Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter : 50 Years Later and Brighter than Ever

Bryter Layter (1971), the prodigious sophomore album of the inimitable Nick Drake, celebrates its semi centennial anniversary this March. Hoo-has, ceremonial alarm soundings, or dedicated Grammy performances not in tow, Bryter Layter finds itself in a compromising position of rediscovering its well-merited worth, a concept totally unknown at the time of its birth, betraying its artistic master and confounding music lovers across the world today. A half a century later, its legacy and that of the artist drags along a string of praises from the likes of Sir Elton John, Norah Jones, R.E.M., Beck, and many more. You’d think, the way artists laud the musicianship of Drake, that he’d share the pedestal of Bob Dylan or Van Morrison as lyric-folk heroes of the 60s/70s, but even so, Drake glimpses only in the shadows of these legends. It’s taken a good amount to get (re)acquainted with his music, and as we celebrate Bryter Layter, we celebrate Nick Drake not for being the prototypical musical master, but for being The Nick Drake; for being a true artist craving the attention of everyone who just wouldn’t give it to him, all while fulfilling personal musical ambitions beyond recognition. How ironic that now the classic case of a tortured artist is being vindicated by record reprisals and standard merch designs. But what’s most ironic is the personal and contradicting symbolism that Bryter Layter constitutes; that we now as an audience have come to better understand and appreciate Drake as a human far better than he had ever expected. 

Bryter Layter by itself stands wholly as a portrait of Drake’s aspirations and musical feats; it shines incandescently between his bookend albums, Five Leaves Left (1969) and Pink Moon (1972). In fact, his intentions for Bryter Layter severely contrast the others, as this was the album he set out to make for the people, not himself, side staging his own solo-acoustic humility for ensemble splendor. But don’t mistake yourself in assuming my personal taste lies in commercial appeal, because even as Drake worked for this album to sell, it didn’t. Nonetheless, Drake’s ability to manifest his musical artistry wholeheartedly and holistically in the form of ambition, talent, and poetic erudition was excellently executed in Bryter Layter (as opposed to conceptually rendered in Five Leaves Left or simply professed in Pink Moon) which is precisely one of the most confounding elements of Bryter Layter’s original lack of success. If patience is a virtue and all good things really do come to those who wait, then what kind of artistic redemption can be expected from vindicating an album fifty years too late? 

With a prodigious songwriting ability on the piano later paralleled by his virtues on the guitar, he was by all means a lyricist, earning rights as a signed singer-songwriter with Island Records at the age of 20. He was an English scholar who probably read a little too much Chaucher (read: Bryter Layter) and his music literally exudes English countryside indulgence. Yet, he was extremely shy, lacked social skills (a meeting left rising French pop gal Francoise Hardy stunned when he monosyllabically responded to all her questions), and incredibly sensitive to all forms of criticism. And all this would fundamentally impact his career, in ways he’d never expect. It would be understandable to assume that his blossoming relationship with legendary music producer Joe Boyd (Pink Floyd, Kate Bush, R.E.M., Syd Barrett, The Flaming Lips…) would develop into something much more substantial but when his first acoustic foray, Five Leaves Left (1969), left audiences ( Drake and Co. included) empty-handed, Drake became seared with mentally debilitating thoughts of failure. (Looking back subjectively, this lack of success is wholly the fault of arbitrary commercial trends, as Five Leaves Left humbly yet fully introduces Drake’s trademark folk-jazzy symbiosis and acoustic splendor. It’s a treasure of an album, no less, but that’s beside the point.) For Drake, the next album would need to merge his unique flair with an acute understanding of radio potential. But how do you leverage your own personal style for that of a greater mass appeal? The result, no less, would include profoundly personal lyrics sided with rhapsodies of percussion, brass, flutes, and acoustic guitar, an endeavor completely unprecedented but not foreign for Drake.  Bryter Layter isn’t a tangential experimentation in sound per se but rather a solidification of Drake’s stylistic persona, driven by various ensemble sequences including a bossa piano soliloquy, a soul choir, and an exuberant alto sax, all indicative of Drake’s masterful skills in the studio as leader by thought, follower by instinct. Encompassed by all of this, what truly lies beneath, sullenly sulking in pure Nick Drake fashion, is the soul and essence of the melancholic artist, enabled only by his poetic heroism. And if you don’t believe me, take a quick glance at the album cover: a morose Drake sits timidly on a stool, gaze shadowed by feral locks, guitar poised for performance, and shoes casually knocked off. This was him, in his most honest and vulnerable state, approaching the world with a purely altruistic sense of being, unknowingly accepting his entrance into a world of incredible volatility and fickle sensitivity.

