Added: 2 years ago
From: loq115
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  • I was sent here because of Eric Whitacre ;)

  • This song gives me flashbacks of high school.

  • Totally brilliant.

  • The last photo... :|

  • one of the most beautiful gentle songs, really love Nick Drake

  • My mate runs a site called phils book dot com. John Wood the engineer on the Nick Drake sessions has written some fantastic stuff for him about Sound Techniques studio where all the Nick Drake stuff was recorded. Robert Kirby didn't feel happy tackling Riverman so they paid out some money for Harry Robinson who was a professional arranger.

  • I love this; it brings about a melancholy nostalgia ~ I think I will listen to all 83 videos straight

  • 5 people are pudwhackers 

  • It's the only song on the album that Robert Kirby didn't write the string arrangement for. They splashed out and brought in Harry Robinson. The same Harry Robinson that wrote Hoots Mon There's A Moose Loose Aboot This Hoose.

  • @hotdognights1 wow i never knew this! always thoght the string arrangement was robert kirby! why did he use him on just this one track??

  • Simply the most beautiful PIECE ever written. 5 DISLIKES?????? 

  • water really moves through this tune

  • god just gave us a taste....at least we got that....

  • @hughilene I just discovered [ dec 1st 2011 ] Nick Drake, by listening to my favorite musician I just discovered a month ago , his name is "Beck " [ see my playlists ] all totally open to all who are looking for real music , like this great man , wish I could of met Nick , . . . Ill look for him when I cross the big lake to get to the otherside , . . .

  • @hammeron39 i find the musician who has a similar spirit to nick is elliott smith.

  • Simply beautiful Beyond words

  • "Life in a Northern Town" was written as a tribute to this singer, who died of a drug overdose in 1974.

  • He must be one of Taylor Lautner's ancestors , have you seen the resemblance???

  • Music from a better universe!

  • The first time I heard Nick Drake, I thought he was an older man. His voice transcends the age he was. Unfortunately I was 2 years old at this time. I am so sorry to have missed it for 40 years.

    @hotdognights1...yes! The use of orchestral instruments in music other than classical has always been amazing to me, but this arrangement is incredible!

  • Harry Robinson's string arangement just melts your knees.

  • @hotdognights1 the string arrangement is robert kirby who died last year.he was a friend of nicks at university.

  • @hotdognights1 my apologies id never heard of harry robinson! just checked on wikipedia and seen your right.

  • Pure tragic tender clear genius.

  • just... real music

  • wish i could recapture how i felt when i first heard riverman....heard it a thousand times and it still remains mysteriously lovely and profound.

  • @bradshawvincent It sure does. Unique & genius song imHo

  • @bradshawvincent smoke some magic grass you will get it again.

  • @stevefm ha ha nice one.... dont partake anymore but i will never forget listening to the beatles "strawberry fields" on acid!

  • One of the most hauntingly beautiful songs I've ever heard

  • Phenomenal!

  • Timeless, peerless, perfect and ours to love forever.

  • who's the four numbnuts who don't like this wtf

  • the pictures with this song really strike a chord, a great song from a doomed artist.

  • He looked so lonely :(

  • @MrKennyBones he was in a bad way when those pictures in the park were taken.a friend went to see him but there was no answer.he looked through a gap in curtains and saw him stood still facing the wall and not moving.

  • I had a dream of you, and I didn't realize until I awoke, that you do not exist.

  • So melancholy. So touching. Reminds me of some of the Reels...eg Quasimodo's Dream

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  • Arrangement is superb. So is the song. Lyrics very adolescent, but nonetheless a critical part of it all. Sad story from a underrated singer/songwriter and classical stuff..

  • Amazing arrangement, and velvety voice

    

  • My heart fills with a bittersweet feeling to this song...

  • This music is truly beautifult and truly transcendant. Well done Nick. RIP

  • search nicolas and the iceni summers end. they write beautiful english folk music which has echoes of denny and drake.

  • Five leaves left is as near to perfection as an album could be

  • The string arrangement by Robert Kirby(I think) is absolutely stunning. Somewhere between Debussy and Delius. Probably my favourite piece of orchestration in popular music. Incredible song.

  • Andy Bey, black jazz singer does a real nice version of this too, check it out. btw: been listening to ND for quite a while, like about 40 years. And when I was a dj in Baltimore for a year, of course i played his music. I also dont like it when comments say 'best ever'. how about 'a great songwriter', or something? just think: Gershwin, Mercer, Hart, John Martyn, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, and so on, were all wonderful. great we get them from time to time. makes things bearable too.

  • This came out at the same time as the Beatles' records... unbelievable...

