left] at the sight of the sleeve. Whatever it was, I loved it straight away … For me, he didn't belong to a particularly British tradition: his style was quite different from that of The Beatles, The Stones, and other groups that I was listening to a lot around this time. It is the soul which emerges from his songs, and that touched me deeply. The soul of romantic melodies, poetic but at the same time refined … as well as the very individual timbre of his voice, which adds to the melancholy feel of the whole thing.
I loved all the songs – the early ones as much as the later – but it never occurred to me to record any of them because my vocal and rhythmic limits, as well as my whole personality, make me prefer to sing more simple songs, a bit more 'subtle' than Nick's.”
It 'never occurred' to Françoise to record any of Nick's songs? That doesn't strike me as right. Maybe she is referring to the ones that Nick had already recorded. But had Françoise wanted to record a Nick Drake song, then she would have done so. She didn't. Maybe the truth in the end is that Nick's songs were indeed too complicated for her. I can see the difference between them. But there does seem to be an understanding that Nick could come to write some songs especially for her. And, for some reason, he never got round to it. So she hadn't any Nick songs of her own to record.
It could be as simple (!) as that.
I hear Françoise above claiming that Nick's songs were a little too complicated for her simple style. I can see what she means, but I'm not sure this is altogether true. Agreed, Francoise's approach does tend to be much more simple and more pop with a folkish inflection, rather than folk with a pop sensibility. And the vocals are very different. But there are similarities nonetheless. Compare the material on Francoise's La Question to Nick's Bryter Later; compare Oui Je Dis Adieu to Hazey Jane; they are very similar, certainly in the arrangements. OK, Nick didn't care for the arrangements, but I think there are clear similarities all the same. Listen to songs like On Dirait from 1973's Message Personnel. I can hear Nick. The material on Francoise's Entr'acte from 1974 proves beyond doubt that she could handle much more complicated, more sophisticated, arrangements. Compare also Un Homme est Mort, from much later, (2000's Clair Obscur), to, for instance, Nick's Day is Done. I could go on. All I am saying is that there are clear musical similarities, which is why they are often bracketed together as soft introspective folk-pop.
Many are insistent that Françoise had expressed an interest in Nick coming to write songs for her. Maybe they are mistaking an expression of admiration of Nick's songs on her part for a declaration to record those songs. But I think there is a definite interest on Françoise's part in recording, at the very least, Nick-type songs in the contemporary folk-rock genre. That's what happened in London in any case. The idea that Françoise could have been interested in recording Nick's songs makes complete sense in light of what we know came to pass. She recorded the songs of relative unknowns at Sound Techniques, and she has done so throughout her career Think of Perry Blake and Ben Christophers in later days. I am certain that Françoise could not but think back to Nick when she recorded English language songs from these sources. Nick's day was done by then, but his memory continued to loom very large.
As it was, time was booked for Françoise to record an album of material at Studio Sound Techniques, London, the very studio where Nick himself recorded all his albums with engineer John Wood. Some of the finest British folk-rock musicians of the day were hired for the sessions, including guitarist Richard Thompson from Fairport Convention, who played on a few tracks. Also present was Fotheringay guitarist Jerry Donahue. Donahue confirms that Nick put in an at least one appearance during the sessions, if only to watch.
"When we were doing Françoise's album, Nick Drake came up and sat next to me in the control room. I was just making some friendly conversation. He was very quiet in between questions; there would just be a gap. Then I'd ask another question. And each time I did, his eyebrows would raise way up, his eyes would widen, and it was like an effort to kind of get the answer out to satisfy the situation at hand - 'I've gotta deal with this - somebody's putting me on the line, they've actually addressed me and asked me a question. I will do my best to get an answer out.'
Then having successfully managed to crank an answer out, he would withdraw again into silence, until which time I might feel inclined to ask him another question, and the same sequence of events would take place. It was very bizarre. I've never known anybody like him. And he wasn't unfriendly. But you just really felt like you were putting the guy on the spot when you'd ask the most simple harmless questions. I thought he had a real rough time with himself. It was impossible to get to know him, certainly in that brief encounter."
Richie Unterberger in Unknown Legends of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Backbeat Books, 1998
This line just strikes a chord with me: 'he wasn't unfriendly. But you just really felt like you were putting the guy on the spot when you'd ask the most simple harmless questions.' He had something to offer, but didn't have the confidence to offer it. And people trying to relate to him couldn't get through, not least because he felt their interaction as threat and encroachment.
Françoise herself confirms that she had let it be known that she admired Nick's songs and that she was interested in him as a songwriter. That would suggest to me that she would also be interested in recording songs written for her by him. She confirms, too, that he came to the studio when she recorded:
“He had read how enthusiastic I was about one of his albums, and so he came to the studio where I was recording in London, and he sat in the corner, almost hidden, and he never said one word. I was so full of admiration for his work, so I didn’t dare to say anything, and he didn’t dare to say anything [laughs].”
So there it is - an almost complete lack of communication between two artists who admired the work of each other. If the ending weren't so heartbreakingly tragic, the scene would be comical. It's a source of real frustration that the very thing that fans of this kind of music dream of came so tantalizingly close to being made real. The idea of a Nick Drake-Françoise Hardy collaboration fires the imagination, and it was not at all beyond the bounds of possibility. They met, they were in the studio together, and the musicians to make it all work were on hand. But the personalities were such that it would never happen. It's a real shame.
If Nick did write songs for Francoise, just didn't have them ready in time, or have the confidence to present them, then these would have been the ones that came out on the Pink Moon album, people speculate. I can hear more of a connection between the material on Françoise's La Question and Nick's Bryter Later. The truth seems to be that the songs in question were to have been specially written by Nick, but that he never got round to writing or presenting them. Maybe he did write them and, lacking confidence, let the opportunity for collaboration pass by in silence. It's perfectly possible. It's in keeping with what we know of Nick's character. Françoise Hardy was an established artist with a decade of success behind her. Even without his personal frailties, we can understand a certain silent awe on Nick's part here. I also remember Nick's sister Gabrielle telling the tale of his first album Five Leaves Left. She had no idea that he was even making a record when, one day at home, he came into her room and threw the album on her bed, mumbling the words 'there you are,' before leaving. 'He was a man of few words, my brother,' Gabrielle says. Nick may have had the songs, why else would he turn up at the studio as Françoise was recording? He said nothing, offered nothing, the session came and went, and so did Françoise.
If Nick had songs, then these would have found their way onto Pink Moon. Which begs the question of whether there are any songs on Pink Moon that we could hear Françoise singing. A few, I'd say, at a push. With some lyrical changes, I can hear her singing Place to Be, certainly, and Which Will, possibly. I can certainly hear her singing From the Morning. These songs are in keeping with the If You Listen album from the Sound Techniques, London session of 1971. I can compare Road, too, to Bown Bown Bown, and I would class Free Ride in this style, too. If that one seems a little unlikely, then consider the album of country-blues material Françoise would record a year later on Et Si Je M'En Vais Avant Toi. 1974's Entr'acte proved that she could certainly tackle material beyond her trademark simple folky stylings. Maybe Things Behind the Sun is a stretch, but far from impossible. The main problem, for me, would be the lyrics and their enunciation, because Nick and Françoise's phrasing are very different. Nick is very English, clipped and formal, and Françoise is very French, mellifluous.
Françoise's album If You Listen, from the Sound Techniques session, was released in Spring 1972. Whilst there are no Nick Drake songs on there, the album is definitely in Nick Drake territory. Tony Cox, whom I quoted earlier declaring his intention to produce Françoise singing Drake material, is responsible for the arrangements and artistic direction for all but two tracks on the album. The original plan was executed, then, only without Nick. The mood is one of rainy-day sadness and introspection, which is not in itself evidence of a conscious movement into Nick Drake territory since this was Françoise's very own trademark style long before Nick had ever recorded. The combination of acoustic guitar and light strings, however, does strongly suggest a deliberate intention to shift Françoise's music in some close relation to the contemporary folk-rock scene. The selection of material certainly bears this out, with songs by Beverley Martin, Buffy St Marie, Neil Young, and Randy Newman. The arrangements and instrumentation, too, as well as the musicians taking part in the sessions, indicate a clear attempt to locate Françoise within the burgeoning British folk-rock scene, at least at the softer end of it. Richard Thompson of Fairport Convention plays guitar. Also present is Fotheringay guitarist Jerry Donahue. The rhythm section is also from Fotheringay: Gerry Conway on drums, (latterly of Fairport Convention), and Pat Donaldson on bass. These are great musicians whose work defined that distinctive British folk-rock sound of the seventies. There is a clear attempt at this session to move Françoise into this terrain. Maybe some of the songs are a little lush and overly orchestrated, not as tasteful and refined as Robert Kirby's string arrangements for Nick Drake. But that combination of songs driven by delicate acoustic guitar and accompanied by light strings is very Nick, softened out in keeping with Françoise's own distinctive style. She did tend to the lush in her career, and her previous album of English language material was bathed in strings. It was overdone, critics say. They are probably right, of course. I like to have things wrapped in strings. I love the string-drenched Elvis ballads of the seventies that critics loathe. If this is a vice, then it is one I share with Françoise. There are worse things in life. Robert Kirby's string arrangements on Nick Drake's songs are much more tasteful and refined, of course.
I don't think I'm being guilty of wishful thinking here, reading something I am keen to have taken place into the known facts. It is the known facts themselves which suggest the connections I am making. These songs are covers of contemporary folk-rock material, boasting arrangements that reflected their recording at Sound Techniques in London, the very studio in which Nick Drake recorded. In the very least, I don't think a couple of covers of Nick Drake songs especially written for Françoise were beyond the bounds of possibility at this recording session. And that does seem to have been the original intent, certainly on Joe Boyd's part. Of course, I would have loved a full album of Nick Drake songs. Nick was there, but not there. He doesn't seem ever to have been able to overcome his personal frailties and take the initiative. Why was he present at the studio as recording took place? He never said. Robert Kirby tells us he was an admirer of Françoise Hardy, but it may have been more than that. Did anyone bother to ask? Nick seems like someone of whom it was impossible to ask questions. Did he have something to offer? If only someone had bothered to ask. I'll quote again what Fotheringay guitarist at the Françoise session, Jerry Donahue, said about Nick's presence there:
"I've never known anybody like him. And he wasn't unfriendly. But you just really felt like you were putting the guy on the spot when you'd ask the most simple harmless questions."