Inspired by The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and The 5th Dimension’s The Magic Garden, Bryter Layter employs key instrumental interludes that really thrust the listener into the album. They act as departures from the cliches of folk singer-songwriter formulas, where compositional freedom finds itself in a compromised position tethered to a demanding, cookie-cutter structure. For Drake, these interludes carry the weight of the storytelling endeavor that is Bryter Layter, where he could speak without speaking and perform without actually performing. Standing in as an overture to the symphony, Introduction, a vocalless ensemble of Drake’s nimble fingerpicking, string arranger Robert Kirby’s ensemble, and percussionist Dave Mattack’s padded-stick-tom-tom, wholesomely ties the soul of the entire album together in a humble minute-and-a-half length. The intermediating title track provide a glistening flute’s improvisatory solo backed by the classic Drake-trio of strings, percussion, and acoustic guitar, while the closing Sunday track offers an ambitious musical undertaking of various key changes and multiple major/minor shifts. Following Introduction, however, if a listener was fully expecting this album to be a recycled rendition of Drake’s gentle, pastoral style, they would have been immediately cut by Hazey Jane II, probably one of the most popular, musically catchy songs of Drake, long considered to be one of his most successful. Hazey Jane II reeks of beach fun and folk-rock jaunt. With a twangy country flavor of jazz horns and guitar fills from guitarist Richard Thompson, even Drake’s own acoustic bravado is side-stepped and overcast by R&B overtones. There is indeed a splendor that emerges upon this song and it’s a very keen, marketing tactic on Drake’s part: present the listener with an acclimating introduction only to surprise them with one of the most cheerful and audibly engaging experiences, establishing an immediate ‘commercial appeal’ to the project. His most mainstream song from his oeuvre, however, is also perhaps one of his most personally revealing, employing themes of anxieties and difficulties of modern life and adulthood as driving forces of storytelling. (“And what will happen in the morning / When the world it gets so crowded that you can't look out the window in the morning” and “And all the friends that you once knew are left behind / They kept you safe and so secure amongst the books and all the records of your lifetime”) Hazey Jane II remains one of the most prominent insights into Drake’s troubled life; partly due to the song’s galloping rhythm, he often stumbles through his lyrics and in classic Drake fashion, whispers some of the most confessional lines. As he exploits the buoyant musical atmosphere, he reveals in a closing envoy one of his most intimate revelations: “If song were lines in a conversation / The situation would be fine.” 

Similarly, where At the Chime of the City Clock’s lyrics spotlight Drake’s personal emotional unsteadiness and alienating experiences in London, the music exudes promise and potential. Loneliness and unease seem to be a centralizing theme within the song (“Stay indoors beneath the floors / Talk with neighbors only; The games you play make people say / You’re either weird or lonely”) with consistent shifts between major and minor keys highlighting the ambivalence of the future and a potential musical career. It is essentially stagnant within an Ab minor key (with alternating Ab major changes) highlighting an emotional stasis of anxiety and sorrow interrupted by episodes of hope and daydreaming, all shadowed by a beautiful flutter of Ray Warleigh’s soul-fun alto-sax improv. Optimism for Nick Drake takes many shapes, all experimentally executed throughout his career, both lyrically and musically. Arguably, it is most accessible and realized in One of These Things First, a jazzy, up-tempo waltz with a prose poetic in cascading anaphoras, noting the inherent optimism in possibilities, life’s journeys and destinations, and the pure bliss of crossed paths. (“I could have been a sailor / Could have been a cook; A real live lover / Could have been a book; I could have been a signpost /Could have been a clock; As simple as a kettle / Steady as a rock.”) On a deeper level, however, Drake professes his faults in a relationship and admits to the myriad of ways he could have maintained a stable, reliant relationship, realizing his failures as a human in love and companionship. (“I could have been your pillar /could have been your door, I could have stayed beside you / could have stayed for more, Could have been your statue / could have been your friend, A whole long lifetime could have been the end.”) Love gone wrong is a recurring theme in Drake’s songs and the Hazey Jane sisters offer a sincere space for Drake’s remorseful attempt at redemption. They become motifs in a patterned sequence that proliferate throughout Drake’s musical oeuvre (who is this mysterious Jane character and why does Drake keep writing songs about her?) that reveal palpable, lyrical tensions between Drake’s undying love for a muse he’s forced to leave and his self-adamant destructive behaviors. 

