Rock-tober 09, 2018

I sat in on a briefing where several directors of NIH's Office of the Director had to present the state of their various organizations. One deputy had to stand in for his boss who was called out of town, and he wound up telling this story.

I've never addressed this body so I sought some advice on how I should frame my talk. I was told by more than one individual to leave out musical references, because that's Dr. Collins's purview. (Dr. Francis Collins, director of NIH, is well regarded as a guitarist and has been known to be seen jamming on the grounds of NIH with his electric guitar.) I was also warned off being too humorous, because that's Dr. Tabak's (Deputy Director, NIH) domain. So if I can't reference music and I can't be funny, what should I be? I was told, "Brief".

That garnered him uproarious laughter from the auditorium attendees. When the chuckles died down, he continued, "Annnnd, I'm done." That earned him thunderous applause.

I'm normally a fan of brevity. Sadly, though, brevity encapsulates everything about guitarist Nick Drake. Born in Rangoon, Burma in 1948, he grew up in Warwickshire, England. Although accepted into Cambridge to study English Lit, he was indifferent towards his studies, preferring to spend his time listening to and playing music. He eventually made connections within the industry and recorded his first album, Five Leaves Left, in 1969. The discology of his brief seven-year career only contains two more albums, Bryter Layter in 1971 and Pink Moon in 1972. He died shortly after in 1974 of a drug overdose. He was only twenty-six.

Drake was by no means verbose. Perhaps fueled by depression and drug use, he was known to put on entire concerts without speaking a word outside of his song's lyrics.  The eleven tracks of Pink Moon had a playtime of only twenty-eight minutes. The title track itself is a scant two minutes long.

He never achieved commercial success during his lifetime, due in no small part to his aversion to public interviews. Posthumously, however, Five Leaves Left was ranked by Rolling Stone at number 283 of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". More strikingly, it ranked at number 78 in a Mojo article detailing the "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". In 1999, Volkswagen used Pink Moon's title track to great success in an ad for their Cabriolet. Prior to the commercial, the album sold 6,000 copies in the US. Post exposure in the Cabrio commercial, record sales jumped to 74,000 copies.

No one knows the meaning behind the lyrics of "Pink Moon". Some theorized it's symbolic of death and Drake was predicting his own demise. Reading the lyrics, they're actually are very ponderous, and in their sparseness, they sound ominous. But when sung by Drake accompanied by a piano and acoustic guitar they become airy and introspective, almost calming. Indeed, they may be the most calming brief two minutes of your day.