I think I understand what was going on with Nick. I don't deal well with questions myself. I presume, having spoken and dropped strong hints, that people will have made all the right connections, drawn the right conclusions, and know precisely what I have on my mind. When they don't, and proceed to ask questions to elicit information, I feel their presence as threatening and switch off. I try to protect myself from noise. I withdraw. I think Nick did, too.
Missing every opportunity to come out of himself, with everyone missing the opportunities to draw him out and Nick refusing to be drawn out, Nick withdrew further into himself. And this is where I'd suggest that Nick started to live the image of troubled romantic genius that that combination of personal frailties and outside forces had conferred upon him. That wasn't him to begin with, but it became him as the inner and outer worlds came into collision.
I'm very interested in Françoise Hardy too. She has a similar personality to Nick, but maybe appearances are deceptive. She's quiet and softly spoken, but I think we are now in a position to see her tough and enduring qualities. If Nick lacked what it took to survive, let alone succeed, Françoise, with a brand of soft and seemingly ephemeral folky-pop, went from strength to strength. I'm glad to see that the introverts don't always get eaten up and trampled underfoot. And I'm glad that she's still singing my song to this day, recording the biggest commercial success of her career with 2018's Personne d'Autre. All my other favourite singers have now departed, with Leonard Cohen a couple of years ago, Charles Aznavour last year and Scott Walker last month. And Elvis, my most favourite of all, he's long gone. I smile a little at the thought that it's this quiet girl with the soft voice who is still standing tall almost six decades on from when she started. She's a champion for all the Nicks in the world. But, of course, we long for the day when we can put notions of 'making it' behind us.
The If You Listen session represents a marked departure for Françoise Hardy, in that there is a pronounced emphasis on cover versions of contemporary folk pop/rock material. Just one song is a Hardy original. And whilst she had recorded in London before, this time she was recording at a studio that was the hive of British folk rock. There is a clear, conscious purpose behind the selection of the material, the location, the production and the personnel involved in this session. The idea that Françoise was here to record Nick Drake material is not remotely beyond the bounds of possibility given that among the established and very well-known American singer-songwriters there are also a number of fairly and, even, very obscure British names. Nick Drake's name would not have been out of place in this company.
That is the most intriguing thing about If You Listen: among the well-known and established singer-songwriters, there are covers of obscure, even odd, songs by obscure artists.
Ocean is a song written and originally recorded by John and Beverley Martyn, appearing as The Ocean on their 1970 album Stormbringer! The Martyns are better known now, but not by much, and were pretty unknown at the time. The folk rock pair were, however, produced by Joe Boyd, who was also Nick Drake's producer, the man with the idea that Françoise could come to London to record Nick Drake songs. Ocean is a very good selection for Françoise, with its haunting melody and ethereal keyboard/guitar sound. Françoise does a very fine job with the song, too, combining vocal restraint, acoustic guitar, and light orchestration. This is a definite highlight on the If You Listen album. In the main, I don't think Françoise's mellifluous French accent suits the English-language folk materials in the main, but it adds an extra dimension here. Maybe I've gotten used to listening Sandy Denny and Nick Drake over the years, but I think Françoise's French accent can tend to soften things out a little too much at times, as the overly lush arrangements certainly do. I really don't want to be listening to Claudine Longet. Give me Piaf and Greco any day. I'm old school when it comes to chanson. Françoise is by far and away my favourite of the new French pop singers, mind. I don't think I have a number two in that category. And on Ocean, the combination of vocals and instrumentation is perfect, and Françoise delivers something that adds to the English originals.
Françoise seems to have taken a shine to the songs of John and Beverley Martyn, recording a second song from the relatively unknown Stormbringer! album. I don't know if she knew that album or if it, or songs from it, were presented to her by Joe Boyd and/or others at Sound Techniques. I would strongly suggest the latter. There may have been no Nick Drake material forthcoming, but there seems to have been a determination to stay with the original plan and try the material of similarly obscure folk-rock artists for size. Can’t Get the One I Want is a song written and originally recorded by Beverley Martyn, its opening line being definitely Hardy: “I'm feeling down / My senses are bound / 'Cause I can't get the one I want to.” And on it goes, trademark Hardy rainy-day sorrow about how she, like a true introvert, is biding her time. As Françoise sings on her landmark La Question album from that year: "Même sous la pluie, dans le vent. Mon amour. Je t'attends." (Même sous la pluie).
Can't Get the One I Want is one of those downbeat, introspective songs that are light enough to stay this side of downright gloom and despondency, keeping introverts just short of depression. It's a typical Françoise song, then, a sad song that lightens the heart and lifts the spirit. It's another fine recording by her, backed by a combination of guitar and light strings. The vocal, too, is lighter. All of which serves to indicate the extent to which we are beginning to stray from Nick Drake territory – his vocals exude misery, the string arrangements are sharper, his acoustic guitar drives rather than supports the sound – and falling back onto the softer Françoise terrain. There is a difference between sadness and depression.
We can only speculate as to how different things could have been had Nick Drake contributed songs to this session, and even lent a hand in their recording. Who knows what it would have taken to get the almost totally introverted Nick into the studio with her in some musically significant way. Nick Drake was much more obscure than the Martyns at the time. But it is clear that obscurity was not a problem, and something of an attraction, given evidence of a concerted effort to find and record new and unknown material at this session.
Most interesting of all is a cover of a song by little known British folk-rock band Trees, the most obscure and incredibly odd The Garden of Jane Delawnay (original spelling The Garden of Jane Delawney). Trees made just two albums, with Jane as the title track to their first, before splitting, never to be heard of again; they are as unknown now as they were then. Fronted by a female singer, Celia Humphris, Trees are cut in the same mould as Fairport Convention and Pentangle. It is interesting company for Françoise Hardy to be joining. For all of the light, folky inflection to her trademark sound, I consider Françoise Hardy to be explicitly pop rather than folk; her songs are quite simple and innately lyrical rather than being complicated and wordy. I'm not saying that the one is better or worse than the other, just that there is a difference. Here, she is trying on contemporary folk-rock for size.
I'm intrigued as to what an album consisting of Françoise's versions of original Nick Drake material could have sounded like. We let our imaginations and high expectations run away with us. In all truth, the result may well have been something like If You Listen. The Garden of Jane Delawney is both obscure and odd, even difficult, giving us an indication of what Françoise singing Nick's stronger material might have sounded like. If that is so, then I would have loved to have heard more. Again it is the shadow of Nick I see over proceedings. There is no way that Françoise would have been aware of this song or its originators without the plans that had been hatched for a collaboration with Nick in some way beforehand. Trees' album The Garden of Jane Delawney was recorded at Sound Techniques and had been co-produced by Tony Cox, the man who insists that the origins of this session was a plan for Françoise to record original material written by Nick Drake. Cox produced the bulk of If You Listen. There was a determination to carry on working to the plan, then, only without Nick and his songs. The potential for that collaboration is apparent in Françoise's version of The Garden of Jane Delawney, which for me is the album's standout along with Ocean. Two obscure songs from two obscure sources are the highlights of the album. It's no jump from here to a Nick Drake song.
With respect to Jane Delawney, we can conclude from this peculiar - but very effectively performed - choice that Françoise was not at all averse to tackling complicated and strange material from unknown artists, and was more than capable of meeting its demands. The song is far removed from her usual simple style. L'Amitie it is not. The argument that Nick Drake's songs were too difficult for her is not convincing set in the context of her choice and performance of this song. Jane may well be a perfect example of what this experiment in Françoise singing folk-rock could have achieved, keeping the strings light and resisting the temptation to succumb to the soft and lush.
Kudos to Françoise here, her version of Jane Delawney remains the highest-profile and by far and away the best cover of a Trees song ever. But given how obscure Trees remain, that praise may not be as high as it sounds. I think it's a great performance by her all the same. I just can't help but keep thinking of what she could have done with a Nick Drake song here. Trees remain obscure; Nick Drake is now celebrated as a genius. I don't know. Nick's accent, delivery, and enunciation are very English; Françoise's is very French. The differences come out clearly on If You Listen. But there is common ground.
The recording of the obscure continued with Allan Taylor's Sometimes, on which Françoise's French accent is shown to its advantage. The song's writer, British singer-songwriter Allan Taylor, is even more obscure than Trees and Nick Drake. Sometimes was the title track of his 1971 album, which very few people could have heard. It is easy enough to see why the song Sometimes would appeal to Françoise, though: it is soft and pretty, combining acoustic guitar and light orchestration. Lyrically, it is sweet and soothing, and not at all worrying: reassuring rather than harrowing and depressing. It is very Françoise, then, but not quite Nick:
sometimes you can find
flowers in the snow
somewhere, anywhere
you can see them grow
if you want to see
just come along with me
there's no need to hurry, worry
what's the hurry
sometimes, sometimes is now.
Nice. If Françoise couldn't sing such a lyric with aplomb, then she's not half the singer I have always known her to be. It's just that there isn't much to the song that would distinguish it from the simplest of Françoise's own sixties ballads, and nothing to distinguish it within the crowded field of early seventies folk-rock. It makes sense as a Françoise-type song which allows her to ease her way into the contemporary folk rock scene. And, as such, it works perfectly. We can add the title track If You Listen to this category. An album can support a couple of tracks like this, so long as there's a significant increase in quality and change of pace and direction in the remaining tracks.
Françoise may have been aware of Nick Drake's music, but Allan Taylor will have been completely unknown to her. The song in all probability came from producer Tony Cox, yet again, who had worked on Taylor’s LP from the previous year. Beyond that, there isn't much to say. The obscurity of the origins is the most interesting part, because the song itself is of the pleasant but slight type that were a staple of Françoise's catalogue. Not surprisingly, she delivers a wonderful version of the song, but we would have expected her to: this kind of song was her trademark. No one does this kind of thing better than Françoise. But she was supposedly here in London at Sound Studios to make a significant folk-rock recording beyond the music she was already known for. On Sometimes, Françoise's breathy, soft and whispered voice is shown to its advantage, sounding infinitely better than the staid and reserved English counterpart on the original (and similar types of songs sung the same way). Fantastic Françoise! It's just not a particularly great song. Nice, but a little inconsequential given the ambitions and expectations around this session.
