Footage From Heath Ledger's Nick Drake Video Surfaces

Parts of the Nick Drake music video that actor Heath Ledger shot and starred in months before his untimely death have surfaced. The video, for Drake's posthumously released song "Black Eyed Dog," was filmed by the actor in late 2007 and included in a multimedia installment about Drake called "A Place to Be." The project was only screened publicly twice before the actor's death, and the Ledger family said the "Black Eyed Dog" video would not be released.

The video, a "pet project" of the actor's, shows a despondent Ledger cast within a stark black-and-white environment filled with somber images. It's soundtracked by Drake's song about depression ("Black dog" was Winston Churchill's term for depression), which was reportedly the last track Drake ever wrote. Ledger was admittedly "obsessed" with Drake, and the video draws further parallels between the two men's lives (Drake died from a drug overdose at twenty-six). At the video's end, Ledger drowns himself in a bathtub; that scene is not included in the footage that has hit the Web, which is not complete.

Related Stories:
• Heath Ledger's Nick Drake Obsession
• Heath Ledger (1979 - 2008)
• Peter Travers Remembers Heath Ledger

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
• 
  MOVIES 'Star Trek' Is Crazy Good
• 
  TV 10 Shows to Watch This Summer
• 
  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“Time to Pretend”

MGMT | 2008

Listening to MGMT’s breakthrough song, one might interpret it as being about the excesses of rock stardom, but it’s actually about the duo’s pet praying mantis. Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden told Rolling Stone they got the idea from the insect's jerky movements. The mantis died, but the two bandmates kept the egg sack and allowed the hundreds of eggs to hatch. “We tried to name them all, but they died after a day,” said Goldwasser, with VanWyngarden chiming in, “But the praying mantis dance inspired us.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter