Time has told me...

As this is the debut post on this informal blog/notepad, I should probably come clean about the title I have chosen for the blog. It is, as many will know, a quote from a song by late great songwriter, guitarist and singer, Nick Drake. More particularly it is a line from the song titled "Time has told me" which originally appeared on Drake's 1969 album, Five Leaves Left. I have a medium to severe Drake obsession, and have had since the mid-1980s - at which time Drake had long since been dead and buried. I won't go into the sad and poignant story of Drake's demise on this occasion, but will return to it at some later point...

Drake's memory is well-served by many tribute sites on-line:

nickdrake.net is a fan site which has bio, discography, lyrics (not completely accurate), and a media section w. links. A lovely feature is images of hand-written lyric sheets in Nick's own handwriting

NickDrake.com - the US fan site - has similar features, plus fan fora for discussion and sharing of Drake-lore. There are regular news updates on the entry page.

NickDrake.co.uk is a lovingly crafted English fan site with nice Flash animations. One of its unique features is a collection of fan artwork. A good feature here are sound files of Nick speaking There is an mp3 (w. transcript) of an old tape on which Nick Drake can be heard rambling about life and his tenuous place in it.

Bryter Music - The Estate of Nick Drake is the official site administering Drake's legacy. It is a friendly site, streaming many of Drakes song as one browses the pages. The aesthetics of the site are second to none, and some resources are unique to this site. I recommend reading Gabrielle Drake's moving posthumous letter to her brother...

A Place to Be is a collection and celebration of the impact of Drake's music on other artists. Here more content will appear as the collection evolves and moves from curator to curator. It was as part of this project that the much discussed video, featuring "Black Eyed Dog", which Heath Ledger directed and starred in shortly before his death, was first shown.

There is even a decent MySpace site for Nick Drake with 4 songs...

The Nick Drake Files is a now stagnant fan site located in Sweden.

As for book length bios, there are now several available, but all are speculative and occasionally strangely sensationalist... I was particularly troubled by the Trevor Dann book, which suggests - based on slim evidence from Drake's lyrics and poorly executed textual analysis - that Nick Drake was a traumatised or even abused child. We are waiting for the appearance of the first truly congenial Drake-bio - hopefully in 2009...

Two Drake DVDs will help tide us over: A Skin Too Few (available with purchase of the box set of Nick Drake's recordings, Fruit Tree) and Under Review - but separate reviews of those films will be posted here at a later point in time...