Françoise's version of Let My Name Be Sorrow seems to be something of a mystery to commentators. A few suggest that Françoise may have heard Mary Hopkin's English language version of the song issued in June 1971 as a single. That's not my understanding of it. I can't find my copy of Patrick Humphries' biography of Nick Drake, but I am sure I read in there that Mary Hopkin was given the song by her husband-producer Tony Visconti, who had heard it on Françoise's If You Listen. Françoise's version of the song had moved and impressed him, describing it as very beautiful. That's my recollection from a few years ago now. I have a very good memory for the things I obsess over. If that story is not in the Humphries' book, then I have certainly read it in another. So I am going to say that Mary Hopkin got the song after Françoise's recording and was not the origin of it. But I may be wrong. It has been known. Which is to say, my memory of the story may be right, but the story being remembered may well be wrong.
What makes me think I am right is that the song itself is actually French, Quand Je Te Regarde Vivre, written by Martine Habib and recorded by Gilles Marchal. It's a very grand and solemn ballad, one very much in keeping with the kind of material Françoise could do with aplomb. You only need to think of A Quoi Ca Sert?, Des ronds dans l'eau, and Il Est Des Choses here, but there are many other examples in her catalogue. Soaring, sorrowful, solemn, sonorous, with a choir of female backup vocals, classical piano, and string accompaniment, it is the kind of song Françoise clearly loved. But folk rock it isn't. Maybe it was an attempt to put her stamp on proceedings, along with slightly different material for her. But with If You Listen and Sometimes, that makes for a hefty part of the album covering familiar Françoise terrain. Either way, if I am right, then it impressed Tony Visconti, and the song made its way to another of my favourite female singers, Mary Hopkin. So it was a success in it's own right. It's just not what was intended.
These were the obscurities. If we were going to hear something new, as in a Françoise version of a Nick Drake song or songs, then we would have heard it in these selections. In terms of song selection, though, If You Listen combines both the obscure and the familiar. Indeed, the familiar songs that Françoise tackled suffer from being overly familiar, having her attempting material that had already been recorded by some big substantial artists. But they are songs of substance and, as such, something of a gauge of what Françoise could have done with a Nick Drake song.
Let's address the problem of familiarity first. In recording such material, you really have to have the nerve to think that you can add a dimension, something extra, something else, something not apparent in previous versions of the songs. With Françoise, there is a danger of having her offer her French accent and the usual lush orchestration. This is most apparent on her version of Randy Newman's I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today. I had been looking forward to hearing her sing this song, which I knew well from others' versions. When I first heard her version, I was somewhat underwhelmed. I found it pretty, yes, and sad, yes, but in a way that took the sting out of the misery. That's not how the song ought to have been sung. I liked it, for the reason I liked, and continue to like, Françoise's other songs: I like the softness and sentimentality. She has this knack of taking depressing themes and turning them into a lullaby. It's calming and reassuring. Critics will say that that's not quite appropriate on certain material, and they are right. Would she have done the same, inappropriate, thing to Nick Drake's songs? And would that have been so bad? Let me elaborate.
I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today is strong meat. The song was also already very familiar, having been recorded by any number of the world's greatest artists. Françoise may have first heard the song in Judy Collins' version on her 1966 album In My Life. As a million and more others had done. That the song was so well known begs the question of why bother to record another version. By 1971, pretty much everyone except Elvis and Andy Williams had recorded the song, and even there Williams' wife Claudine Longet had done it, in a version I find unlistenable with its cloying French accent. That makes the song either an all too predictable choice on the part of those running short on ideas or a brave selection on the part of those who fancy their chances in a cutting contest. My own view, as a die-hard fan who knows and appreciates a wide range of song, is that Françoise's version disappoints. It's too soft, too lush. She doesn't do anything different with it, different on her part, that is. It's the familiar combination of soft vocals and light orchestration. In which case, the choice can be attributed to a failure of nerve and imagination on her part, packing out the material with something familiar. Rather than a serious engagement with folk-rock, this is Françoise remaining within her comfort zone. The song is over-produced, drowned in strings, and nothing like a Nick Drake arrangement, with the orchestration and instrumentation overwhelming her overly soft delivery.
Or maybe I have it wrong. Françoise's version is very comfortable, and maybe it is this which amounts to doing something different with the song, giving her version something more than the many other versions of the song have. In this respect, the soft and lush approach is the daring one to have taken, as against seeking to conform to the empty, despairing misery of the song, as evidenced in all the main versions. I love Nina Simone. Listen to her version of the song. It is tough and raw. It is exceptional. And I really don't like it at all and don't listen to it. It's bleak, offering no chance for redemption. That may be the correct reading of the lyric, but I don't need that truth in my life. I heard an old friend of Nick Drake interviewed in a documentary saying that Nick had started to see the world as a heartless and futile place. This song says that the world really is a pitiless place without hope. I say it isn't. And Randy Newman himself doesn't seem to appreciate the song he wrote, saying that the "music is emotional – even beautiful – and the lyrics are not." He also says that the song bothers him owing to its darkness. Well, stark versions of the song there are, look no further than Nina Simone. Appropriate and effective. Neil Diamond's version is sparse and haunting. So why do I listen more to Françoise's overly lush version? Because the emotional and the beauty transcend the lyric; because in the end I don't like the darkness, and I don't think it is true. But I may be wrong. Nick Drake saw more, and became more silent the more he saw, says his sister Gabrielle. He put all he saw in his music. Nick ended with songs like Know and Black-Eyed Dog. Françoise takes the bleak lyric of I Think It's Going to Rain Today and turns it into a lullaby that has us sleeping peacefully with the lights out. And that suits me fine. That's some kind of genius. In going with the beauty and emotion of the music, Françoise redeems something not immediately present within the darkness of the lyrics.
The article above is worth reading for its appreciation of Françoise's version of Randy Newman's I Think It's Gonna Rain Today at the 1971 London sessions. I merely make the point that this could, very easily, have been the sessions at which Francoise recorded a number of Nick Drake songs. Too complicated for Francoise? She could have done it, I say, if lyrics were written that could be adapted to her own vocal style. The article mentions the many great female artists who have recorded the Newman song: Helen Reddy, Melanie, Bette Midler, Peggy Lee, Maxine Weldon, Cass Elliott, Barbra Streisand, Norah Jones, Judy Collins, Dusty Springfield, Nina Simone. That's some company to be keeping. But this article singles out Françoise's version of this song:
"But there's something delicately, unforgettably poignant about this version by French chanteuse Françoise Hardy from her mixed-bag 1972 album If You Listen. That record had mythical origins in a meeting, arranged by producer/label impresario Joe Boyd, at Hardy's Paris apartment with iconic folk singer Nick Drake. She tried to speak with (the mutely shy) Drake about writing some songs for her that she'd potentially record with him in a London studio, but the collaboration never materialized (though it was reported that Drake did show up later at the Los Angeles studio where Hardy was working on If You Listen). Instead, she substituted Newman's composition plus a variety of others, included a couple of tunes written by a young upstart named Mick Jones, the future guitarist of Foreigner, and father of natty retro-soul-bro Mark Ronson."
Charles Aaron
I have no idea where Aaron got Los Angeles from, since we know for certain the studio was Sound Techniques in London. Nick Drake, the man who was but wasn't there, casts a giant shadow over the proceedings. But I do like what Aaron writes on this song. Because, after I have made all the criticisms of Françoise Hardy's version of I Think It's Going to Rain Today as inappropriate with respect to the lyric, I will happily confess that it is her version of the song that I listen to most of all, return to most often, and love most of all. It might not impress critics, those with literary pretensions when it comes to empathizing with Brel's 'les désespérés' living, and slowly fading away, in the dark. I know life on the margins, and it is insecure and uncomfortable. I care nothing for literary pretensions here and, from the dark side, know the limits of human sympathy. In truth, I don't much like the song at all, for the reason it is all too true and too real. I think there's an ugliness to it, a barrenness, even a brutal cynicism born of resignation in a heartless, soulless, and pointless world. I'll look for comfort because, even if it is untrue to the world we live in, it expresses a truth about the direction in which we have to go for a happier, more fulfilled, life, a life that is worth living. It’s the world Nick wanted, longed for, but never found. And that world is possible. I hear it in his music: ‘I was made to love magic.’ Aren’t we all? I think Françoise Hardy's voice and her soft, reassuring, approach makes the song something more, something better, than it actually is. I'll go with Françoise every time on this. There you go, I've said it, a scandal to critics as that might be. But I can be as obstinate as Nick on such matters.
The same criticisms I have made with respect to I Think It's Going to Rain Today apply pretty much to Françoise's versions of the two Buffy Sainte-Marie songs on If You Listen. If anything, Until It’s Time for You to Go is an even more unimaginative choice to cover than I Think It's Going to Rain Today. It's an undeniably great song. The problem is that there are so many versions of the song out there, and so many fine ones recorded by fine artists, that if you are not sure of your approach and have nothing new to offer, then your version is fated to suffer badly by comparison. Bobby Darin, Cher, Mike Nesmith, Andy Williams, Neil Diamond, Glen Campbell, Roberta Flack and many more had recorded the song by 1971. I think it's a woman's song, and that you are better going to source on this one, to the writer Buffy Sainte Marie herself. But if you need another version beyond that, then look no further than Elvis Presley, who brings out the full sentimentality of the song. He's not a woman, of course. But Elvis is so good he can even overcome that little handicap. Andrea Warner, author of Buffy Sainte Marie's biography, agrees:
"Presley’s interpretation amps up the song’s sentimental side. His drawl tucks the words inside his mouth, like one of those enveloping hugs that makes you feel safe until you start to feel smothered. But his emotional treatment is effective — if you can listen to it in full with dry eyes, email me the secrets of your robot heart — and it’s Presley’s version that most people associate with the song."
I agree very much with this. Other than to say it's "Elvis" for me, and not "Presley." I've discussed these aspects of the song on my Entirely Elvis site, and would urge people to read further there. Go the the Blog and scroll down. You have to love what Elvis does on this.