  • Haunting melancholic kind of beauty.

    Which album is this off?

  • @TyrannosaurusBoz five leaves left..an album title with mutiple meanings,a well known insert on rizla papers that you were running out or the last leaves on a tree that signals winters arrival.

  • @bradshawvincent i never thought of the rizla packet-thanks.the rivercam?????

  • @orpheusinundergrowth possibly,i could just imagine him lazing by the river in summer composing this song. my favourite track and as someone said the late robert kirbys string arrangements take it to another level. when the violins come in its like the sky opens out into an english summer with rain on the way. the only song for me that captures that feeling is granchester meadows by pink floyd. this track is much better on headphones,eyes closed and totally relaxed.

  • @bradshawvincent good comment pal. spot on!

  • people talk about his guitar playing  and rightly so but what a voice !

  • How they come and go.

  • search nicolas and the iceni summers end. they write beautiful folk which has echoes of denny and drake.

  • The haunting beauty of Nick Drake

  • Got the 4 disc box set off of ebay. There is some great, great stuff on there. Wow, who knew and just because someone doesn't sound like the flavor of the day, the labels throw them away. What a shame because we may have more than a 4 disc box set from Nick to enjoy today.

  • God knows why Nick's been under the radar for 40 years. In recent years his music's been picked up in commercials and movies. His version of "Summertime" is the best I've ever heard. Unfortuneatly there's no decent recording of it to be found.

  • It's been said before and this song is no exception, everything he did had so much to do with nature. It was so important to him. Wish he didn't leave us so young.

  • See, THIS is the best example of why record labels should NOT be ditching Artists JUST because they don't have a hit single on their first album. It's far too corporate now, & it needs to stop. Music is Art. Not a product. And if they disagree, they are questioning the entire foundation of Nick Drake, & many other amazing artists too. Even the Beatles. Bring back Music. Real Music. With real honesty, heart & expression. Nick Drake has shown us the way. Lets not ignore his most important lesson.

  • @therealKINDLE i agree. but popular music will never be the music that you describe. People generally dont like to think. therefor music like this isnt ever going to be a mainstream thing. you can still find plenty of musicians who are like Nick. Nobody as good, but THINK alike.

  • @Bourgeoisband It was Once though. Back in the 50 & 60's where Joe Morello's Drum solos got air time. Where Superband's like Blind Faith were praised for their short lived collaboration. A time when it wasn't unusual for an 8 minute track to exist. A time where art was plenty & abound in the name of "Concept" albums that sold in their millions. A time where no matter where you were from, or what race, if you were an amazing musician, you would be appreciated. Like Hendrix. Nick slipped through.

  • @therealKINDLE please dont compare the genius of nick drake to jimi hendrix. who is only famous because he played with his teeth, poorly, and did copious amounts of drugs. thank you. lyrically hendrix was nothing special. Nick Drake is quite possibly the greatest writer to ever touch pen to paper and that is an insult. Do you see Nick Drake shirts in every store that has a black light at mini malls across the nation? No, but you see Hendrix shit mass marketed and sold at outrageous prices.

  • @Bourgeoisband You have a lot of hate in you. Maybe you need to study the surviving records & accounts of these artists. Nick Drake also smoked "copious amounts of Drugs". I don't care about how popular or famous they were/are. Because inevitably, it's the Music that I listen to. They are 2 totally different Musicians. But they were both gifted artists who developed their own sound. Hendrix isn't hailed as the world's greatest Electric Guitarist for nothing. Machine Gun is a Masterpiece.

  • Heard this for the first time. It's beautiful.

  • Beautiful x

  • Best singer-songwriter ever

  • good song

  • 2 cool 4 club 27

  • This really is beautiful... Any era

  • I discovered Nick's music in 1971 when I was 15 - have never got tired of it, his brilliance just keeps shining on.

  • Just discovered Nick Drake, how is he not Velvet Underground famous at least?

  • i discovered nick through Brad Mehldau...

  • 14 years old, and loving Nick Drake. Meaningful lyrics, amazing acoustic tunes, and his voice is just brilliance!

  • awesome theres alot a pics i never seen

  • such an injustice, for Nick to never know how much his music means to people now.

  • I can't believe I am just discovering his brilliance today. This is real music. Wonderful!

  • I'll never get enough of this song! Ever. His lyrics do stuff to my head...It's beautiful.

  • amazing

  • Un joyau. 

  • Glad so many younger people are appreciating Nick's music. I was born a few years after him but never knew of him until you tube. The River Man has special meaning for me because of my relationship w/ a river. I also love the 5/4 time and the altered chord.

