Heath Ledger's Nick Drake Obsession

While promoting I'm Not There in September at the Venice Film Festival, late actor Heath Ledger said at one point in his life he had wished to pursue another rock biopic: the story of Nick Drake, the singer-songwriter who overdosed on anti-depressants in 1974 at the age of twenty-six. According to MTV News, Ledger told a news conference, "I was obsessed with his story and his music and I pursued it for a while and still have hopes to kind of tell his story one day." Evidently, Ledger's "obsession with an artist by the name of Nick Drake" led him to make a video for Drake's "Black Eyed Dog" that has only been screened twice (once at Bumbershoot and once at a Drake event in L.A.) and has yet to leak to the Internet. The black-and-white clip reportedly consists mainly of footage of Ledger, and concludes with the actor drowning himself in a bathtub.

Ledger also reportedly had plans to start a record label with Ben Harper called Masses Music Co. Ledger directed the video for Harper's "Morning Yearning," as well as a clip for the label's first signing, Australian singer Grace Woodroofe.

Related Stories:
• Shock at Sundance: Peter Travers Remembers Heath Ledger
• Heath Ledger's Lonesome Trail: March 2006 Cover Story
• "I'm Not There" at the Venice Film Fest: Video Interview With Todd Haynes and Heath Ledger

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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