The song is a haunting, sad, sentimental love song which could have been tailor made to fit Hardy's folk inflected pop balladry. It's one of my favourite songs by my favourite singer, Elvis Presley. Françoise is my favourite female singer, and I'm glad she shares a song in common with Elvis. I just think she missed a trick here. By 1971 the song was very well known. Instead of trying something different with an overly-familiar song, she opted for a familiar arrangement, acoustic guitar in the first part, light strings in the second. It's pleasant, but predictable. It doesn't remotely compare to her best work (and at times takes her dangerously close to sounding like Claudine Longet, a French-American singer I have a particular loathing for, whose overdone wet and weak French accent has me desperate to clear my ears with a blast of Motorhead followed by a month of punk rock). The trick she missed lies in leaving this one alone at the London session and coming to record a French language version on home soil. Writer Buffy Sainte-Marie had recorded a French language version of the song as T'es pas un autre on her 1967 album Fire and Fleet and Candlelight. Now that takes Françoise onto her own ground. Hearing her singing the song in French really would have raised her above the crowd. As it is, her version of Until It's Time For You to Go is another one that critics could class as pleasant but inconsequential. It isn't bad, but it isn't knockout, and these were supposed to be sessions of some consequence. That said, Andrea Warner, biographer of writer Buffy Sainte-Marie, selects Françoise's version as one of the most praiseworthy. And she should know:
"The lilt of Hardy’s French accent and her phrasing imbue the song with a deeper sense of tragic beauty than Claudine Longet’s cover in 1967, and also introduces an element of mystery that recontextualizes the lyrics. It’s another neat twist on a song that, at this point in 1972, already had so many artists attempt to put their own stamps on it."
I like what Warner says here, (although I'd say that Miss Piggy could invest the song with deeper meaning than than Claudine Longet. OK, I'll lay off dear Claudine now).
Françoise does a very good job with the second Sainte-Marie song, Take My Hand for a While. The original had been recorded in 1968, for the album I’m Gonna Be a Country Girl Again. To the song's advantage is that it was much less well known than Until It's Time for you to Go. That said, Glen Campbell had recorded a version of both songs on his 1969 hit album Galveston. I have no idea where Françoise got the idea for recording these two songs from. I don't think it beyond the bounds of possibility that she was something of a fan of Glen Campbell. He was known as the housewives choice for his romantic country-pop balladry. We know that Françoise was and remains an Elvis fan, and Campbell is very much in the same category. I'm just speculating, indulging a little wishful thinking as a fan of Françoise, Elvis, and Glen Campbell. Take My Hand for a While is introspective and sparse, with much less orchestration than the other tracks recorded at this session. It is a stand out in terms of performance and arrangement.
If You Listen closes with a Neil Young song from 1970, Till the Morning Comes. I can't help but think of Nick Drake's From the Morning here, but whatever wonderful sounds that inspires in my head, the reality of the Young cover is depressingly different. Till the Morning is not a proper song, indeed it is hardly a song at all, more of an intermission. The song brought the first side of Young's breakthrough album, After the Gold Rush, to a temporary close, before picking things up again on side two. In Young's original it's a short song, just one minute and seventeen seconds, repeating the same line over and again. It's a pause in proceedings on an album that contains such classics as Southern Man, Only Love Can Break Your Heart, and Don’t Let It Bring You Down. I'm at a loss to explain why, if a Neil Young cover was going to be attempted, this most ephemeral song on a classic album of substantial songs should have been the song selected. I don't mind zany, whacky ends to a record. Françoise had done it with Dame Souris Trotte on the previous year's Soleil. I love her Les doigts dans la porte. Till the Morning Comes, however, is just pointless, repetitive, and tedious. It adds nothing, it forms no conclusion, it doesn't raise spirits, it just disappoints those whose appetites have been whetted by the news that Françoise is tackling a Neil Young song. It looks good on the CV to include a Neil Young cover, but only for so long as no one gives it a listen. It's a rotten song. Years later, St Etienne, a band inspired by Françoise, did their own techno cover of Young's Only Love Can Break Your Heart. Whilst I'm relieved that Françoise didn't go all techno on us, I would have liked her to have sung something a bit more substantial than the inconsequential one minute seventeen seconds repetition with which Young closed side one his Gold Rush album. That said, it might be the most surprising Neil Young cover in history. At the end of this album, it is an utterly deflating experience.
“Well what on earth was the point of that?”, I remember thinking hearing the song close the album the first time. I came to If You Listen with sky high expectations. I had heard 1970's Soleil and 1971's La Question and saw this as Françoise's attempt to join the contemporary British folk rock scene that I loved, alongside Sandy Denny, Fairport, Pentangle, John Martyn, and Nick Drake. If La Question is the most overtly sensual of Françoise's albums, starting with the fetching Viens and ending with the soft and dreamy Reve to bring us all back down after the sensual delight of the previous half hour or so, If You Listen never really catches fire, and just tapers out to this big anti-climax. In retrospect, it's a much better album than I ever remember hearing it as. It's just not an album that can bear the weight of expectation around it. And in making that criticism, it is only fair to make the point that this expectation was based not on fantasy but on the fact that Françoise had built a strong track record in drawing a wide range of music into her orbit. There's a case for saying that such is the hope and high expectation surrounding the prospect of a Hardy-Drake collaboration that only Nick Drake's withdrawal, then disappearance, could have preserved all our wishes from having to come to terms with an often harsh and recalcitrant reality.
If If You Listen can be taken as a guide to what any collaboration between Françoise Hardy and Nick Drake could have produced - and there is so much common ground here that it can so be taken - then the results are somewhat inconclusive. It's a decent album, very tasteful, lyrical, with a gentle sophistication. There are a few standouts, but overall it meanders gently. It's pleasant and fine rather than brilliant. It isn't a patch on La Question, Message Personnel or Entr'acte. It isn't fetching fireside music, it isn't deep and introspective, it isn't innovative like those three albums. It sounds a little like Nick at his softest, acknowledging that Nick has a very, well, posh English accent whilst Françoise is, well, very French. The album was always going to be done in her distinctive style rather being an attempt to sound like Nick. I love Ocean, also Take My Hand For a While. The Garden of Jane Delawnay is the most intriguing song of all, and Françoise's effective, strangely alluring cover, offers suggestions of just what could have been done at this session. One of the best songs on the album is Bown Bown Bown, which was an English language version of her own Bowm Bowm Bowm. She sounds most confident of all on her self-penned, and sung in French, Brulere. That makes the point that Françoise is really at her best on her own kinds of songs, and in her own language. The covers are fine in the main, but very much a Françoise reading that sometimes goes a tad too far with the orchestration. I like her Until It's Time For You To Go, but that French winsomeness can stray too close to Claudine Longet country for my liking. (If you think I'm being unfair to dear Claudine, then check her version out, you'll see that I am right to sound the alarm - and that, for all the criticisms I am making here, Françoise is far, far removed from Longet country). The album is fine, but it is not Nick and not Françoise at her best, either. She sings much better in French.
For me, the female singer that springs most readily to mind with respect to recording this Drake type of folk pop/rock is not Françoise Hardy - the voices and the vocal approaches strike me as altogether too different - but Mary Hopkin, a singer with a high and crystal clear voice and coolness in delivery. Mary would herself come to record a marvelous version of Let My Name Be Sorrow; her producer-husband Tony Visconti first heard the song on Françoise's If You Listen and thought it beautiful. He was right. To my ears, Mary's album Earth Song/Ocean Song, also from 1971, is not merely a companion album to If You Listen, but more perfectly realizes the vision of an ethereal folk pop/rock suggested by a Françoise-Nick collaboration. The arrangements and instrumentation are better, more restrained, more folky, less syrupy, and the vocal is more confident. Of course, Mary has a distinct advantage in singing in her own native tongue, and with that clear as a bell voice too. Mary Hopkin's Earth Song/Ocean Song is a classic album that needs to be much better known and valued. I would also compare Mary's Ocean Song from this album not merely to Françoise's Ocean from If You Listen but also to Françoise's On Dirait from Message Personnel a couple of years later, to make the point that whilst the moment came and went, something of that spirit and vibe of Nick Drake folk-style pop hung around in Françoise's music. (I only wish it had hung around into the 1980's, taking the place of those adult orientated arrangements that really didn't showcase Françoise's voice at all).
If neither Françoise nor Mary are Nick, then they couldn't be and it is wrong to have expected them to have been. He wasn't them, either. Françoise Hardy and Mary Hopkin are, and were then, established artists in their own right, with their own distinctive styles. Both were far better known and much bigger names than Nick was. And Françoise still is. We recognize Nick as a genius now, and expect artists to have been paying him homage then. That's not how it would have seemed at the time. The only artist of any stature, however modest, that I can find who covered a Nick Drake song at the time was Millie of My Boy Lollipop fame, and that came about because they shared the same record label. Sorry to sound like a misery here, but I would also caution against the danger of inflated visions of what this collaboration between Françoise and Nick could have produced in its failure to materialize. Absence not only makes the heart grow fonder, it invites the imagination to fill in the blanks with all the wishes in the world. In truth, any Hardy-Drake collaboration may well have not been too different from what we can hear on If You Listen, considering that the personnel would have been the same, and considering the selection of choice folk-pop material from contemporary artists. It's nice to fantasize, and it forms an essential ingredient of creativity. But I like to see fantasies turned into fact rather than celebrated in the place of facts. Françoise had already recorded songs in English by substantial folk-pop artists, songs by the likes of Tim Hardin (Hang on to A Dream) and Leonard Cohen (Suzanne). She did it again on If You Listen (Buffy St Marie, Randy Newman, Neil Young). They are decent, fine or merely OK. I don't think she does well at all on the Hardin song. I couldn't describe her versions as great, let alone world-changing and earth-shaking. They are not remotely on a par with her French language material. I'll put it this way, had I heard Françoise singing these songs in English before I had heard the La Question and Message Personnel albums, or her sixties material, then I would not have followed up my initial interest. Singers of woe-is-me rainy-day sorrow are a dime a dozen. Nick Drake's sad story always put me off investigating his music. It was only after discovering Françoise that I decided to give him a listen too. I found him exceptional. But I'll pour even more rain on this parade of bloodless dreams by pointing out that Nick Drake songs are very difficult to sing. I can't think of many covers of his songs that bear comparison with the originals, can you? We are beginning to see some good versions, to be fair, and may well see more in the years to come. But Nick is Nick, there's no-one quite like him.
With the weight of expectation upon her in the years since, no wonder Françoise has never gone on to record a Nick Drake song. There's nothing to stop her should she want to. And don't tell me that the idea has never crossed her mind, or been suggested to her. I read what she says about Perry Blake and Ben Christophers, and the lost opportunity with respect to Nick Drake crops up. With original material no longer possible, why not record a favourite Drake song? I don't think the reality could ever live up to the expectations that people have come to have. It's like the Elvis concert in the UK that never was, it exists in the imagination of the fans, where it plays forever as the greatest concert there could ever have been, Elvis at his very best. Our memories are selective, our imaginations creative.
