Melancholic, poetic and intrinsic 

The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs of Nick Drake was released as a compilation album on July 7. Over 30 artists collaborated on 25 songs from Nick Drake’s discography. Drake, an English singer-songwriter, was 26 years old when he passed away in November 1974. In the 49 years since his death, his music has been heralded into folk infamy and has seen a posthumous resurgence in its use in modern media and art. Listening to Drake is to yearn for a friend you will never truly know. It is longing to speak to the clerk in the grocery store but never quite gaining enough courage, a slow-motion montage of checkouts and missed chances. It is the ember glow of a lit cigarette against bricks, waterlogged boots in cobblestone streets and wet windswept hair. It is hitchhiking on a rural road with no cars in sight. It is floating in a pool of water, weightless and melancholic. His voice fluctuates in timbre, a deep husky tone elevating into a gentle vocal trill.

Drake’s record Five Leaves Left, is comprised of tracks laden in woodwind, strings, piano and various percussion instruments all accompanied by his acoustic guitar. Each of his albums is a quantifying experience each and of their own that combined tell the story of a man, his mind and his music. Bryter Layter is an album of which each song is a completely intrinsic journey best entered into with no expectations. To put it simply, ride the wave of instrumentation. Pink Moon, released in 1972 and the final composed entirely before his death, is a beautifully broken descent into the psyche of Drake.  

This album includes a convalescent array of covers by musicians who found themselves mystified by the world of Drake’s poetic songwriting. In a sense, this culmination of artists covering various pieces of his life’s work is a eulogy, a letter to an artist who was years ahead of his time. 

Skullcrusher and Gia Margaret tackle the heavy “Harvest Breed” with a delicate, electronically ethereal homage. The end lines “you’re ready now” fading out amidst echoes and trickling rain. Stick in The Wheel take “Parasite” to an otherworldly realm as it stays true to the folk-infused-electronic roots, with heavy reverb bass and vocal synth effects. 

“’Cello Song” is well taken care of in the hands of Fontaines D.C. as they stretch Drake’s original 48 second intro into 1 minute 36 seconds of pure post-punk piety. The transitions and vocalization of Drake’s hums are performed with the lilt of an Irishman and the respect of a dear friend.  

Let’s Eat Grandma, the British pop duo, take on “From The Morning,” to which Jenny Hollingworth and Rosa Walton navigate in full pop prowess. The penultimate line “So look, see the days/ The endless coloured ways” give light to the potential the song held for its audience, its brash hope for a future and the searing memory of its past. The song itself, as Drake wrote, is rich in its lyrical versatility and interpretations of life and death. The contradiction between day falling and night rising enhanced by the recurring theme of “play[ing] the game that you learned from the morning” is subverted by Hollingworth and Walton, it becomes hopeful.  

The aforementioned songs are a subtle nod to the overall brilliance of The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs of Nick Drake. With Ben Harper’s soulful rendition of “Time Has Told Me,” Aurora’s new-age pop “Pink Moon,” and Joe Henry and Meshell Ndegeocello’s “Time of No Reply,” Drake’s carefully crafted collection of musical poeticism is in good hands.

It is apparent in this record that it was just as diligently fraught over as the originals. What these artists have comprised here is a celebration of Drake as a writer, as a fellow musician and another human being. Drake wrote that “for some there’s a future to find/ But I think they’re leaving me behind,” it is apparent that his legacy as a songwriter is very present and will remain here, now and forever.