| Nick Drake – Rider On The Wheel Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| “Rider on the Wheel” is perhaps the best example of Nick Drake’s exceptional ability to unite music and verse into an abstract, poignant message. The tune feels as though it were spontaneously spawned into life by the spirit of a man singing from the moon, without forethought or function. Yet it’s clear from Drake’s history that a great deal of mindshare was directed towards the development of this rather simple composition. The “rider on the wheel” alludes to the needle (stylus) of a turntable, which the listeners (us) are meant to be hearing posthumously, following Drake’s death, as the phonographic record (e.g., an LP) spins around. \n\nIt is widely reported that one of Drake\'s inner demons was an unshakable feeling that the world simply would never appreciate his talents until, perhaps, long after his death. When one considers the extraordinarily exceptional effort which Drake devoted to his guitaring skills, the dedication he placed into his dreamlike music, and the resulting lackluster reception from the music industry during his living years, one can empathize with Drake’s feeling that he would never live to experience the appreciation he deserved.\n\nThe tune opens with a simple guitar melody directing one’s mind towards a street fair victrola, with the image of a rider (stylus) on the wheel (an LP spinning on a turntable). The first verse of the song then explains how we (the future listeners) now know Drake’s name, although Drake cannot possibly be presently aware of this himself, as he has long since passed: “And now you know my name, but I don’t feel the same.” And there is no sense in “blaming” the stylus for this, as it’s simply inanimate and mechanistic. In a sense, Drake parallels his posthumous, unfeeling self to the unfeeling rider on the wheel, as the stylus travels across the grooves of the record and mechanically replays what was once full of life. \n\nMoving further into this theme, the second verse intimates that the song, despite having been written decades in the past, is presently brand-new for the listeners: “I know my song is new. I know it\'s new for you.” The verse then ends by setting up yet another analogy, where Drake will tell us “how it’s true”. Although this analogy isn’t fully clear from the second verse, the third verse certainly drives this home, as we (the listeners) are equated to the turntable: “Round and round we go. We take it, fast and slow.” This of course is reminiscent of the fast and slow standard speeds of a turntables in the 1960s and 1970s. Just as the turntable has no control of itself, so are we moved by forces outside our control. \n\nWhile the third verse does not clearly explain the origin of these controlling forces, we are provided some hint in that “I must keep up a show for the rider on the wheel”, suggesting that showbusiness (e.g., the music industry) is the force which decides our fate. Perhaps Drake felt that his contemporaries would have been more likely to appreciate the magic of his music if their tastes had not been governed by the music industry. \n\nThe song ends with forgiveness to all of us, including Drake, as we are all riders on the wheel, helplessly bound to the mechanics of the system: “I ain’t gonna blame the rider on the wheel.” Indeed, the tune ends with the same sense of peace that drives the entirety of the composition. | |
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.