Her versions of the Blake and the Christophers songs are exceptional by the way.
It's an interesting tale for all that. The moment came and went. Françoise reached something of a peak in the seventies, then settled into an 'adult' and middle of the road middle aged pop sophistication in the 1980s, with dalliances with synth pop and dance that I don't think served her well at all. But at least she survived with her reputation intact, and came storming back to relevance with 1996's Le Danger. Since then, she has recovered her own distinctive style, found her true voice, and recorded one stellar album after another. With that late period activity, she has brought her trademark style to a mature completion. Overall, I think she has produced a remarkable body of work and has earned the right to be recognized as an artist of substance. She has come a long way since the Ye-Ye days of the early sixties. Last year's Personne d'Autre returned her to the top of the charts. Not bad at all for someone frequently dismissed as just another pretty face.
As for Nick, he recorded one last album, Pink Moon, which disappeared without trace. As indeed did he shortly after. He sank ever deeper into depression. He was barely able to function as a person in the last two years of his life, let alone as a recording artist. He was musically unproductive in these last couple of years. Little music was produced as his personal frailties slowly consumed him. He had been down before, but this time he was never to return. He went to live back home, but to no avail; he felt like a stranger even there. He said he didn't like it at home, but couldn't bear living anywhere else. In the end, it seems he couldn't bear living at all.
It's a sad tale and I'm not sure what could have been done to save him. I am sure that the people around him did all that they could, but were at a loss. It must have been so hard for the people around him to know what was holding him back. He seemed to have everything but confidence; he couldn’t reach out and connect and, tired by frustration, withdrew. It is evident that he craved success and recognition, and thought his talent deserved it. I think he knew the value of his songs; all that I read of him indicates that he knew his songs to be songs of high quality. He didn't suffer from self-doubt in that respect. But that seems only to have made the problem worse. In one of the few songs he wrote in those final couple of years, he sang:
Why leave me hanging on a star?
When you deem me so high
When you deem me so high
When you deem me so high
Nick's songs were superb. He knew it, and people who heard them confirmed to him that his own high estimation of their quality and value was right. The problem is that he lacked what it took to promote his music, to tour, to perform, to interact with people, to push himself onto the world. He seemed to think that the songs alone would do the job for him. Or, because of some social deficiency, hoped that his songs would do the job. He expected the world to discover him, and it didn't, not until he was long gone. I am sure it wasn't laziness on his part, but social fear and incapacity - he couldn't do it, he just wasn't equipped with what it took to have contact with real people and the real world. I used to see Nick as an idealist who looked at life from up on high on the mountain top. But I am now that that is too pat. There is something deeper going on in Nick’s struggle to connect and communicate. This is more than some impossible idealism. That’s what it looks to people trying to make sense of Nick’s seemingly unfathomable difficulties from afar. He undoubtedly did have very high expectations of life, and he had the quality to live up to them; but the world he saw around him disappointed him. Rather than compromise in order to survive, he retreated. He preserved his innocence and purity, kept his hands clean, but only at the expense of disappearing entirely into himself. He couldn't come out. You can't live there, only wither and die. His story is one of ever diminishing being through the failure to expand.
I read that Nick was booked to perform in front of rough and ready audiences that would talk all over him as he performed. He loathed it and withdrew, simply refusing to perform ever again. But it can't just be that, since he also failed to respond when offered the chance to record sessions for the BBC, without the presence of an audience. Young up-and-coming artists and bands jump at the chance of sessions. They are in the business of being discovered. Nick just passed on the opportunity. And then complained about being undiscovered. I'm guessing a simple sheer fear of appearing before people. I can understand that. Personally, I hate speaking in front of people. I have constantly been told that you get used to it. I never have. In fact, it has gotten worse over time for me. So I very rarely do it these days, if at all. I'm happy with my writing, whether people read it or not. I don't crave sales, I don't crave recognition, I don't crave success. Nick did. He was trapped by his own contradictions.
Nick Drake’s first two albums received good critical reviews but, as a result of his refusal to tour and promote, they garnered precious little by way of sales.
It's incredible to think how close Françoise Hardy came to recording Nick's songs, and how that could have changed things around for Nick. At the time, Nick was an unknown British folk-rock singer-songwriter who was much less well known than the songwriters she chose to cover on the If You Listen session. Nick was much less well known than even the Martyns. He was really waiting to be discovered by somebody somehow. Once word got out, increasing numbers would have come to check him out and would have been bowled over by the quality of the songs. That seems to be how he thought things would happen for him. I'm not saying that had Françoise Hardy come to record a few Nick Drake songs, or even a whole album of them, he would then have been discovered. Françoise was and is critically acclaimed in the UK, but not that well known and not that commercially successful. Indeed, this recording session seems also have been a final attempt on her part to crack the British market. Most people in the UK see Françoise as a sixties artist who disappeared some time around 1968. That's not remotely true. But it indicates the extent to which her profile was not so high in the UK as to be the solution of all Nick's problems with publicity and success.
But Françoise was an established artist for all that, with a decade of success behind her on the continent. Françoise's first single sold more in eighteen months than Edith Piaf had sold in eighteen years, the well known claim goes. Nick Drake was an unknown who had sold a few thousand albums. Things have changed in the intervening years. Nick Drake is well known now, and had Françoise chosen to sing his songs - or had Nick written original songs for her to sing - then they would have been priceless. Had all gone well, those songs could well have been on a par with the songs on her masterpiece La Question, also from 1971. In their absence, we fans are free to imagine this lost album of Nick Drake songs sung by Françoise as a masterpiece. It may have been little different to If You Listen.
All that we know on this is that Drake was a good friend of the Martyns, whose songs Françoise was recording, and that he turned up at least once at the recording session at which the material for If You Listen was being recorded. We know that Nick expressed an interest in writing songs for her, or didn't recoil when others expressed that interest on his behalf. It's a view confirmed by Robert Kirby in Patrick Humphries' biography.
Drake and Hardy were kindred spirits both in music and personality, with that introspective, innately lyrical, gentle folk-rock sound. Both may have been shy as personalities, but there is this difference: Françoise was an established artist in charge of her career and publishing company, whereas Nick showed little capacity for dealing with the realities of life, let alone a music career.
In her autobiography, Superstar et Ermite, Françoise remembers Nick sitting in a corner, not saying a word, as he watched her record. Nick, she says, “was truly the champion of inhibition.” In MOJO, Françoise adds a little more detail to this recollection: “Nick seemed—and was no doubt—so shy, so wrapped up in himself, that in retrospect I’m astonished that he managed to come and see me two or three times, even knowing that I appreciated his enormous talent.” I think Nick was far more than shy, more, even, than introspective. “The champion of inhibition” comes closer to Nick’s personality.
In interview for the Humphries biography of Drake, Françoise states:
“I don't remember the dates of our meetings, I remember more the circumstances. Every time I get enthusiastic about singers who are, as yet, little known, I talk about them to everyone, including the journalists who interview me. So Nick knew from the press that I appreciated his work. So he came to see me at the studio where I was recording in London. He also came to Paris and I remember we went out to dinner with my best friend at the time, a Brazilian woman called Lena, to the Eiffel Tower restaurant. We were going there to watch a singer – I don't remember which one any more – and as Nick arrived unannounced, we took him with us.”
And … what happened? She says nothing more here on the events of this evening. Oh the frustration of trying to get information out of these people! She makes this general comment:
“Nick seemed, and no doubt was, so shy, so wrapped up in himself, that in retrospect I'm astonished that he managed to come and see me two or three times, even knowing that I appreciated his enormous talent..."
And she does comment on Nick's coming to visit her as she recorded in London:
"When he arrived at the studio he would hide in the corner and not say a word. As I am also quite shy, particularly with artists I admire, and because I speak English badly, communication between us was never great. But I had the impression that to know he was appreciated, loved, gave him confidence; and that to feel that his silent presence was accepted, was enough for him.”
I'm not sure that that really was enough for him.
Thanks to Hélène Domon for sending me the following information from French sources, shedding further light on this meeting.
Nick called her just before he died. ("commentaires parus dans Rock & Folk en octobre 2000") :
"Quand j'ai découvert Nick Drake, j'ai aussitôt trouvé sa musique géniale et je l'ai crié sur tous les toits, en particulier en Angleterre. Je suppose donc qu'il avait dû lire quelque part que je le trouvais fantastique et il m'a rendu visite en studio. Cela me paraissait incroyable, mais il venait au studio dans lequel j'étais en train d'enregistrer et se cachait dans un coin. Lui, extrêmement timide avec des problèmes de communication sans doute très importants, et moi tétanisée par sa présence, c'était une situation plutôt cocasse. Je suppose qu'il était content d'être là parce qu'il savait que j'aimais beaucoup ce qu'il faisait, alors que ses disques ne marchaient pas. Il venait me voir comme ça, de temps en temps, mais je voyais bien qu'on ne pouvait pas lui parler.
Très peu de temps avant sa mort, il m'a téléphoné. J'ai aussitôt su qu'il m'appelait parce qu'il n'allait pas bien : c'était une sorte d'appel au secours. Il a voulu que l'on se voie mais, le même soir, je devais aller voir Véronique Sanson à la tour Eiffel. Alors je l'ai embarqué avec moi au concert, avec d'autres amis, et je ne l'ai plus jamais revu après cette soirée.
Quoi que prétende la légende, il n'a jamais été question de faire quelque chose ensemble - j'aurais pourtant adoré..."
Which translates as
“When I first discovered Nick Drake, I immediately found his music great and shouted it on all rooftops, especially in England. So I guess he must have read somewhere that I thought he was fantastic and he visited me in the studio. It seemed incredible to me, but he was coming to the studio where I was recording and hiding in a corner. He, extremely shy with communication problems probably very important, and me paralyzed by his presence, it was a pretty funny situation. I guess he was happy to be here because he knew I liked what he was doing, while his records did not work. He came to see me like that from time to time, but I could see that we could not talk to him.
Very shortly before his death, he phoned me. I knew he was calling me because he was not feeling well: it was a sort of cry for help. He wanted us to see each other but, the same evening, I had to go and see Véronique Sanson at the Eiffel Tower. So I took him with me to the concert, with other friends, and I never saw him again after this evening.
Whatever the legend claims, there was never any question of doing anything together - I would have loved it.”
