Album: Five Leaves Left (1969)

Charted: 48

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• Betty came by on her way
  Said she had a word to say
  About things today
  And fallen leaves
  
  Said she hadn't heard the news
  Hadn't had the time to choose
  A way to lose
  But she believes
  
  Going to see the river man
  Going to tell him all I can
  About the plan
  For lilac time
  
  If he tells me all he knows
  About the way his river flows
  And all night shows
  In summertime
  
  Betty said she prayed today
  For the sky to blow away
  Or maybe stay
  She wasn't sure
  
  For when she thought of summer rain
  Calling for her mind again
  She lost the pain
  And stayed for more
  
  Going to see the river man
  Going to tell him all I can
  About the ban
  On feeling free
  
  If he tells me all he knows
  About the way his river flows
  I don't suppose
  It's meant for me
  
  Oh, how they come and go
  Oh, how they come and go Writer/s: Nick Drake
  Publisher: Reservoir Media Management, Inc.
  Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 7

• Echoman2000 from Long Beach, CaThe album title referred to the warning found towards the end of a packet of Rizla cigarette papers that there were only five leaves left.
• M. Christopher Jones from Fairport, Ny UsaRiver Man
  
  Nick's tears fell like summer rain
  Flowers grew out of his pain
  
  His song shows what Nature knows
  Out of Death Love flows and flows
• VinceWorth considering the fact that Rivers are consistently used as metaphor for Death, and 'crossing over' in mythology. The River Styx for example or the traditional 'Michael Row The Boat Ashore' with references to 'the other side'.
  
  This is about Nick contemplating suicide. Seems to have decided he wants to die, but is looking for something to give him hope and a reason to live for.
  
  I feel he may have given himself until 25 to succeed in music, in life, and if it wasn't to happen, he would do what he did do. Sad.
• Whydoit from San ClementeRiver man is god
  Betty is Nick contemplating suicide
  
  Betty came by on her way
  Said she had a word to say
  About things today
  And fallen leaves.
  
  My take: nick has something to say about the world today and about the past
  
  Said she hadn't heard the news
  Hadn't had the time to choose
  A way to lose
  But she believes.
  
  My take: he is agnostic has not taking time to listen to the word of god or choose one religion but believes in god
  
  Going to see the river man
  Going to tell him all I can
  About the plan
  For lilac time.
  
  My take: he is going to talk to god about his plan to kill himself which would end in a funeral of flowers lilacs
  
  If he tells me all he knows
  About the way his river flows
  And all night shows
  
  My take: if god would tell him the meaning of life or how the world "river" works and all the night that show is a reference to the stars and the universe
  
  In summertime.
  Betty said she prayed today
  For the sky to blow away
  Or maybe stay
  She wasn't sure.
  For when she thought of summer rain
  Calling for her mind again
  She lost the pain
  And stayed for more.
  
  My take: Again he is trying to decide whether the pain of life is worth it but remembers the good times and choose to live a bit longer
  
  Going to see the river man
  Going to tell him all I can
  About the ban
  On feeling free.
  
  My take: going to talk to god about the ban to commit suicide and being set free of this world
  
  If he tells me all he knows
  About the way his river flows
  I don't suppose
  It's meant for me.
  Oh, how they come and go
  Oh, how they come and go.
  
  If god tells him the meaning of life maybe life is not meant for him just like others before him also come and go
• Craig from Lafayette Hill, PaAnother possible meaning for the album title is this short story by O. Henry, The Last Leaf:
  http://www.online-literature.com/o_henry/1303/
  
  It's quite astonishing that, Five Leaves Left, came out approximately five years before his death, and of course contained the song, Fruit Tree, whichof course, fortells his own destiny.
• Roman from Barrie, Onis it a coincidence that like this song many other songs by other artists about a "river" are about sorrow, pain, death and other forms of tragedy; is this perhaps the common stream in mankind.
• Musicmama from New York, NyThis song is not just about the seductiveness of quite desperation and despair; it's a kind of metaphor in music for the seductiveness of quiet desperation and despair. The music moves along--I was going to say languidly, but that word sounds to leisurely, and there is nothing in this song that hints and leisure--like the drifting of a seemingly slow and melancholy, yet inescapable, river current. The narrator of the song has no choice but to go to the river man even if the answers and anything else the river man has are not meant for him--or for "Betty," who waits "for the sky to blow away" or "perhaps to stay." She isn't sure of which.
  
  In some odd way, this song reminds me of T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Check it out--and, of course "River Man." I love this song and, in fact, every other song that accompanies it on the "Five Leaves Left" album.

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