Customer Reviews

Darker Than the Deepest Sea: The Search for Nick Drake

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a real achievement. Trevor Dann has done what no one has done before for Nick Drake. Based upon extensive research and careful reconstruction of known data Dann has put together a coherent description of Nick's childhood, school years, recording years and final decline. Important new facts were uncovered, many of which were crucial to the assembly of a coherent understanding of Nick's life, music and death.

I never understood how someone with such talent, from a background of such privilege and from a much touted loving home found so little solace, in the love and support that family provided when he was depressed because his records didn't sell. Now I believe I understand.

Questions about his sexual orientation are answered from new interviews, in the words of many people who knew him.

In short, after reading this book, all of the remaining questions that I had regarding Nick have been answered, and what is more, the answers "feel right".

The book is also a wonderful read. It is very well written, and each sentence is packed with information. There is no sense of things having been added as filler. All such supporting materials are put in appendices at the back of the book. This is an extraordinary first book for Dann, tackling a difficult subject, three decades after Drake's death; it surely is an excellent example of careful, respectful, forensic research, that comes off both literate and authoritative.

Dann's writing style makes this book perhaps more user friendly than Humphries. I enjoyed the book, with the exception of some speculative aspects, especially concerning possible childhood abuse and his characterization of Nick as a much heavier drug user than the majority of the sources suggest. All evidence available points to a loving family, with a sister still dedicated to preserving her brother's legacy to this day. It could be easy to see how a Father hoping his son would become a doctor or engineer like himself might be disappointed with a musical career choice, but there is nothing to indicate anything untoward. Had there been, perhaps Nick would have gone to live with good friend Billy Squier, rather than go home to Far Leys towards the end. The book is easy to read and with a more streamlined approach than Humphries, with all it's information on the music scene in London in the late 60's. But then, Humphries didn't go to Cambridge as a student and request Nick's old room number, as Dann evidently did. Both books together dovetail nicely, but in Joe Boyd's brief chapters on Nick in White Bicyles, the man came alive more than in either of these two books.

While it has been compared to Patrick Humphries scholarly biography, for not having revealed new insight, it does act as a worthy companion. Especially for Drake'o'philes. Much like his posthumous recordings, they are not definitive, but every new little artifact helps piece a bit more of this man's remarkable (and very short) career together.

This book was interesting but I absolutely hated the rampant speculation throughout. That's my biggest problem. Speculation about his sexuality or drug use other than marijuana, with having very little to go on is reprehensible. The man is dead and cannot defend himself.

To say that "Time Has Told Me"'s "troubled cure for a troubled mind" is about sexual abuse is ridiculous. EVERYONE is troubled. He's saying that he recognizes nobody is perfect or without their own baggage, not that he's troubled because someone abused him. That is taking analysis to a level that is salacious for no reason.

Those are the two issues I have with this book. It's sensationalized with no evidence. It sullies Drake's name for no real reason. It gives people the wrong idea about him. He was very troubled, yes, but he was not schizophrenic. Marijuana use does not make a person schizophrenic. As a person who is struggling with "mental illness" of her own, I recognize things in Drake that point to severe, chronic depression, possibly bipolar 2 (which is what I am). If he had the medications we have now, things would have been so different for him. The armchair psychologist the author spoke to is an idiot. Cognitive behavioral therapy can help but the man clearly needed medication as well. "Climbing ropes" alone is not going to cure a mental illness. Any patient can tell you that. I take umbrage with this "diagnosis" of schizophrenia. It actually pisses me off.

The speculations about his sexuality are also baseless. Just because he didn't consummate his relationships with women doesn't mean he was homosexual. Again, the man can't say anything about it in his defense. There are people who just aren't interested in sex. Everyone says he was very shy. That's enough to keep a person from that kind of intimacy with someone else. He couldn't help it. And now it's out there that he was possibly gay. No evidence at all. Just blurting it out on the page. The author should be ashamed.

Another thing that kept bothering me was the author's penchant for correcting Drake's lyrics and spelling. "Tow The Line" is written that way on purpose. He knows what "toe the line" means, he wasn't a stupid person. He was able to make a play on words and this is a perfect example. To "toe the line" is to follow the rules and conform. What he's saying is that he will conform but it is a burden and something he has to "tow" as well. He will conform but it will be difficult. I can't believe the author can't see that. Also in "Hazey Jane II," he says "weigh up your anchor," which the author corrects to say it should be "weigh (your) anchor." Well...musically and lyrically, that just doesn't fit, does it? I'm sure Drake knew what he was saying and what he meant and put the extra word in there to make it flow. The author is nitpicking without even asking Drake what he meant. It's just stupid. He's not looking into the songs, he's correcting grammar.

