Five Leaves Left

Five Leaves Left is the debut studio album by English folk musician Nick Drake. Recorded between 1968 and 1969, it was released in 1969 by record label Island.

Five Leaves Left
Studio album by
Nick Drake
Released3 July 1969[1]
RecordedJuly 1968 – June 1969 at Sound Techniques, London, England
GenreFolk[2]
Length41:43
LabelIsland
ProducerJoe Boyd
Nick Drake chronology
Five Leaves Left
(1969)		 Bryter Layter
(1971)

Recording

Five Leaves Left was recorded between July 1968 and June 1969 at Sound Techniques in London, England. Engineer John Wood recalled that "[Drake] would track live, singing and playing along with the string section" without the use of any overdubbing. For the song "River Man", producer Joe Boyd described Drake playing on a stool in the centre of the studio while surrounded by a semi-circle of instruments. The studio's environment was also an important factor as it had multiple levels to it which enabled the creation of interesting sounds and atmospheres.[1][3]

Among his various backing musicians, Drake was accompanied by Richard Thompson from Fairport Convention and Danny Thompson of Pentangle. Robert Kirby, a friend of Drake's from his youth, arranged the string instruments for several tracks while Harry Robinson arranged the strings for "River Man".[4] The title of the album is a reference to the old Rizla cigarette papers packet, which used to contain a printed note near the end saying "Only five leaves left".[5]

Critical reception
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[6]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[7]
Entertainment WeeklyA[8]
Pitchfork9.5/10[9]
Q[10]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[11]
Uncut[12]

Reviews of the album in the months following its release were mixed. The brief review in Melody Maker discussed the origins of the album's title and added simply, "It sounds poetic and so does composer, singer and guitarist Nick Drake. His debut album for Island is interesting."[13] Gordon Coxhill of the NME expressed his disappointment with the record, saying, "I'm sorry I can't be more enthusiastic because he obviously has a not inconsiderable amount of talent, but there is not nearly enough variety on this debut LP to make it entertaining. His voice reminds me very much of Peter Sarstedt, but his songs lack Sarstedt's penetration and arresting quality."[14] A review the same month by Maurice Rosenbaum in The Daily Telegraph was more positive, describing the record as an "excellent LP of [Drake's] own songs", and observing, "His voice is slow, reflective and warm, and although the verse structure tends to melodic monotony, there is no mistaking the quality and the promise of 'River Man', 'The Thoughts of Mary Jane', 'Man in a Shed' and other items on this disc".[15]

Until the 1990s Drake's albums had been critically and popularly ignored.[3][4] By the 1990s, though, Drake and Five Leaves Left began to be reassessed more closely. The release of the remastered version in 2000 resulted in positive retrospective reviews from the UK music magazines. John Harris wrote in Q that "the record's abiding impression" was of "a hesitant, slightly troubled soul peering at the straight world and wondering what will become of both him and the people he beholds".[10] In Uncut Ian MacDonald said, "A fine debut, Five Leaves Left would have been stronger still had 'I Was Made to Love Magic' and 'Time of No Reply' been used instead of 'Thoughts of Mary Jane' and 'Man in a Shed' ... This aside, the album remains singular – cool and shady amid the celebratory sunshine of the late Sixties."[12]

An earlier review in Q cited it as "The pinnacle of a melancholy canon of work so distinctive that admirers can only speculate miserably on what might have been."[16] Alternative Press called it "[one] of the most beautiful and melancholy albums ever recorded."[17] A 2007 review by Chris Jones said "it's hard not to be still floored by the beauty of [Drake's] first album" and lauded its "unique vision" mixing elements of English folk music and jazz.[18]

Accolades

Five Leaves Left has regularly appeared on lists of the best albums of all time. The album was ranked number 283 on Rolling Stone magazine's original 2003 list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".[19] NME ranked it at number 258 on their 2013 list of "NME's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", noting that "his maudlin songs are brought vividly to life with orchestration from Fairport Convention, Pentangle and arranger Robert Kirby".[20] A list of the "200 Greatest Albums of All Time" in Uncut in 2016 placed the album at number 183.[21]

