Anticipating another forgettable Friday night out, last weekend, beer in hand, I switched on the TV to get me in the mood. Three hours later I was still watching BBC 4′s special on Nick Drake, the elusive English folk singer, who I’m sure you all know. Usually I would run a mile from red-bearded hippies and organic, stripy-tighted troubadours. But the tribute concert to the man was actually very touching -- seeing the elegant lady tapping on the piano, the strings in harmony behind and the singers with almost trance-like immersion. But above all, his songs -- each one reminding me of something I cannot put my finger on -- perhaps those breezy descents into New Town, of some sort of diminishing youth. Drake never expected his songs to be successful; more used to disinterested glances whilst performing in bars, he quit performing live before he even started. Happiest in the nostalgic confines of Cambridge, where he studied English literature and took mischievous pride in missing lectures, afterwards he couldn’t cope with the outside world. Riddled with growing insecurities and fears of failure, at 28 he eventually had to flee London and return to his family home in the countryside, where his mother found him dead one morning in his childhood room. Luckily for us all, by then he had recorded 3 LPs in an insignificant London studio, culminating in his chillingly sombre and introspective ‘Pink Moon’, where the bright, breezy strings had been stripped down to man and guitar. Now celebrated the world over by songwriters, students, artists, filmmakers… Nick Drake is a mainstream music icon.