There were some parts that I really liked. A lot of the anecdotes from his friends made me laugh, which is important when reading book about Nick Drake. He wasn't always a sullen, depressed, shy person. He was able to have a good time and laugh as well. I also liked the part at the end which discusses every song and gives the tunings for some of them.

When he deals with Drake's death, it is very informative and sad and quite disturbing. Now I cannot get the image of him lying across his bed, in just his underwear out of my mind. How horrific for his mother to find him like that. It does, however, provide excellent evidence that he did not kill himself. If he was as shy as everyone says, he would have been dressed and it would have been more of a tableau than just crashing on the bed. That's how I would do it. I think that's how most suicides do it. It's planned. Gabrielle's speculation that he just threw a handful of pills in his mouth, leaving it up to fate may help her get through it but if he did do that, he still would have set it up and not just staggered around in his underwear. It is a tragedy. It's horrible and awful and sad and very likely a big accident brought on by a desire to feel better, not a plan to end a life.

I think when people write about Nick Drake, they need to be a little more gentle with him. He was a fragile man and if he could see the sensational stuff being written about his sexuality and drug use, I think he would be absolutely mortified. People want to make more of him than I think was really there. He was a very troubled man with a very troubled mind but I don't think he was a homosexual heroin addict. That's doing him a disservice. I think the other biography by Patrick Humphries was a better view. It wasn't salacious and sexy, it was an account of the life of one of the most talented and revered singer/songwriter/musicians of modern times.

There's no need to throw out ludicrous theories just to sell books. It's just mean and done at the expense of a dead man who cannot correct any of what is written.

Quite a good book and read

I'm assuming you've already read the earlier book on Nick by Patrick Humphries

I think reading this in addition gives a full portrait of the artist. The song commentary is a nice touch (although producer Joe Boyd disagrees with the words about Poor Boy - in particular its acoustic demo version.. it was Nick who wanted to add everything (including the kitchen sink!) to that track (there may be too much going on in the song on Bryter Layter. I do admit that the original acoustic demo of the song on the Time Has Told Me release has its stark attraction

I'm docking it a point cos theres no word of what was in the note to Sophia Ryde that Nick left before his death. What does it say? They had a falling out, is that what drove him to suicide?

When this book was first coming out, there was mention of a letter to Ms Ryde (of Free Ride fame) being found in Nicks room. I believe the letter was given to her?

But this is the nub: it would work out once and for all whether the young man took his life. Gabrielle Drake feels that it wasn't a deliberate thing on his part, taking all that Triptozol; Nick didn't know it was gonna kill his heart and he was just having a bad night. It HAD been prescribed for him after all

So that question is up in the air. My feeling is that the young man didn't try very hard to live, and if it wasn't one thing it would've been another

But I digress. I think this is an excellently researched work, and its an engaging read besides (the early bio on Nick by Humphries was very good but could be tedious - the first several pages go on about the Titanic for some reason and don't seem to have much to do with Nick at all!)

Theres an index (thank God! Humphries bio lacked one). All of Nicks songs are gone into at the end of the book (yes, even "Know").

I'm not gonna say its the best book on Nick, cos Humphries book is also a very good read (if you can ignore the Titanic bit).

You will need both.

Let us settle here and now that to cover the life of Nick Drake convincingly, without leaning on the endless myth-making which has affected his image for years and which I believe to be largely inaccurate, is not an easy task. Although his life turned out to be all too brief, what makes it difficult to do him justice in the context of a biography is that this brief life became so increasingly painful towards the end, with the young man becoming all the more depressed for reasons of which we cannot be sure. At the same time, Drake's sad and tragic end should not be the thing for which he is remembered in retrospect; what makes this person relevant to so many to this day, nearly four decades after his death, is the fact that he was one of the most brilliant singer-songwriters in history to emerge, resulting in three classic folk-rock albums.