A list of "The 100 Greatest Debut Albums" in Uncut in 2006 placed Five Leaves Left at number 29.[22] The record was also included in a list of "Debut Albums That Changed Music" in Q magazine in 2017.[23] In a 2007 Mojo article titled "100 Records That Changed the World" Five Leaves Left was placed at number 78.[24] It is also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, which called it "a remarkable work: stuffed with complex, introspective music but leavened with arrangements and production straight off the top shelf ... the record is full of glittering, warm sounds that have not aged a jot in the interim", and concluded that Drake "rarely excelled himself more than on this first album".[25] It was voted number 55 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums 3rd Edition (2000). [26]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Nick Drake.

Side A
No.TitleLength
1."Time Has Told Me"4:27
2."River Man"4:21
3."Three Hours"6:16
4."Way to Blue"3:11
5."Day Is Done"2:29
Side B
No.TitleLength
6."'Cello Song"4:49
7."The Thoughts of Mary Jane"3:22
8."Man in a Shed"3:55
9."Fruit Tree"4:50
10."Saturday Sun"4:03

Personnel

Nick Drake performs vocals and acoustic guitar, except where indicated otherwise.

Technical

Release history
RegionDateLabelFormatCatalogue
United Kingdom3 July 1969IslandLPILPS 9105
March 1987CDCID 9195
26 June 2000IMCD 8

References
  1. Drake, Gabrielle, Nick Drake: Remembered For A While, Little, Brown and Company, 2014.
  2. "20 Best Folk Music Albums of All Time". NME. Time Inc. UK. 7 June 2016. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
  3. Touzeau, Jeff (3 March 2008). "Lost Boy". Electronic Musician.
  4. Jones, Chris (2007). "Review of Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left". BBC News.
  5. "Five Leaves Left - Nick Drake". www.nickdrake.com. Retrieved 2 October 2010.
  6. Raggett, Ned. "Five Leaves Left - Nick Drake: Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards: AllMusic". Allmusic. Retrieved 27 January 2014.
  7. Larkin, Colin, ed. (2007). Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th concise ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-85712-595-8.
  8. Entertainment Weekly: 24. 12 May 2000. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  9. Greene, Jayson (22 January 2014). "Nick Drake: Tuck Box: Album Reviews: Pitchfork". Pitchfork. Retrieved 27 January 2014.
  10. Harris, John (August 2000). "Delicate Flower". Q. No. 167. pp. 112–13.
  11. Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian, eds. (2004). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. p. 257. ISBN 978-0-74320-169-8.
  12. MacDonald, Ian (August 2000). "Behind the sun". Uncut. No. 39. p. 92.
  13. "Reviews". Melody Maker. 26 July 1969.
  14. Coxhill, Gordon (4 October 1969). "LP Page". NME. p. 14.
  15. Rosenbaum, Maurice (13 October 1969). "Recent Records". The Daily Telegraph. p. 14.
  16. Q: 162. November 1999. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  17. Alternative Press: 88. March 2001. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  18. Jones, Chris. "BBC - Music - Review of Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left". BBC. Retrieved 27 January 2014.
  19. "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. No. 937. 11 December 2003. pp. 83–179.
  20. "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". NME. 26 October 2013. Retrieved 5 February 2018.
  21. "200 Greatest Albums of All Time". Uncut. No. 225. February 2016.
  22. "100 Greatest Debut Albums". Uncut. No. 111. August 2006.
  23. "100 Greatest Debut Albums". Q. No. 370. April 2017.
  24. "100 Records That Changed the World". Mojo. No. 163. June 2007.
  25. Dimery, Robert, ed. (2016). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Cassell Illustrated. ISBN 978-1-84403-890-9.
  26. Colin Larkin, ed. (2000). All Time Top 1000 Albums (3rd ed.). Virgin Books. p. 60. ISBN 0-7535-0493-6.
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