...and here is the barrier which still prevents me from surrendering completely to his music - his music is ultimately so insular, so of him, so insistent that you have to be Nick Drake to understand him, that you wonder whether he had much thought for anyone or anything else in the world. He would never have been capable of something like Blue. Much has been made of 1974's admittedly bruising "Black Eyed Dog" but if there's any dread or helplessness here, it is audibly unreachable. He sings as if he's waving you away with your fist even though you're trying to help him. ...

It's a world I can examine with morbid curiosity, and even frequently be moved by, but I would never wish to live in it - perhaps because it echoes my own so closely and so sinisterly.