But perhaps one of the most explosive, serendipitous, and self-loathing tracks is Poor Boy. And as you can already imagine, it’s a self-mocking ode to himself. It is controversially admitted as a song beyond Drake’s style, reaching over six minutes of non-stop, collaborative and interrupting solos and segues. But it’s blissfully chaotic. Warleigh makes a return for a lush alto-sax lead, with guitarist Dave Pegg on bass and Ed Kowalski on drums, giving way for a two-female soul choir led by Patricia Arnold and Doris Troy, and of course South African Chris McGregor’s bossa piano licks. It also marks the singular moment ever Drake leads with an electric guitar - a move oddly reminiscent of his folk hero Bob Dylan just a few years prior. This collaboration was never intended and merely sprung out of Boyd’s impulsive instincts, tasking McGregegor with a feature just minutes before he would even meet Drake. It’s McGregor’s flair that shines in Poor Boy, and Arnold and Troy’s backing vocals add an unprecedented layer of sonic depth that, arguably, renders the song neither for nor from Drake. It’d be highly inconsiderate to even mutter the words, but to a certain extent, the controversy behind Poor Boy is merited on the premise that Drake is essentially shadowed by everyone else. Sure he lyrically drives the song and seemingly basks in the glory of the collaboration, shining in the foreground. But the song’s prose properly highlights Drake’s uncertainty in fitting into that changed scene, no doubt unsure of his worth as an artist among artists, not dependent on that recording session. ("Nobody knows / How cold it grows / And nobody sees / How shaky my knees / Nobody cares / How steep my stairs / And nobody smiles / If I cross their stiles ") Drake mocks his own self-pity and treads the mighty waters of privilege and mental health. How could he, an educated young man from a well-off family actually feel depressed? How could he actually be lonely when he’s financially secure, healthy, and educated? What really was there to complain about? (“Oh poor boy / So sorry for himself, Oh poor boy / So worried for his health”) Drake had a profound understanding of this complex position and his would challenge the sappy whining from his contemporaries. For much of his career, he had dedicated his soulful, poetic attentiveness to his increasingly troubling thoughts and emotions. But to which audience could he cater to when he’d been busking as a literature student at Cambridge University? What kind of street credibility could Drake gain from living ‘beneath the books’ and not vicariously exploiting the joys of life from drugs and casual, intimate relationships? These often seem to stand in as factors of a cheesy folk formula and it wasn’t lost on Drake that perhaps what people would prefer were tedious love songs of an absent (and perhaps imaginary) lover, not elegiac or introspective ramblings. And perhaps what mortified Drake the most was his inability to compromise his intellect for sappy superficiality. He grew disdainful, not completely of audiences, but of himself, for a gross inability to level with these demands. He channeled this growing disdain and created art, the most precious of coping mechanisms, but he also resorted to anti-depressants and longed for a full-fledged musical career. To him, his failures had pointed out the evident and had perpetrated a cycle of self-doubt that would nonetheless lead to a disabling lack of self-confidence. He trusted his intellectual prowess, but sensed it would stand in the way of his one true dream. Again, it was only a matter of negotiating between the two. Must a musical career fundamentally lack an enlightened approach in order to succeed, or do you have to relinquish your artistry for audience appeal? With these considerations, Drake found himself in an eerily funny position of a privileged maniac. Really, what good would it do? 

