REALVJ.COM

From the new Drake rarities collection Family Tree, the elemental orchestration that baffled my teenage ears on the original "Way to Blue" is replaced by sparse piano, not unlike on the John Lennon demos the Beatles would flesh out for their Anthology series. Produced by the Estate of Nick Drake and Gavin Bush, the new video for "Way to Blue" has the weepy nostalgia of the clips for those "new" Beatles songs. Drake loved the deep blue sea, we're shown in images of the late English folkie's younger self swimming, playing in the surf, and boating. With time-lapse shots of clouds speeding by overhead, the video can at times be emotionally manipulative in a way Drake's own emotionally fraught songwriting seldom was. It still hurts, though, to see how the singer's face never looked quite right with a smile on it-- even when he was a small child.

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