Showing posts with label Life in a Northern Town. Show all posts

Saturday, March 30, 1985

The Dream Academy “Life in a Northern Town” charted

Life in a Northern Town

The Dream Academy

Writer(s): Gilbert Gabriel, Nick Laird-Clowes (see lyrics here)

First Charted: March 30, 1985

Peak: 7 US, 4 CB, 4 RR, 2 AC, 7 AR, 2 CO, 15 UK, 7 CN, 4 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.)

Sales (in millions): --

Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 1.0 radio, 11.6 video, 21.75 streaming

Awards:

Click on award for more details.

About the Song:

The Dream Academy formed in 1983 in London, England. The new-wave trio was comprised of singer and guitarist Nick Laird-Clowes, multi-instrumentalist Kate St. John, and keyboardist Gilbert Gabriel. They released three albums from 1985 to 1991. Only their 1985 self-titled debut produced any charting singles, with “Life in a Northern Town” and “The Love Parade.” In 1986, they reached #83 in the UK with a cover of the Smiths’ “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” from the soundtrack of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

“Life in a Northern Town” is the song which the group is best remembered. It was written as an elegy to Nick Drake, a British folk musician. Laird-Clowes explained that it wasn’t specifically about Drake, but dedicated to his memory. “We had the idea…to write a folk song with an African-style chorus…When we got to the verse melody, there was something about it that reminded me of Nick Drake.” ^SF One of the guitars used in the song is the same one on the cover of Drake’s album Bryter Layter. ^SF

David Gilmour, best known as the guitarist from Pink Floyd, co-produced the song. It took a year to record. ^WK The song also got an assist by Paul Simon, whom Laird-Clowes had befriended. He played it for Simon, saying it was called “Morning Lasted All Day.” Simon vetoed the title and Laird-Clowes came up with “Life in a Northern Town” instead, which Simon thought was a great title. ^SF

In 2008, the country group Sugarland released a version of the song from their album Love on the Inside. It featured Little Big Town and Jake Owen. It was nominated for Vocal Event of the Year by the Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music. It also received a Grammy nomination for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals.

Resources:

DMDB encyclopedia entry for The Dream Academy
^SF Songfacts
^WK Wikipedia

First posted 10/8/2022.

Monday, November 25, 1974

Nick Drake died: November 25, 1974

Originally posted November 25, 2012.

image from eachnotescure.com

Nick Drake was an English folk singer/songwriter born in Rangoon, Burma, on June 19, 1948. Only three albums were released during his lifetime and each sold less than 5000 copies upon initial release. However, after his death he emerged as a doomed romantic hero. In the mid-‘80s, musicians such as The Cure’s Robert Smith and R.E.M.’s Peter Buck cited him as an influence. The Dream Academy’s 1985 single “Life in a Northern Town” was about Drake.

Drake’s parents were musically inclined, even composing music. At an early age, Nick wrote songs and recorded them on reel-to-reel. He played piano in the school orchestra and learned clarinet and saxophone. In 1967, he won a scholarship to study English literature at Cambridge. He was a bright student who didn’t apply himself. He was more interested in playing and listening to music while smoking marijuana.

He discovered the folk scene via performers like Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs and began performing in clubs and coffee houses around London. With the help of college friend Robert Kirby and American producer Joe Boyd, Drake recorded Five Leaves Left in 1968.

In the autumn of 1969, Drake moved to London to concentrate on music. 1970’s Bryter Layter sported a more upbeat and jazzier sound and featured John Cale and members of Fairport Convention. In October 1971, Drake recorded songs over two nights for what would become 1972’s Pink Moon. Thinking that the sound of Bryter Layter was too elaborate, Drake opted for a stark collection of bleak songs in which his singing was accompanied solely by his own guitar with one piano overdub on the title track.

He visited a psychiatrist in 1971 and was prescribed antidepressants. He also suffered from insomnia and his friend Kirby worried at one point that Drake was showing early signs of psychosis. In 1972, Drake had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for five weeks. He returned home to live with his parents. Musician John Martyn, who wrote the title song of his 1973 album Solid Air about Drake, described him as the most withdrawn person he’d ever met. Nick died at age 26 on November 25, 1974, of an overdose of amitriptyline, a prescribed antidepressant. The death has largely been assumed to be a suicide although some have considered it an accidental overdose.

A Skin Too Few (documentary about Nick Drake)

Resources and Related Links:

Award(s):

one of the top 1000 music makers of all time
top 1000 albums of all time (1969’s Five Leaves Left, 1970’s Bryter Layter, 1972’s Pink Moon).
NME Magazine’s Top 100 Albums of All Time (Leaves)
one of the top 100 albums of the 1960s (Leaves)
Q Magazine’s Top 100 Albums of All Time (Bryter)
Q Magazine’s Album of the Year (Bryter) one of the top 100 albums of the 1970s (Bryter)

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