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Harvest Breed Lyrics

Falling fast and falling free
You look to find a friend

Falling fast and falling free
This could just be the end

Falling fast you stoop to touch
And kiss the flowers that bend

And you're ready now
For the harvest breed
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Cover art for Harvest Breed lyrics by Nick Drake

My Interpretation:

I'm falling into an emotional hole very rapidly. I need someone to help me.. No luck. I'll just enjoy something here And then I'll be ready to depart. (die)

  • 'Harvest breed' are those selected to die for the crop of whatever. Eek, very deep.

@midnyteblu Hi, After a whole 11 years I hope you can still be here. I'm not English motherlanguage ... so I can't understand well when you say: «'Harvest breed' are those selected to die for the crop of whatever.» Somewhere I've read that this could mean "the part of the harvest that is left for the seeding in the next year". I searched time ago on the Oxord English Dictionary in a Library, but didn't found this expression. Can you help me?

@midnyteblu please explain to me in a little more detail what "harvest breed" means? I cannot get anything out of google. thank you

Cover art for Harvest Breed lyrics by Nick Drake

So I think the general idea of this song is pretty clear. This whole album is incredibly morose and morbid. But, throughtout every song, there's a sneaking sense of hope. Not a concrete hope mind you, but Drake seems to be coming to copes with himself and his inevitable death.

The first two lines show a plunge into the existential void. Everything unravels, everything is broken, and "falling free" really defines this plunge as lacking any sort of exit. But, in all of this, Drake says that you "kiss the flowers that bend" while preceeding it with the same phrase as the other two lines. So nothings changed - you're still in a fall that you can't escape, but yet you decide to go another way. This line can either mean that you stop yourself and notice whats around you, that you attempt to comfort someone who is wilting, or that you say goodbye, but in a sweet way, to those things you loved in life. A break then occurs in the delivery of the lines, the last two are short and make no mention of a free fall. Harvest can mean the time of Autumn (which is commonly cited as the season of dyeing), the actual act of harvesting fully matured crops, or body harvest, which is directly indicative of human death. In any case, the word "breed" means group or type, and "you're ready for the harvest breed" could be interpreted directly as 'you are ready to join the dead/dyeing/wilting'. The important thing to notice is that he says "you're ready", not you are part of. You voluntarily accept and are prepared to join this group, which is most likely representative of the end of life, as Drake draws from his upbringing around nature, and inserts them to represent what they are metaphysically symbolic of.

While this is incredibly drawn out and most likely unnecessary, coupled with Nick's soft voice and calm tone, this is most definitely a song about the acceptance of his mortality. He detaches himself by not using the first person, but I believe it is best thought of as him speaking to himself. He recognizes the hopelessness, but he tries to come to copes with it. He knows that he is in a never ending fall into nothingness, but he still transcends it and acknowledges the parts of life he loved. This is only my interpretation, but I think this song is beautifully written.

I utterly agree, I hadn't been able to put it into words but you've done it beautifully. This acceptance of his inevitable death sets the scene for From the Morning, where he celebrates what is beautiful in life and nature, ultimately describing his soul departing the world to become part of the intrinsic fibre of the universe. It's an astonishing album.

And Matt81, you've expressed what I had in mind but wouldn't have been able to say nearly as well.

@mattmatt It is not clear for me, not English mother language, what really "Harvest breed" does mean. See we are writing years apart. But we are in Nick's thoughts.

Cover art for Harvest Breed lyrics by Nick Drake

I'm glad this isn't the last track on Pink Moon, that would have been too eerie. The last one, From the Morning, is a bit more cheerful.

@bladet The lines from "from the morning" have been used here: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FD7KjrfodaY/maxresdefault.jpg The same should be in my graveyard, with no right to use them, but ,,, who will disagree?

Cover art for Harvest Breed lyrics by Nick Drake

"And kiss the flowers that bend" Reference to Simon and Garfunkels' Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall?

@acciocoffee I don't really think.

Cover art for Harvest Breed lyrics by Nick Drake

okay, i'm ready to go now.

 
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