11 | February | 2008 | Et Cetera: Publick and Privat Curiosities

Way to Blue

February 11, 2008 — Patrick Zimmerman

Way to Blue: Nick Drake (1948-1974)

Way to Blue is sung by Nick Drake. Drake (1948-1974) was an English singer who failed to find a wide audience during his lifetime. However, interest in Drake’s work has grown steadily, to the extent that he now ranks among the most influential English singers of the last 50 years.

Since the late 1990s, Drake’s music has been featured on the soundtracks of a number of Hollywood films, including Hideous Kinky (1998), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Serendipity (2001) and Garden State (2004). Drake consistently employed themes in his musical works that were largely drawn from nature. The moon, stars, sea, rain, trees, sky, mist and seasons were all commonly used. Images related to summer figured centrally in his earlier works; later on, his themes became more autumnal, a season commonly used to convey senses of loss and sorrow. T hrough all of his music, Drake wrote with a deep sense of solitude and detachment, more as an observer than participant, as if he were viewing his own life from a great, unbridgeable distance.

Way to Blue is a song from the 1994 compilation album of the same title. It features tracks taken from Drake’s original three albums plus Time Of No Reply. The album reached “gold certificate” in the United Kingdom on September 30th, 1999 shipping 100,000 copies.