Nick Drake 6: Made To Love Magic

The Internet did a lot to spread the word about Nick Drake and his music, but once Volkswagen stopped running their “Pink Moon” commercial, there hadn’t been much to add to the story. That changed in 2004, with the release of Made To Love Magic.

The album was designed as a belated companion to Way To Blue, and something of an overhaul of Time Of No Reply. It covers much of the same ground as that album—with six identical tracks—but just enough to make it different and frustrating, yet still essential for the Nick fanatic. With seven out of 13 songs previously unheard, it’s not entirely redundant, but it did mess with what had been a pretty tidy legacy.

“Magic” is a completely new version of “I Was Made To Love Magic” that retains the vocal from the original take, and adds a newly recorded arrangement originally composed back in the day by Nick’s friend and arranger of choice, Robert Kirby. Purists may cry foul, naturally, but these strings do suit the song better than the original, ultimately discarded accompaniment, giving the song something of a lift. Similarly, “Time Of No Reply”, which was just fine as is, was also embellished by a newly recorded Kirby arrangement of the same vintage. “Three Hours” is an earlier alternate from the Five Leaves Left sessions, featuring Reebop Kwaakhu Baah (later of Traffic) on congas and an unknown flautist, and provides a fresh view. “River Man” is a 1968 solo demo, the earliest recording of this song, captured on a tape of a performance in Kirby’s dorm room at Cambridge. “Mayfair” comes from the same tape, and doesn’t sound as bashful as the Time Of No Reply version. (“Joey” and the alternate “Thoughts Of Mary Jane” are the same takes we’ve heard, the former with the flub in the final verse intact, though the latter is faded for some reason. Also, “Voice From The Mountain” is retitled “Voices”.)

But the big news was saved for the end. While preparing this set, the engineer let the tape run on after an alternate version of “Hanging On A Star”—a striking, hypnotic take from the last sessions, and included here at the expense of the one we already knew—and another song was discovered. No notation of it was on the box, and so remained unknown for 30 years. Fragments of other ideas had emerged from his bootlegged home recordings, but “Tow The Line” was truly the Holy Grail—an actual unreleased Nick Drake song, never heard before. While hardly destined to replace any other as someone’s favorite, it is certainly of a piece with the other 1974 recordings, and very welcome. If you listen closely at the end, you can hear him putting his guitar down for a fitting conclusion: the absolute last recording of Nick Drake.

As wonderful as Made To Love Magic is, it sadly obliterated Time Of No Reply, which had some excellent tracks now available nowhere else. At 42 minutes, there’s plenty of room here for more. But hindsight can be a pain, and had that collection not existed, we could find little fault with this. And we really don’t.

Nick Drake Made To Love Magic (2004)—4