With DARKER THAN THE DEEPEST SEA: THE SEARCH FOR NICK DRAKE, Trevor Dann has written the second full-length biography on Drake to date (the first one having been authored a decade before by Patrick Humphries), and having read the book from cover to cover two times by now, I'll first and foremost thank him for unveiling much information about Drake of which I wasn't aware previously. Dann's book is an improvement on Humphries' biography in the sense that Dann was able to talk with several more people who knew Nick, most notably his sister Gabrielle. The memories of Nick's sister are of great value not only due to the factual information that they provide, but also because they largely contrast the mythological image of Nick's as an all-tortured soul. By pointing out several happy and fun memories of her brother and their family, Gabrielle helps to humanize Nick in the public eye. Dann has also managed to arrange extensive interviews with people who worked with Nick, such as Joe Boyd, as well as high school friends and one of his girlfriends. As Dann lived the era he writes about himself, he succeeds quite well in placing Nick into an historical context, discussing how the artist was probably some years ahead of his time.

Unfortunately, Dann succeeds not nearly as well when he begins to speculate on Nick's increasingly uncertain mental state towards the end of his life. Granted, Drake's strong depressions is a subject difficult to cover without some degree of speculation, as not even people who knew Nick well has been able to nail down an explanation for his condition (he probably wouldn't have been able to do so himself). However, just for that reason, I think Dann should be more careful when he brings a theory to the table; for a subject so uncertain as Drake's depressions, he speculates way too much. I have never seen the possibility of child abuse brought up elsewhere, and while Nick smoking marijuhana quite definitely didn't improve his condition, possibly the contrary, Dann has no evidence, as far as I can see, to back up his theory that it caused schizophrenic tendencies in him. Furthermore, I am somewhat bothered by some of Dann's notes on Drake's songs towards the end of the book; why does he find it puzzling that the song "Northern Sky" is placed so far into the album BRYTER LAYTER as track no. 09? I agree the song is a masterpiece, but does that mean it must be placed as an earlier track? I think Nick and his producer knew what they were doing when they decided to let the song play as the near-finale on the album.

Despite my reservations, DARKER THAN THE DEEPEST SEA: THE SEARCH FOR NICK DRAKE is by all means worth to read to any fan of Drake. Dann is a good writer, who should be congratulated for making much unknown information about Nick accessible. It is evident that Dann is a fan of Drake, but this doesn't lead to sugarcoating. The book should, however, at times be read with a skeptical eye, for some speculation which, to me, seems rather far-fetched.

What music! Nick is in our souls. His music is a gift of beauty. Some people are just too sensitive for this world, too sheltered to live in this world, and absolutely detached from reality - helped along by drugs. Ego driven, believing in beauty, a friend you wish you would have known and protected. Nick. We miss you - great soul. Just listen to the music and you will know all.

The interesting thing for me was the way the book took me into a dream-like state where Nick peered out from behind trees, skirted around corners, always close by and watching - a ghost. My impression of the book was less about Nick and more about the lack of sensitivity of people, along with the author's subjective view of Nick's life as seen through the eyes of someone who actually knew him very little. The author ties together shadows of a dead poet's journey then leaves the rest for you to extrapolate with sometimes emotionally jarring results. Make your own decision.

In his book "Darker Than the Deepest Sea: The Search for Nick Drake", Trevor Dann manages to strip away all of the myth and folklore, and presents us with a real, unvarnished look at the artist who created such hauntingly beautiful music that went unappreciated in his short life, and died tragically young at the age of 26. A true enigma, Nick Drake was as much known for his handsome face and quiet demeanor as he was for the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, which most have concluded was a suicide. Trevor Dann, in painstaking detail, has presented us with the flesh-and-blood man that was Nick Drake.

This history of Nick Drake is almost essential reading to any fan of his music wishing to learn more about this unique musician. Trevor Dann has done a great job by presenting the reality of Nick's career in an honest and respectful manner, leaving the reader with a much greater understanding of this enigmatic artist.

Nick Drake was an unmotivated, underachieving, introverted student at Cambridge who dropped out 9 months short of finishing his degree in order to devote himself to his musical pursuits exclusively. His presence (on-stage and otherwise) is invariably described as mysterious and inpenetrable. Though performer at heart and a born artist, he was never comfortable on stage. It's clear he inhabited another world. His death (caused by antidepressant overdose) was most likely accidental, though this remains open for debate. His music, however, floats on...

Adequately illustrated and nicely documented with annotated discography and notes. I rate this bio a 4 only because I'm not enough of a connoisseur to confidently rate it higher (I have not read other Drake bios).