  • @angeloamericano You had a relationship with a river? LOL

  • Nick Drake's music has helped me be me again.

  • Just discovered this amazing artist a few days ago. He just changed my life...

  • speechless evrey time i hear this track ...... legend genius poet.... with a killer voice and soul

  • ultimate work.

  • 19th June coming up - Happy birthday dear Nick, wish you had a long life .... your voice is still with us, special soul x

  • Was the one song that Paul Weller on Desert Island Discs said was the best musically.

  • @nezichov If I took this to a desert island, I'd end up allowing the sea to swallow me, pretty much in the stream of doom this river goes. I agree it's indispensable, though.

  • any of ND's other-worldly songs and I'm taken back almost 40 years. I had all his albums but no end of excuses for not playing them - every song was like a premonition and became just uncomfortable. Odd.

  • Im 40 yrs old, never heard of Nick Drake until recently, what an amazing talent..

  • wow

  • Isn't it wonderful when you discover something new, that is this old and it can just transcend the years and still feel as fresh as it did back in the 70's.

  • @MiaFredrika Totally agree. This is such a wonderful piece of music.

  • @MiaFredrika That is the true definition of classic

  • Haunting and there's nothing else to say, no words needed, listen

  • Strange, I can't seem to find a bad Nick Drake song...it seems as if every song I hear is an utter work of genius!

  • haunting. beautiful. painful in the best heartrending way.

  • What kind of idiot would dislike this incredible song?

  • 3 ppl didn't like this song. There has to be something seriously wrong with these ppl haha

  • @jimidumdum Agreed!!

  • @jimidumdum Well, if you recall that a few millions of people listen to Lady Gaga, 3 of them getting here by mistake is not so many.

    

  • Lovely song .

  • One great artist, without doubt.

  • He was truly gifted. Now we are considering the emotional needs of the gifted more instead of viewing their situations and circumstances as additional entertainment value only.

  • Check out some of my music; you just may like it, as I am heavily influenced by Nick, and I am young and original. Good Day

  • imagine had he lived on !

    oh but such sensitivity can be painful

    rip nick

  • truely truely beautiful

  • I think you may be right. The string arrangements are fantastic. Almost has me in tearsbut they are happy ones.

  • Brilliant!

  • Reminds me of "Blackbird"

  • unbelievably beautiful, seriously unbelievable. The nost beautiful song I've ever heard, and believe me I have diverse tastes. Wow!

  • I seriously consider this one of the most beautiful songs ever written. There is such sadness in Nicks voice.

  • @zevi14 I think so too..

  • search nicolas and the iceni narrow road to the deep north.

    They write beautiful new folk music which has echoes of drake

  • very nice music one of those uncrowned legends just like barrett 

  • First time I heard him.Which album should I listen first?

  • @arisbatatolis I started with Pink Moon and it remains my favorite; however, you might want to start with his first album, Five Leaves Left. All three of them are wonderful and are rather different from each other. My two favorite Nick Drake songs "Hanging on a Star" and "they're leaving me behind" weren't on his three albums released during his life so it really depends on what you are in a mood for.

  • @doughboycod2 Thanks a lot I'm searching for your favourite songs first.

  • In light of the way that modern "stars" compete for our favor, and we vote our approval or dis- the future is the past. with the technology we have today, anyone w a modicum of talent can b heard. thus dawns the era of the nobody talent who finds a voice amid th din of overplayed n played-out hamsters who crank out th same emptyheaded swill that record execs cream over.its like the 70-80s when rap took over, except now anyone w a computer n a groove can move people! have a message b a messenger!

  • reminds me of tim buckley in it's untamed sorta randyness, I dig the orchestra, it makes this track sound detached, like a careless poem to rid oneself of uncomfortable echoes. this guy is haunting really, I don't know anyone who has heard of him, let alone a fan except here. like so many other unknowns, they leave an indelible mark on the few who find them, and are like an evolutionary misfit, unique & so alone, without peer really, and now I dont really see th likes of those like him anymore.

  • hm, first listen... fucking awesome..

  • Share the love ! if music like the treasure that Nick Drake was got blasted at us through the media like most of the rubbish that we're subjected to currently i think your record collection and probably a lot of others would be better off for it! - it was shared with you - onwards to at least 3 people please!!lol

  • gone to soon.

  • Amazing singer and the songs really hit home , i jst wish at 23 i knew him :(

  • Round the Bend Beck'S inspiration...its a fact that Beck is a Big Nick Drake Fan..They are both genius..

  • wow. the first time i've heard this song. nick drake! i have been missing out. unacceptable. i will find as much of him as i can to make up for my negligence.

