So what you get is the sense of a melody connected to the chords in an unusual, 'floating' way. It helps give his songs their ethereal, fluid quality. This is the trick of Place To Be. To Be is, without question, the most complicated 'simple' song I have ever heard. You will need just a bit more songwriting background to understand what Nick was doing.
All chord progressions revolve around a 'home base' called the tonic chord.
If the song is in the key of C, for instance, that would be a C chord. In the most basic song, the melody would begin on a C chord, progress through a couple other chords and end with a chord called a turnaround that leads straight back home to the C chord. But Place To Be was written by someone who wants to tell us how lost he feels, how much he yearns to go home, to find a place to be. Before he has even finished the musical introduction, we are as lost as he is. Suddenly you have that sensation of floating, of falling, and now he will take you home over and over, return to the tonic over and over, just to show you how good it feels, how much you want to go there, too.