Death in a Northern Town

(A Dream Full of Rain)

"I personally prefer to think Nick committed suicide... I'd rather he died because he wanted to end it than it to be the result of a tragic mistake. That would seem to me to be terrible_.." [1] singer-songwriter Nick Drake's sister, Gabrielle. It is a mystery that may probably never be resolved to anyone's satisfaction. Nick Drake died in obscurity (from either a suicide or an accidental overdose of his anti-depressants) in 1974. Since then the Dream Academy wrote a haunting song about him ("Life in a Northern Town"). Drake now ranks among the most influential English singer-songwriters of the last 50 years. [2]

What Nick's sister said at first appalled me but then I realized something even more tragic when it comes to promoting artists: all our lives are stories we are writing everyday. And a good ending is important in any story. A compelling, misunderstood artist leaving the world in one last defiant gesture sells more records then someone who made an elementary accounting error.

That is horrible and unfair. Life is so magical and fleeting that it should never be thrown away. I have friends who have attempted suicide and my life is so much richer for them still being around. I want to be above the romantic notion of treating a real life like a good read in a press kit or a heartfelt Academy Award winning movie. But I need to be honest with myself. I love Van Gogh and Sylvia Plath. Their tragic ends are impossible not to think about when I look at their work.

I wish it wasn't a factor, but my mind can't separate things out like that. Nick is part of that Van Gogh thing, isn't he? Someone very talented dying young in obscurity engages my sympathy as a caring human being. (I want to go back in time at that critical moment and stop them from robbing themselves, and the world, of all the wonder that is still ahead of them.) It also gnaws at the deepest fear of any obscure artist. Will this be our fate?

The Dream Academy's song about Nick Drake is a haunting series of images: a Salvation Army band, someone (in my imagination, Nick Drake) sits in a park telling stories, the rain starts, Nick leaves on a train... perhaps without really saying goodbye. It is a dream full of rain. And like a good dream, or real life, it resists easy answers.




Life in a Northern Town
by The Dream Academy

A Salvation Army band played
And the children drank lemonade
And the morning lasted all day,
All day
And through an open window came
Like Sinatra in a younger day,
Pushing the town away
Ah -

(Chant)
Ah hey ma ma ma
Life in a northern town.

They sat on the stony ground
And he took a cigarette out
And everyone else came down
To listen.
He said, "In winter 1963
It felt like the world would freeze
With John F. Kennedy
And the Beatles."

(Chant)
Ah hey ma ma ma
Life in a northern town.
Ah hey ma ma ma
All the work shut down.

The evening had turned to rain
Watch the water roll down the drain,
As we followed him down
To the station
And though he never would wave goodbye,
You could see it written in his eyes
As the train rolled out of sight
Bye-bye.

Video for Life in a Northern Town

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXqqw-gQqzo


1. The Death of Nick Drake http://www.michaelorgan.org.au/drake4.htm

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Drake