  • I never heard of Nick drake until today, but I have to thank him for such amazing music, what few songs i've heard so far. really something, haunting and powerful, the way music oust to be written.

  • 3 people are in the wrong fucking place....

  • @redcubband LMAO!! ahh man I just spat coffee on the laptop!! thanks for the laugh...

  • @angeltorz haha,no probs man

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  • I miss my brother

  • No doubt about it, this man was a genius. It is sad to think he died so young, however I like to look at this way: if he didn't exist we wouldn't even have these songs that he did create and perform. So, I'm happy that he did his thing and we're allowed a peek into the beautiful musical world he created. Thank you Mr. Drake.

  • Oh lordy.This is a song of such fagility, such egg-shell beauty. Achingly sad and eerily beautiful. I've heard it oft before on cheapy tape reproductions after my friend and fellow music-lover Mr James Johnson did me a Nick Drake compilation and, obviously, was aware it was 'quite good'!. But hearing it through my lovely expensive Sennheiser cans with the pretty pics of the late, gorgeous Mr Drake tends to make me think now that it is truly exquisite. I mean exceptional - perhaps genius.

  • They're are a lot of great songs. Very few are as moving as this one.

  • I feel a relation to his music i havn't experienced with any other music. His tonality is totally original, and that if anything should be what a musician oughta strive for: to create something from somewhere deep within. Something primal, all the way real, emotion. If one changes their own vision, their music for someone or something else. Then the essence of their music at least from my point of view is lost. This is one of my absolute favorite songs.

  • feeling free...

  • Somebody gave me two Nick Drake albums back in the winter of 1975, and I played them all winter. Esp. good when you're feeling all alone. I love the major-minor switch back and forth that goes on in this song. Is it folk, jazz, who cares?

  • superb !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Simply genius, just discovered Nick thru Youtube thankfully. I don't plan on telling anyone about Nick. I'll keep this to myself. Just too good.

  • @madcaps1 you should definitely share it unless you dont think your friends would be interested. I think he is seeing a resurgence in popularity even though his music was made years ago and more people deserve to hear this beautiful music.

  • @madcaps1 Same here man Im keeping him to myself too ,he's too special to get into the wrong hands

  • @madcaps1 Spot on with your comments.Nicks music is a personal thing for us.Maybe nobody else would understand what it means to us.

  • music is beautiful......marketeers please go away

  • This is the first song i heard of Nick Drake just had to listen to more. Hearing more on films and tv now wow they are catching on.

  • Rhythm Man - often overlooked because of the strings but listen to drake's guitar - constant rhythm - greatness

  • he;s up there with clifford t ward and todd rundgren as one of the best id be happy if i was just half the man he was .

  • 0427perry, you're so right, very astute to notice the kinship with clifford t ward - they even look alike! I am just in love with this guy's music, just stumbled on it the other day...he also reminds me vaguely (looks only) of jim morrison...so sad he met the fate of so many artists of the day...i had an elder sister who was a hippie smack dab in the middle of it all...i'm from the south, and can relate to the river man theme oh so well...magic

  • Sad .... and Great!

  • The fact that this video gets a consistent 2 or 3 comments each week speaks volumes. Nick Drake's day will never be done.

  • @McPrfctday

    Yep...great music takes you to another place...you get wonderfully lost there and you don't want to be found.

    Nick's music did that....

  • Genius.

  • This takes me someplace no other artist can.

  • love this song, perfect.

  • One of my all time favorite songs. So damn powerful. Beck's "round the bend" always reminds me of this song.

  • Oh how i love being british <3

  • so beautifull song, perhaps he was a person too sensitive to suport this world, but history is full of these cases, better don´t think to much about it and take the good thing: the magic of this masterpiece.

  • One of the greatest melodies ever written. Agree?

  • @rawkus1167 Agreed. So gentle yet foreboding

  • hes so calm.. hes pure magic, i mean, just to hear him makes u sit and relax, and think the things clearlyy

  • I remember, when I first heard this song, I was taken into a different dimension inside my head. This song makes you fly without wings.

  • why do 2 people "dislike" this song. I totally understand opinions - but if u don´t like this song search 4 songs that u like, & like them!!!!! Disliking is negative for fucksake!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • @dastemanobegir a 99%+ like rate is substantially higher than most videos on youtube. If no-one voted things down then the thumbs up/down system would be redundant. Indeed I totally don't get why anyone would down-thumb it but everyone has their opinion, and its valuable for such a system.

  • beautiful and delicate-like life..and all so transient.

    We waste so much time being angry, then we are gone...