By Cam Lindsay"I don't really think of myself as much of a musician." Coming from the mouth of Polly Jean Harvey, those words are a startling admission. Considering the distinguished career she's led over the last two decades, it's impossible not to disagree. One glance at the instruments Harvey has employed over the years ― guitar, zither, violin, cello, saxophone, she even taught herself piano for 2007's White Chalk ― and it's pretty clear that she's either modest or delusional. But over the course of writing her new album, Let England Shake, she lost the desire to, as they say, jam.
"I only wrote words for two and a half years, I didn't touch an instrument," she explains. "I very rarely play instruments unless I have to. I'm definitely more interested in words and use music as the vehicle for those words because I do enjoy making songs and singing them to people. But the words have become my greater love over the last few years. That might change again, these things forever change."
Change is a habit PJ Harvey can't shake. The Dorset, England-born and based singer-songwriter has built her repertoire by perpetually transforming both her sound and appearance. Emerging in 1991 during the alternative rock boom with a stripped down blend of raw punk and blues, PJ Harvey was originally a trio that released two albums ― 1992's Dry and 1993's Rid of Me ― before Polly decided to go solo. From there PJ Harvey established herself as one of the most fascinating artists on the landscape, tasting both critical and popular approval while repeatedly experimenting with her music and image.
From the wildly successful foray into sultry, snaking blues dressed as "Joan Crawford on acid" for 1995's million-selling To Bring You My Love, to the straight up New York City rock chic of the Mercury Prize-winning Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea, to the Victorian-inspired frocks and ingenuous piano waltzes on the underrated White Chalk, Polly has proven time and time again that she is anything but insipid.
"It's a natural desire to experiment," she reasons. "Because in that experimentation you find newness and in that newness you can uncover things as if it was the first time, but also deliver things like it was the first time. Hopefully then with the reader or listener it will also open something new."
For her eighth studio album, Let England Shake, Polly has shed her skin in a completely different manner. Often described as one of the most intimate, inward-looking songwriters of her generation, the 41-year-old set herself a personal challenge to look outward.
"With this record, the change really was that I had reached a point as a writer where I had more language at my disposal to address other subject matter that is more entrenched in the world, instead of my interior landscape or using a character to just talk about that," Polly says. "I wanted to approach using character on a grander level. It's something I've avoided up until now because I didn't feel that I had the craft to do it very well. I found that I could try to address things that matter to me a great deal, because it's the world I'm living in and the world you're living in today, now."
Recorded in a 19th century church on a cliff-top overlooking the sea, Let England Shake, as the title suggests, pays tribute to English history, but without any concrete specificities. Harvey's words are as representative of the country's position in Afghanistan today as they are of 1915, when British troops invaded the Ottoman Empire in Gallipoli during the First World War. And despite obvious references to the latter battle in songs like "On Battleship Hill" and "The Colour of the Earth," she feels war is a universal and timeless issue everyone can relate to.
"I deal with conflict every day," she elaborates. "We deal with war every day. We deal with our feelings towards our own nation every day and wrestle with that. These are the things I felt I could now begin to try and talk about within the framework of song."
Unlike her previous songwriting experiences, though, Harvey saw this undertaking as an opportunity to feed her hunger for education through extensive sessions of research over the course of "two to three years."
"This album was something that I had to do a lot of research for," she says, "through the internet, historical reference materials and also trying to find as much current, first-hand account as I could. It was a long, drawn-out process. But as I get older, history interests me even more, because I realize how very relevant it is to what's happening now and why things are like they are."
Her exhausting studies proved that finding a voice for Let England Shake was trickier than expected. To recite words as tellingly horrifying as the ones found on "The Words That Maketh Murder," for example ― "soldiers fell like lumps of meat/blown and shot out beyond belief/arms and legs were in the trees" ― she would have to explore the range of her voice.
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Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-02-22 19:08:23err, most of us are too wrapped up in our own meagre struggles to survive we do not think about war and the nation every day. most of us cannot afford this luxury of pondering the state of things. for most of us its about finding the money for the next bill and dealing with mundane every day life and work.
pj you are out of touch with reality.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-02-22 19:24:11sorry for the above post as i love pj, but theres something irritating about hearing someone with a blessed life using war as a way of making 'important music'. it strikes me as more self important (asserting herself as an important writer) rather than genuine feelings for those caught up in the battles. if this was something she had come accross in her life then fair enough, but she had to research it on the internet! how pretentious is that.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-02-22 20:44:17I'm quite surprised by the positive reaction this album has received. I've repeatedly tried to listen, absorb and enjoy it, but I just can't. Maybe for the Brits, this one is easier to swallow. But as a Canadian, this just feels too distant and says nothing to me about my life.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-02-27 12:47:15Her best work was absolutely with the Desert Sessions anyway.
Posted by Chiefbrody On 2011-03-04 11:07:27Maybe if you're listening to music only to validate yourself or your life, you're listening for the wrong reasons. That should be part of it, sure, but not the whole. It's easy for us here in North America to cast aspersions because we didn't get our cities decimated in a blitzkrieg. Roger Waters has been writing about the war for his entire career and I don't think anyone has ever accused him of using it to try and make "important music". There's the undercurrent of WWII in Europe throughout the years because they know how to hold on to their history much better than we do here, where our attention span is reset with every Ipad release.
I think PJ, like any artist has to search for inspiration wherever it may lie and whether it's through personal experience or researched conjecture, the vessel of the art shouldn't be any less valid.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-03-04 17:49:20this album does not reference ww2, it only talks of battles that failed so is not a whole picture of war affecting this country (england). roger waters did not just talk about war battles for a whole album it was tied in with other stuff.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-03-04 18:27:32Well i think pj harvey would be delighted that her anti war album is provoking reactions, for as a piece of 'art' its doing its job. I love parts of the album. namely 'all and everyone', 'battleship hill' and the title track, the rest of it is
o.k. However, i do have to agree with some of the above comments. Sometimes war is necessary
i.e world war two, so the anti war theme wears a little thin with me, but just as polly is allowed her opinions, so too are everyone else. Why is it with pj fans they get so defensive over her? I own all her albums, but dont get offended if people don't like everything she does or says, i don't like everything she does or says. And like i said to begin with, polly would only enjoy the debates!
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-03-05 10:59:08@ Nameless Poseur
Canada fought in both World Wars. The outcomes of those wars most likely had an effect on the country and hence your life.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-03-05 21:34:50To the above post.......exactly, thats what i'm saying....
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