But for Drake it would have always done a great deal of good and it’s a shame that the arbitrary mishaps of musical fanaticism never colluded in his favor. While his music stood acquiring dust and renegation during his prime years, Drake heavily succumbed to insecurities, severe depression and disillusionment, and antidepressants. Today his albums are lauded as masterpieces of not only folk but also British musical artistry - a canon that boasts exclusivity, presumptuousness, pretentiousness (whether merited or not), and several mighty historical precedents that make the misfortunes of failure just a tad bit less scathing. (“They were giants and musical monsters, it’d be difficult to ever live up to those standards but keep trying,” they’d say.) But why did it take so long? In 1999, when the mega German car company Volkswagen employed Nick Drake’s title track from his third album, Pink Moon, as a main theme for their commercial promoting their new Cabrio, a whole new generation (or perhaps world?) of fanatics erupted in flames for Drake’s music. In 2018, Drake was inducted into British Radio 2’s Folk Hall of Fame. His unique symbiosis of folk and jazz would stand as a foundational point of departure for Grey Reverend’s genre-bending musical identity. But way back in the summer of 1970, as a means to enhance the marketability of Drake’s music, Boyd invited Sir Elton John to Sound Technique Studios to see if John would record a cover of one of Drake’s songs. Post Five Leaves Left and pre-Bryter Layter, John settled on four songs including Day is Done (reinterpreted as When the Day is Done), Saturday Sun, Time Has Told Me, and Way to Blue, a heartfelt ballad that originally featured an extravagantly dramatic orchestrated backdrop to Drake’s nostalgic lyrics. Appropriately fitting into John’s blossoming Tumbleweed folk-rock soul, John’s adapted cover is stripped to an accompanying piano, bass guitar, percussion, and backing vocals. Recorded in 1970, they were released in 1994, twenty years after Drake’s death. 

There was a lot at stake for Nick Drake’s success and it’s pretty evident that it’s precisely what determined whether his records would gain traction. Frustrated by a lack of proven commercial success, Boyd backed out of his Witchenson label and swiftly sold it to Island Records. He would soon move to the U.S., leaving a very vulnerable and sensitive Drake to fend for himself. Drake’s own lack of aptitude for public performing and concerts would further debilitate any promising PR strategy, leaving Bryter Layter hopelessly floating in a world of hostility and volatile appreciation. It would be years before Bryter Layter would see the better of the light of day. 

But Drake had a promising future ahead of him, filled with an excruciatingly beautiful career of merited success and commercial accomplishment. Like the artists of the 27 club, Drake passed on too young, leaving with a heart wrenched in depressive misery and anguish. He could never foretell that it would all finally click, and sometimes I can’t help but wonder how insanely bright of a star he might have been. I have always suspected a bizarre, prophetic acuity from poets; they have a tendency to lyrically make out the present, future, and even the past in a manner that never ceases to give shivers. And as they perpetually reveal universal subtleties of life, it is not uncommon to feel as if poets meekly hold the meaning of life in their hands. And perhaps, in some alternate universe, as poet and as artist, Drake was privy to this (somewhat) reality. Perhaps he always knew that true artistry is shamefully undervalued during its time and blissfully celebrated past its expiration date. For Drake, successful musical mastery couldn’t thrive in the compact formula of overnight success. Fueled by nostalgia and intimate brooding, his was the kind that would cook a little longer than others. And he knew that. Craving the musical superficiality of top-charts and record sales, Drake secretly cherished the fondness of mystique and what it meant for folk artists who were already on the brink of superstardom-sickness. I’d like to think that what crippled him most was his futile inability to travel into the future, to fully experience what he only perceived would become of his art. I’d like to think that he did himself, all of us, a favor by dedicating an album to a career of expressive ambition. That perhaps, maybe, on some far-off plane, he knew it would indeed be brighter later. But in truth, it never lagged in brightness, neither then nor now. 

For us, it was bryter always.