So maybe, after all, I am just contributing to a legend here. But I'm not convinced. The first passage confirms what we have from other sources, including what Françoise herself says. But there are anomalies. Françoise says Nick is wonderful, Nick reads this, and so comes to visit her in the studio. But hold on there, there seems to be a gap in events. Francoise says: "he visited me in the studio. It seemed incredible to me, but he was coming to the studio where I was recording." She says that with surprise and incredulity, as if the last person one would expect to see at the studio was Nick Drake. But this wasn't any old studio, it was Sound Techniques, the very London studio in which Nick recorded all of his albums. Coincidence? Françoise had never recorded there before, and has never recorded there since. She was recording there for a reason, surely. This had been set up. Joe Boyd is clear that there was a meeting before this in which Françoise and Nick met for the first time and that there was an agreement that Françoise would come to London to record original material by Nick Drake. Producer Tony Cox also confirms that that was the plan.
Well, we know that Françoise came to London, recording at Sound Techniques, the very studio in which Nick recorded all his albums. We know, too, that the musical personnel on hand were drawn from the heart of contemporary British folk-rock. And we know, further, that Françoise not only recorded contemporary folk-pop/folk-rock material, but songs by artists who were as and even more obscure than Nick Drake. I find plan and purpose in all of these details.
But there were no Nick songs presented and no Nick songs recorded. You can't record what doesn't exist. But I'd like to know what Françoise has to say about this first meeting where the plan to record in London was hatched. Joe Boyd says Nick was there and that, although Nick said precious little, there was an agreement that he would write songs for her. Tony Cox confirms this view. Two key players, then, are adamant that there was an agreement and a plan. Françoise says nothing on this.
I'm left with the suggestion that the more forceful, more vocal, and more aggressive personalities involved themselves had a clear plan for Nick to write and Françoise to record, the details of which sailed over the heads of the two artists themselves, the singer and the song-writer, champions of introversion both. The merit of that interpretation is that it fills in the blanks and allows everyone to tell the story as they remember it, without accounts contradicting. They are all telling the truth as they saw it, it’s just that none of the protagonists had the whole truth.
The second passage adds some other things with respect to Nick's final visit to Paris. Françoise now remembers the singer that she and her friend – here friends in the plural – were going to see. I can't see Nick coping very well in such a situation. Françoise describes his telephone call to her as “a sort of cry for help,” and then proceeds to take him out with her girl friend/s to see a concert at the Eiffel Tower. A girls night on the town, then. Which must have been helpful. Poor Nick. She never saw him again.
I also note another anomaly in the details. In other interviews, Françoise has said elsewhere that Nick turned up “unannounced;” here she says that he rang her beforehand. Maybe, in the aftermath of the Humphries interview for the Nick Drake biography, Françoise came to remember more the more she thought about this meeting that had been lost in time for decades.
It's the last sentence that interests me most of all.
“Whatever the legend claims, there was never any question of doing anything together - I would have loved it.”
And that would seem to be that. There's no mystery and no legend and all these words I have spilled here have been wasted in idle fantasy: there was “never any question” of Nick writing songs for Françoise or of Françoise singing Nick's songs, old or new. End of.
Except that it isn't. Far from it.
Joe Boyd is clear that there was a meeting, at which he was present, in which Françoise and Nick met for the first time and there was an agreement that Françoise would come to London to record original material by Nick Drake. Producer Tony Cox also confirms that that was the plan. And we know that Françoise came to London, recording at Sound Techniques, the very studio in which Nick recorded all his albums. We know, too, that the musical personnel on hand were drawn from the heart of contemporary British folk-rock. And we know, too, that Françoise not only recorded contemporary folk-pop/folk-rock material, but songs by artists who were as and even more obscure than Nick Drake.
But maybe I am taking the known facts to build a legend of what could never have been and what was never in prospect. I'll go with the view Françoise herself expresses that Nick's songs were too difficult for her, so she never thought of recording them. She's never recorded any Nick songs in the decades that have passed since, however much she loves them. I'll just suggest that, maybe, just maybe, the plan really was for Nick to write some original material for Françoise, and that he never got round to writing those songs or never had the confidence to present them. And nobody seemed to ask. He turned up at the studio. And said nothing. So the conclusion is drawn that he was happy to be there, and be recognized. Except that he didn't seem to be happy. He was “extremely shy” and “hiding in the corner,” whilst she was “paralyzed” in his presence.
Maybe he came to the studio with something to offer. We know that he did want to be discovered, not just have his presence 'accepted.' The truth is that we have no idea what Nick felt. All we know for sure is that Françoise had expressed an interest in Nick Drake writing some songs for her; and we know for sure that the people around Nick were keen to have Nick write those songs for her. Other things are less than certain. Nick's arranger Robert Kirby suggests that Nick was 'mad' about Françoise, because he himself was madly in love with her. Did Nick himself say this? Or is this is Robert Kirby talking about himself, and then making the jump to Nick? Nick may well have been of the same opinion, but that is not exactly what Kirby says, it's what he implies. Be that as it may, we know that Nick kind of responded to the request for songs. He traveled to Paris to meet her, he paid a visit to her at the London recording session. Françoise speaks of other meetings. The problem is that Nick was a silent presence on every occasion. If he had something to offer, he never got round to offering it. And it seems that no one ever asked. Or they asked, only to find that Nick was not the kind of person who responded well to questions. The immense promise contained in this meeting of kindred spirits did not bear fruit. And we know why. None of the main parties involved found it possible to overcome their inhibitions. And that's it. The rest is speculation, and frustration, with regard to dashed hopes.
Who knows what would have followed had Hardy recorded just a couple of Nick's songs, let alone a whole album of them. It does seem that Nick at least intended to write songs for her, songs that he hadn’t recorded himself but which were for her alone. Maybe he didn't have them ready in time. Maybe he did. The session in London passed without Françoise recording a Nick song. I can see some of the songs on Pink Moon as songs that Françoise could have sung. We will never know.
The collaboration – had it worked – could have produced an album on a par with the classic La Question. Whatever it may have done for Hardy's career, it really could have been a life saver for Nick. She was an established star, with a decade of success behind her. Nick was an obscure singer-songwriter desperately in need of some success, sales, and publicity. Some artists can live with the indifference of the public. Nick was not one of them. A friend recalls his bitterness at his lack of success and recognition. He wanted what artists such as Cat Stevens had, sales and recognition. He couldn't bear anonymity, but he couldn't bear the interaction and contact with people which is a condition of becoming known to the world. It's not a good combination. He thought the quality of his songs alone would be enough for him to be discovered. It doesn't happen like that. It didn't happen.
We know what came next. Drake's Pink Moon did even less business than his two previous albums; he sank into depression and became incapable of functioning, both as a person and as a musician; he produced only a handful more songs, songs of harrowing beauty. And then, so the coroner concluded, he committed suicide in November 1974.
There was one final instalment in the Drake-Hardy meeting of introverts. On his way to stay at Chris Blackwell's villa in Algeciras, Spain, in 1972, Nick stopped off in Paris, planning to pay another unannounced visit to Françoise. On this, Joe Boyd recalls only what he has heard from others:
“There was a legend, which I never heard from Nick, that he went to Paris, subsequently in '72 or '73 … and he rang her doorbell, and a secretary or maid came to the door, and he stammered and didn't say anything, left a message, but never came back.”
I have read that the maid grew suspicious and shut the door in his face, claiming that no one there knew anyone called Nick. I have also read that Françoise was not at home when Nick called. But there does seem to have been a final meeting between the two. Humphries says that it would be nice if we were able to believe that Nick found a degree of happiness during his last visit to Paris or, if not happiness exactly, then at least some lightening of the burden that had started to bear down heavily on him. It seems not. Françoise Hardy's recollection is of a much darker episode, something much more in keeping with what we know to be true of Nick. She recalls having dinner with Nick, with him sitting opposite her in total silence for the entire duration of the meal; he never uttered a single solitary word, she says. This wasn't a language barrier. Nick knew enough conversational French to have said something. If he had anything to say to Françoise on this last meeting - and why else did he visit her? - then he didn't say it. If he did find any sunshine in that last visit to Paris, then it was an all-too fleeting glimpse. He soon returned home to Tanworth, to live out what were to be the last few weeks of his short life, a life that had promised so much, delivered so many beautiful songs, and yet met with such little success and recognition.
The Drake-Hardy collaboration is a lost album. Who knows what it could have produced. I envisage it as a cross between Bryter Layter and La Question. But that is because I know and love both albums, and would have loved to have seen more of the same. I know Nick didn't like the arrangements and the middle of the road feel of Bryter Layter, but I think it brings him closer to the Hardy terrain of gentle folk pop. And I hear songs like Day is Done and Way to Blue too in later Françoise songs. Maybe the album would have sounded little different to If You Listen. That album was recorded in the studio in which Nick recorded, with the key personnel of the contemporary British folk-rock sound of the early seventies. It's a decent album, just not in the class of La Question. Let's be honest here: Françoise sounds much better in her own French. And I'll go further. For all that I am fantasising about Françoise coming to sing an album of Nick Drake songs, I consider her La Question to be the greatest album ever recorded. And I consider Five Leaves Left as the greatest, most accomplished, debut album ever recorded. Who knows what Nick could have gone on to accomplish. Nick is Nick and Françoise is Françoise and I esteem both most highly.
Since we will never know, we can only speculate. Which is all that people can do with respect to Nick Drake. It's like searching for the man who was hardly there. We fill in the many blanks with our own dreams, visions and wishes. The guesses of his mother Molly and his sister Gabrielle are the ones I would trust the most. But even then there is also a danger of being too close to someone to be able to see too clearly.
I'd pay close attention to the words of Gabrielle Drake in this letter:
(I would also pay close attention to the snatches of songs by Nick Drake, which sound very close to the softer songs of Françoise Hardy).
In my researches, I turned up this curious little detail, which lightened the heavy mood somewhat. Nick and Françoise may not have recorded together at Sound Techniques, but I have learned of a Nick Drake feature by RT in which Françoise apparently showed Nick how to peel an orange properly. Oh those French girls! What are they like! I have had a similar experience, induced by expressions of total French exasperation at my unique orange peeling technique. I was shown the proper technique, too. This, halfway up the Preseli Mountains in the wilderness of Wales. And on other occasions too. I think I learned in time, after umpteen failures. Practice makes perfect, but only if you are doing it right in the first place – which I wasn’t, and not for a long time after. It’s thirsty work hiking mountain sides. Now I know why etiquette is a French word. All I need to find out now is who or what this "RT" is to find out more about this intriguing tale.
