It's a beautiful Spring morning, with what seems like the first sun in weeks, a brisk April breeze blowing through the treetops, cotton-wool clouds scudding across the sky, and the likelihood of showers. On the front lawn, the fuchsia-colored blossoms of the crabapple tree are in full bloom. And today's Nick Drake song of the day, as I drive my son to school, is "Fruit Tree."
It's a typically exquisite Drake song, with minor-to-major shifts and unexpected diminished chords, string orchestration, and the haunting melody of a cor anglais, overlaid with the singer's characteristically wan delivery of bittersweet lyrics. In this case those lyrics are even more poignant than usual, since they are of course a foreshadowing of Drake's own unsung career in his short life and his posthumous fame. Melancholy even by Drake's usual standards, they stand perfectly as a poem in their own right:
Fame is but a fruit tree
So very unsound.
It can never flourish
‘til its stock is in the ground
So men of fame
Can never find a way
‘til time has flown
Far from their dying day
Forgotten while you’re here
Remembered for a while
A much updated ruin
From a much outdated style
Life is but a memory
Happened long ago
Theatre full of sadness
For a long forgotten show
Seems so easy
Just to let it go on by
‘til you stop and wonder
Why you never wondered why
Safe in the womb
Of an everlasting night
You find the darkness can
Give the brightest light
Safe in your place deep in the earth
That’s when they’ll know what you were truly worth
Forgotten while you’re here
Remembered for a while
A much updated ruin
From a much outdated style
Fame is but a fruit tree
So very unsound
It can never flourish
‘til it’s stock is in the ground
So men of fame
Can never find a way
‘til time has flown
Far from their dying day
Fruit tree, fruit tree
No-one knows you but the rain and the air
Don’t you worry
They’ll stand and stare when you’re gone
Fruit tree, fruit tree
Open your eyes to another year
They’ll all know
That you were here when you’re gone
As we pull up at the school to the refrain of the last few lines, I explain to my son what the song is about, and how eerily prophetic they are of the singer's fame, which as the song seems to predict only came to fruition after he himself was no more than a passing memory.
I drive home reflecting on this, and back at home pause in the blustery morning to take some photographs of the blooming crabapple tree. The fruit of the crabapple tree are small, like miniature replicas of regular apples, and are too bitter to eat alone. They are edible, though, and have traditionally been made into jam. As I wait for the sun to come out from behind the clouds so that I can photograph the blossoms, it occurs to me that the crabapple tree might have been the tree that Nick had in mind as he was writing that song, with its tiny, bittersweet fruit that only become palatable after being preserved.
The crabapple tree in our garden is unpredictable: some years it hardly produces any fruit, others the lawn is so carpeted with fallen crabapples that it takes a weekend to clear it. This year the blooms are glorious, and it looks like being a bumper crop. This autumn, I think I might try my hand at making crabapple jam, and I know what I'll be listening to.
Fruit tree, fruit tree
Open your eyes to another year
They’ll all know
That you were here when you’re gone
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