hier dann auch nochmal ein netzfundstück zu dem thema; dass es egal ist, warum die platte so heißt, finde ich nämlich nicht.
Five Leaves Left – the record
Nick’s debut album, released in 1969 on Island Records. The title is an allusion to British Rizla cigarette papers, where an emblem with those words indicate that you are five sheets from the last one.Another possible source for the title is quoted by Patrick Humphries in his Nick Drake biography. It’s an excerpt from a novel, ‚The Last Leaf‘, written by American writer O. Henry around the turn of the century. A young painter is dying of pneumonia, and what keeps her alive is the ivy growing in the yard outside:
„‚They’re falling faster now. Three days ago there was almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it’s easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now.‘
‚Five what, dear?…‘
‚Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go too'“ (Humphries, p. 93)
quelle: http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/NDdef….html#fivesource
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but I did not.