Much that I have read on Nick Drake isn't really about solid facts about Nick's life at all, but speculation in the absence of such facts. And the absence of these facts seems attributable not to mystery but to the lack of much of a life on Nick's part. There isn't that much there. There’s no mystery: Nick is there, he is present, but he just doesn’t connect and follow up, just holds back and draws back. That’s more than shyness and introversion. No wonder John Martyn wrote the song Solid Air as a tribute to Nick. If you don't know the song, then find it on You Tube. It's the most truthful two words about Nick. And God bless the person who contributed this comment to the video on YT:
"in the wake of his initial recognition, Nick began a descent - or a retreat, if you wish - into mental illness. A number of people tried to reach Nick during that time and recover him - and could not. John was one such. The culmination of Nick's mental state was the taking of his own life. As he worsened, Nick was difficult to engage in conversation - he moved and spoke only with effort, would take a long time to reply (if he replied at all) and sometimes the waited-for responses did not even relate to what had been said to him. He moved and responded as slowly as though the air around him had solidified - moving through solid air, just as the lyrics reflect. He was survived by his sister, Gabrielle Drake (you might read her own Wikipedia entry, for a life well lived). A number of people have said that, in respect of Nick and his issues, "Nobody understood him". Gabrielle recently went on record as saying: "It's trite to say nobody understood Nick. We did understand him - and it still happened." She couldn't be more right. Many people, with depression and parallel mental health issues, have people to whom they are dear all around them who know exactly who they are, exactly why they are depressed and exactly what should help - and it still doesn't, which only compounds the distress of all involved. As John says: "I know ya, I love ya....I don't know what's going wrong in your mind". The song is heart-breakingly beautiful because it's Martyn (an oft-times loud, hard-drinking, working-class, rough-housing bear of a man, whom the world repeatedly tried to break and failed) setting out his feelings about his friend and polar opposite: a quiet, fragile, Oxbridge type unable to cope and whom the world was only too happy to devour. If you consider the lyrics, they comprise very little - and yet they say everything. I have a little son who loves this song. He's far too young to know or understand anything about it. When he asked, I told him that it's about a man, who has a friend; the friend is feeling sad. The man wants him to know that they can talk about it but only if his friend wants to, otherwise the man will just sit with him. And that's probably about right, whatever the age of the person who asks."
Frozen solid, paralyzed with anxiety and fear, so much fluidity, so much silence. Nick's life apart from his song-writing is so incredibly unspectacular that there is no wonder there is so much speculation as to what was going on in his head. A troubled soul he may have been, but there is hardly a story to be told on the part of others. Only Nick can tell his story. Others are merely telling their stories of their relation, or non-relation, to Nick. Folk artist Linda Thompson recalls her attempts to seduce Nick, only to be met with complete stillness and silence on his part; he just remained sitting looking down into his hands. Others speculate that he was gay. There's no evidence of anything either way, nothing, he draws a complete blank as a personality. And we should refuse the temptation to fill it in. That's what living is about, and Nick didn't do enough of it outside of himself. For his book, Patrick Humphries interviewed all who had something to say about Nick, but in the end what they all say adds up to nothing much. I have read them all, they all end up saying the same thing: "I have no idea what was going on with Nick. He was a troubled soul, messed up. I have no idea what his problem was. Maybe it was drugs. He never said a word."
But, as the comment above says, we do know, we know quite clearly who Nick was, we know he suffered from depression, we know what could have helped, we know it was tried by all around him, and we know it still didn't work, all of which added to the pain and the sorrow of all concerned. Speculation concerning legends and mysteries just gets in the way, saying an awful lot of nothing to cloud the little somethings that we do know.
There's more on this meeting here, but really doesn't add to what I have written above.
So there it is, If You Listen is the album that resulted from the suggestion of a Françoise Hardy-Nick Drake collaboration. Add two or three Nick Drake songs to this, and that's the album we fantasize about. The production, arrangements, instrumentation and personnel would all have been the same, since these were all key figures in the British folk-rock scene of the time. It's fine. It's far from Françoise at her best. It's not La Question or Message Personnel. She sings much better in French. The Mary Hopkin album Earth Song/Ocean Song from the same year is much more consistent and more confident. But it's fine. It needs ... Nick Drake, his songs, his distinctive guitar, and his arranger Robert Kirby to give us more tasteful orchestration. Now that would have been really special. Anyhow, now I am indulging in wishful thinking. It would have been good, though.
If I had to describe Nick – and I'd prefer not to add to the idle speculation of folk who don't really know – then I would describe him as a strange and precious soul with fingers that knew his guitar intimately, but were too afraid to ever touch a real woman. Or touch, and be touched by, anything real. He could relate to objects, but not to people. He reached out, failed to find the connection he needed, and drew back. He seemed unable to bend to the real world. He was too delicate and too uncompromising to function as a flesh and blood being in a flesh and blood world. And I strongly suspect that ‘uncompromising’ is the wrong word, too. This makes Nick sound arrogant, conceited, bloody-minded, obstinate, superior. I think he was quality and had a rare gift. He did offer it to the world, and we enjoy his songs many years later. I don’t think he could ‘compromise,’ I don’t think he could bend. At this distance I feel the immense pain he suffered in trying to relate to others and failing. I don’t think he was precious at all. I think he struggled immensely to do things others find easy. And in the end, he could no longer make the effort.
Nick lacked a protective skin, and so had to create a cloak or a cover as best he could. I'm reminded of the words with which Peter Guralnick opened his second volume of biography on Elvis Presley, Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley:
"He constructed a shell to hide his aloneness, and it hardened on his back. I know of no sadder story."
I do. Part of Elvis Presley's tragedy was the inability to escape the confines of a success and recognition far beyond the wildest dreams of anyone. Part of him didn't want to escape the impossible identity that fame and fortune conferred upon him, and he ran out of the energy required for the constant re-invention that this level of celebrity demanded of him. Elvis was alone with everybody. In front of over one billion people in his Aloha from Hawaii TV special of 1973, he sang Hank Williams' I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry. It was the only time that a Hank Williams song found its way onto an Elvis album when he lived.
Nick Drake was just alone, alone with others, with himself and within himself. He had no success and precious little recognition. He lacked a shell, he needed a shell, but lacked the tools to construct one. He saw all-too clearly the bleak reality that existed outside of any shell he could construct. Nothing could preserve him from what he saw. He wouldn't accommodate himself to a reality he saw as something considerably less than whatever his lofty vision imagined (the view of Nick as precious) or, more accurately, considerably more than his fragile, vulnerable, fractured self could cope with. The shell that he developed was not his own creation, either, but was one that was conferred on him by a world that couldn't accommodate him as little as he could accommodate himself to it: that of a romantic melancholy genius. That's not how he was in the beginning, but that is what he became in the process of increasing isolation. And that shell hardened on his back as a metal cage and rack, ever tightening in time. That was an identity that fed on itself, slowly closing in on him, until it finally suffocated the life contained within. He drew back from performing live, from touring, giving interviews, talking to people. In fact, it is important to note that this is how Nick behaved from the first, not as a result of crushing disappointment, but before. Nick had clear problems with social engagement. That’s where his problems lay. The frustration, the lack of recognition, the retreat inwards follow from there.
And in the end, lost in his depression, with his nails grown long and curling, he was barely able to touch even his beloved guitar, the object he loved the most. His last great guitar performance was Black Eyed Dog, one of the most chilling songs you could ever hear. He felt himself growing old, and didn't want to know. Why would anyone be so afraid of growing old? We all grow old, if we are lucky. For whatever reason, Nick recoiled from the adult world. The world he saw opening before him bore precious little relation to the world he had dreamed about when he was young. So there it is. Some see Nick as a poet, in the tradition of the Romantics he studied at Cambridge University; others see his lyrics as adolescent. There's truth in both views, but so much more. That's what his songs reveal.
His sister Gabrielle has said that the more that Nick saw, the more silent he grew as a person. As to what it was he saw, I would go to a poem by his mother Molly.
The Shell by Molly Drake
Living grows round us like a skin
To shut away the outer desolation
For if we clearly mark the furthest deep
We should be dead long years before the grave.
But turning around within the homely shell
Of worry, discontent, and narrow joy
We grow and flourish
And rarely see the outside dark
That would confound our eyes.
Some break the shell.
I think that there are those
Who push their fingers through
The brittle walls
And make a hole.
And through this cruel slit
Stare out across the cinders of the world
With naked eyes.
They look both out and in
Knowing themselves
And too much else besides.
Outside of that shell is something boundless and fathomless, something we come to see in ourselves too as we become unmoored.
These documentaries below are well worth watching. In the first documentary Nick's father recalls a headmaster of one of Nick's first schools saying 'we none of us seem to know Nick very well.' Nick was head boy and had received a glowing report, and yet he was already something of a mystery in terms of his personality. Nick's father agrees that this sums it up all the way through with Nick; people didn't know very much about him at all. But bear in mind, too, what Nick’s sister Gabrielle insists on – people did know Nick and knew him very well. The problem is not that he was a mystery, but something much deeper. In Know from his last album, Pink Moon, Nick sings just the four lines, as he plays the same guitar riff over and again:
Know that I love you Know I don't care Know that I see you Know I'm not there.
But his sister Gabrielle insists that we do know Nick, we knew who he was, and we knew his problems. We knew he was there, and we knew that he did care - a lot. It's just that no-one could do anything to save him. People didn't know enough. We know more now. Whether we now know enough is a question I am not qualified to answer.
In the end, Nick Drake found it impossible to overcome his inhibitions. He had so much to offer, but was so poorly equipped and fragile as a personality to be able to offer it. But he did leave us with three albums of songs of sublime quality. He expressed the hope to his mother Molly that these songs could help others to find the happiness and peace of mind he so singularly could not find. That he would say such a thing about his music has to be significant. It is clear that he knew of the struggle to overcome inhibition, knew it would overwhelm him in the end, but that maybe he could in the process help others to overcome whatever barriers stood in the way of their happiness and contentedness.
