Saturday 8 August 2015

Polly Jean Harvey

So.  P J Harvey.  Damn was it really only eight albums? It feels like eighty eight.  Achtentachtig!  It's like she's everywhere.  Somebody you forget when thinkign about your favourite records because she's as everywhere as Elvis.  Damn but I love you Polly Jean!

THE WHORE'S HUSTLE AND THE HUSTLER'S WHORE.  Polly Jean does rock and roll and she does it brilliantly.  I would love to cover this.  So would Emily.  Maybe one day.  Maybe one day soon.  For now though.  Love it.  P J Harvey at her best.

IN THE DARK PLACES almost my favourite song by her.  Another day it would be, but today, well who I am today is who I am.  Let it be said though, that this is a song I love.  It rips out my heart with a rusty bayonet and then buries me in beauty.

DOWN BY THE WATER is the song I hear in my head when somebody says, 'P J Harvey'.  It's not the first of hers I heard but that chorus about her lost daughter is beautiful, evocative and enough to drive me even crazier than I already am.

IS THIS DESIRE? Well yes it is.  Minimalist and beautiful.  That's the thing about Polly Jean.  Voice is good, yeah but the music comes not from musical instruments but from Polly Jean's Oh so human heart.

MAN SIZE takes a while to get going but it is full of perfect humour and perfect spirit and PJ's perfect sense of rock n roll timing and of course, her perfect voice, and words that make the paper bleed.

Hurts to leave out: Horses in My Dreams; One Line; Big Exit; Shame; Bitter Branches; White Chalk; The Words that Maketh Murder, and that's only the solo stuff.

No comments:

Post a Comment