So I write in appreciation of this most introverted of music and of the gentle souls who make it, the people drowned out by the noise of the world, the people who seem to be hardly ever there, but who, in truth, are always there, just overlooked and ignored in a world that can’t stop talking (Susan Cain's book on the power of introverts is good). Nick was there and Françoise is still very much with us. Here's to the power of introverts, as they find the strength to face and, who knows, maybe even conquer the inhibitions that keep them far short of realizing their true potential, in fulfilment of the prophecy:
"And now we rise and we are everywhere."
One day, maybe, in that "place to be" that Nick Drake sang about but never saw, a world I have spent a lifetime in search of. I strongly suspect that you never actually find such a world, you have to build it, with the right kind of material.
So there it is. And here we are.
"Just come along with me.
There's no need to hurry, worry.
What's the hurry.
Sometimes, sometimes is now."
My review of Françoise Hardy's Personne d'Autre has some pertinent things to say on Françoise Hardy's love of strong melodies, something which marks out a difference between her and Nick Drake, possibly offering an explanation as to why she never got round to recording any of his songs. Nick wasn't strong on melodies, musicians say, which is why it is hard to sing one of his songs. This is what I am sure Françoise was driving at when she emphasized her vocal limitations, asking for something more 'subtle.' She goes for strong melodies every time and so do I; Nick's music was more difficult and complicated. (I hear the romantic melodies, though).
There's good comment on melody, harmony, Dante, and the musical model in that article. I like to link all my variety of work and writings up. There is a central core, a unifying theme and an orienting purpose.
I'll take the opportunity, too, to post my complete Françoise Hardy Discography, with ratings for each song she has ever recorded. I know this music very well indeed. I must have written a million words or more with her voice in my ears over the years. It's a familiar voice to me.
I would have loved to have brought this piece to a close with a beautiful song by Françoise Hardy and Nick Drake in duet, or her singing one of his songs. As we have seen, there was no collaboration between them. But I'll end with a beautiful song all the same, one with lyrics of sadness and sorrow that are in keeping with the themes of this article.
The song is Chère Amie, which is sometimes accompanied by the added title Toutes Mes Excuses. It's a duet between Françoise Hardy and Marc Lavoine and it has a sad beauty that forms a fitting end to reflections and speculations with regard to opportunities missed, directions not taken, loves never found let alone lost, and lives not lived.
Je pense à vous souvent
Je continue quand même
D'aimer les bateaux blancs
Que le désir entraîne
Je manque de vous souvent
Mais je m'en vais quand même
Laisser voler le vent
Qui souffle sur la peine.
Chère amie, je vous envoie ces quelques mots
Pour vous dire qu'il ne fait pas beau
Et que j'ai mal, seul, depuis que je vous ai perdue
Je vous écris ces quelques fleurs
Avec mon cœur à l'intérieur
Je vous fais toutes mes excuses.
Je rêve à vous souvent
Je me souviens de tout
Je me réveille à temps
Mais je vous vois partout.
Je vous attends souvent
J'invente un rendez-vous
Vous n'avez plus le temps
Plus une minute à vous.
Chère amie, je vous envoie ces quelques mots
Pour vous dire qu'il ne fait pas beau
Et que j'ai mal, seul, depuis que je vous ai perdue
Je vous écris ces quelques fleurs
Avec mon cœur à l'intérieur
Je vous fais toutes mes excuses.
Translation
I think of you often, I carry on all the same To love the white boats that desire entails. I miss you often but I just go all the same
To let fly the wind that blows on all our sorrows. Dear friend, I send you these few words To tell you the weather is not good
and that I feel sad, alone, since I have lost you. I write you these few flowers with my heart inside them. I make all my apologies to you. I dream of you often,
I remember everything. I wake up in time but I see you everywhere. I wait for you often,
I invent a rendez-vous. You don't have time anymore
No more a minute of you. Dear friend, I send you these few words To tell you the weather is not good
and that I feel sad, alone, since I have lost you. I write you these few flowers with my heart inside them. I make all my apologies to you. Dear friend, I send you these few words To tell you the weather is bad and I feel sad, alone since I lost you. I write these few flowers with my heart inside them. All my apologies to you.
Oh, that’s too sad a way to end! I need some comfort and reassurance. Here’s Françoise Hardy sighing her way through Rêve (dream). Every man and woman must have a dream.
Additional
I’ve been doing a little research on Asperger’s Syndrome, for personal reasons. A little knowledge is usually a dangerous thing, encouraging people to think they have an expertise on complicated issues that they most certainly do not. I know the pitfalls of self-diagnosis. But I know the character traits well. I where I fit and where I … don’t quite fit but probably do once I think about it. I have a great sense of humour. But now I think about it, I don’t follow the jokes of others well. I think it may be a social thing. I can get jokes at a distance, on TV and radio. But in person something freezes. I make these points to suggest I have a little bit more than a little knowledge on the issue.
It’s something of a fashion now to go over past ‘names’ and identify them as ‘Aspies’ and ‘Auties.’
I’m speculating here, but I think it is entirely possible that Nick Drake had AS (Asperger’s Syndrome). Knowing what I now know through research, knowing my own character and my affinities with Nick Drake, the connection seems blindingly obvious to me.
There is no substitute for a professional diagnosis, of course. But since this is impossible, we can only speculate, as non-professionals. The only expertise I have is my own character, life experience, and knowledge of AS and Nick Drake. It seems probable to me. Linda Thompson, who knew Nick and on occasion attempted to seduce him and got precisely nowhere, suggests in Patrick Humphries’ book Nick Drake – The Biography that Nick may have been on the autism spectrum.
If we analyse the details in depth, we could say that he doesn’t fit the AS profile exactly. And we don’t quite know how much damage drugs did to his character. But no-one fits the profile exactly. Each case is unique. In the very least, as a minimal claim, Nick Drake had some AS traits. And we can strengthen that claim by saying he had these traits to a great extent.
I think the idea of Nick Drake as AS is at least plausible, and I would go so far as to say probable. When I first heard of Nick Drake, I found the story off-putting. He sounded like another angst-ridden bedsitter singer-songwriter-guitar strummer endlessly whining about the world. It’s not an image that appealed, so I kept away. But when I did finally investigate his music, I immediately felt a deep, powerful, intuitive kinship that went beyond the songs, lyrics, and musicianship. Fellow artists and lovers of music can appreciate the songs and playing of Nick Drake; the songs stand on their own merits. When I listened to his music for the first time, I appreciated immediately the quality, but detected something else, something much more than angst and introspection. He was singing my song, I ‘got’ him and, more than that, he ‘got’ me. I knew the things he was singing about but, more than that, he knew me.
And this is interesting. I rate Nick Drake’s music very highly indeed. I just don’t listen to it over and again, as I do with Francoise Hardy. Francoise reassures and soothes away the pains of living the way that Nick Drake does not. His reality is raw and unsettling, with nothing resolved and reconciled.
I don’t know if we can ever settle the question of whether Nick Drake had AS. Plenty fits, but those things may have causes other than AS. I’m struck by his dislike of performing in public, giving interviews, being questioned. All through my days in education and academia I loathed speaking in front of classes, presenting papers, ended up by skipping them and abandoning courses to avoid them, hate big intellectual talk, and small talk, and hate being questioned. Whatever it is that Nick Drake is, I’m one of them too.
I shall resist the temptation to scan Nick’s lyrics to prove or disprove that he had AS. It’s the story, the life, his struggles with seemingly simple things, the lack of connection, the miscommunication. It seems likely to me.
If you take notes from the documentary A Skin Too Few, and then piece together the tale told in other places (Humphries’ biography, other documentaries), you will see recurring themes. You could take the view that when you err on the side of caution has the merit of involving you in the least mistakes. In which case, the idea that Nick Drake was on the Austism Spectrum is plausible is a safe suggestion. But there are sins omission as well as commission, and intellectual austerity in this case has the demerit of missing a wealth of biographical material that, individually, keeps us wondering what was wrong with Nick but, together, makes it blindingly obvious that he had Asperger's!! But that’s me going beyond my areas of expertise. I think. Because I do think I know a thing or two about this. Read all the stories of Nick Drake and they are always the same, Nick was different, odd, he didn’t quite fit, he was distant, there was something wrong with his, he had something missing – what could be behind it all? The only reason I don’t draw any explicit conclusions here is that I think his drug use caused major problems. Whether they caused major changes or exacerbated character traits already present, I don’t know. You need a professional on this. So I am not making a diagnosis here, merely putting various details together and seeing what they make. There is always a danger of reading facts through filters and of reading the conclusions you wish to draw into facts. I’d put it this way: if you start with the view that Nick Drake had Asperger’s and then start to select the facts to fit that judgement, you find that there isn’t much of Nick’s biography that you have to leave out. The facts scream an obvious truth. He hated live performance, and would sit hunched over his guitar, never raising his head to face the audience; he refused live performance; he refused interviews; he avoided social contact, was quiet at social gatherings, left without saying, clearly having had enough. He was introspective to the point of being withdrawn. He was once discovered just sat staring at the wall, refusing to answer the doorbell. I won’t go on, just refer people to the details above. I share all these symptoms. I don’t answer the telephone. I hate using phones. If I have to make a call, I have to write down what it is I need to say. And I don’t answer doors unless I am expecting someone. When I was young, the next-door neighbour was an elderly lady who could be very grouchy and cantankerous. But I kind of liked her. She also refused to answer her front door. I could hear her sometimes refusing to answer, telling the caller that ‘it’s not convenient.’ She told us that when she was young, people could only call by appointment. I liked the notion. Poor Nick, though, succumbed to depressive illness. So do many others. All we can say here is that his story is consistent with undiagnosed spectrum issues.
I'm just so struck by how strongly Aspie all the traits his friends describe sound to me.
I’d just be cautious of speculation in this area. A few people may generate some insight here and there, but most will be guessing to fit their wishes and fantasies. If you cannot resist speculating, then base your views on more than a certain person seems quirky, withdrawn, or socially awkward. Autism is described as a "pervasive" condition for a reason. There is a need for evidence on obsessive interests, repetitive routines, and possible stimming both verbal and physical. More positively, the current trend of identifying historical figures and celebrities as autistic has helped to delegitimize stigmas and provided examples of successful living for other autistics. At the same time, the idea that we can only relate to someone on account of their autism is ultimately limiting. It also gives people who like to dismiss those raising issues as needy or autistic wannabees. So I shall end by making it clear I don’t know and am only speculating. And note that people with strong autistic traits can be successful and/or make valuable and enduring contributions to the world. Like all great art, Nick’s work endures.