A month of uncertainty – #4 Polly Jean Harvey – No Badger Inspirations – #1

When Under Ether – PJ Harvey (2007, Island Records, Taken from ‘White Chalk’)

So I’m not sure how this part of the month of uncertainty is going work but bear with me.

Of course I made a list.  I always do.  A list of at least 50 people who are alive and have in some way influenced my life.  A list that doesn’t just feature musicians.  It has politicians on it, activists, writers, chefs, film directors, comedians, normal people that no one apart from me and a select band of people will have ever heard of – it has my father and his brother on it and at least two members of the Musical Jury.  The idea was to write about them and some how crowbar some music that appears to be relevant or at least linked in some way to them.  For the musicians that is easy not so for the activists and the others – but hey I’m don’t suppose it matters all that much.

I gave each name on the list a number and then got my daughter to pick a number.  Today she picked 24 and next to 24 sat the words Polly Jean Harvey, which is a relief because I will find it easier to write about Polly Jean Harvey than I will some of the other numbers on the list (like number 37, Jacindra Ardern or number 42, Yotam Ottolenghi and definitely number 28, Michael Barry Watson, who I can guarantee no one reading will have ever heard of)

Anyway, where do you start with Polly Jean Harvey – currently the only musical artist to have won the Mercury Music Prize twice, a performer who constantly reinvents herself, a musician who is not afraid to experiment, to do new things and continues to be breathtakingly outstanding in whatever she does.   I think the only place we can start is with some music – and I’ll start with a track that perhaps should have been on a different playlist.

Down By The Water – PJ Harvey (1995, Island Records, Taken from ‘To Bring You My Love’)

It’s that sound, that dirty bluesy grunge that I love the most about Polly’ music.  The way that music compliments the sometimes topic of the song, as if a song about sex should have this chugging riff behind it or the way a song about longing should have a guitar that sounds frustrated rampaging all over it or the way a song about religion sounds repressed

Songs like this – which back along soundtracked nearly all of my early relationships with females.  The way that guitar crunches is just filthy and almost expecting you.

Oh My Lover – PJ Harvey (1991, Too Pure Records, Taken from ‘Dry’)

But its more than that.  It’s the fact that for over the last 30 years, Polly Jean Harvey has continued to push back the boundaries around music.  She has evolved from that angry female who made records that made records specifically designed to “humiliate herself and make listeners feel uncomfortable” to something close to being a national treasure, if that’s even the right terminology, Polly Jean would almost certainly think it isn’t..  In 2011, she made a record about the first world war that saw her elevated to some sort of war laureate.

The Words That Maketh Murder – PJ Harvey (2011, Island Records, Taken from ‘Let England Shake’)

Before that we had trip hop records, petulantly claustrophobic punk rock records, haunting, ice cold balladry featuring pretty only a piano.  All of them different, all of them brilliant, all of them unquestionably PJ Harvey records, none of them remotely like anything that was being made at the time.

After that we’ve had books of poetry, albums inspired by Kosovo and Afghanistan, film soundtracks, Peaky Blinders, and a raft of new female (and male) musicians who are heavily influenced by Pollys work over the last 30 years. 

Here are a few more of my favourite Polly moments,

You Come Through – PJ Harvey (2004, Island Records, Taken from ‘Uh Huh Her’)

This Is Love – PJ Harvey (2000, Island Records, taken from ‘Stories From The City, Stories From the Sea’)

A Perfect Day Elise – PJ Harvey (1998, Island Records, Taken from ‘Is This Desire?’)

50 Twelve Inches #32

50ft Queenie – PJ Harvey (1993, Island Music)

The eleven year old wants to make this slightly more interesting today.  Something, which I originally scoff at.  I’m not sure what can be more interesting than me sitting on the floor, running my finger along the spines of a couple of hundred records until she eventually hollers the word ‘STOP’ at various degrees of volume.  I ask her if she wants to be the one who runs their finger along the spines of the records – which to be fair is the fun bit, that thrill of pulling out a wonderful record is pretty exciting on a dull Sunday morning.

Nope, she doesn’t want to do that, besides she thinks most of the records are ‘rubbish’.  It turns out that what she wants is for her friend M to do it.  I frown.  M isn’t here I say, and I’m not convinced her mum will appreciate us just turning up and collecting her so that she can take part in this nonsense.  My daughter laughs, not a laugh of humour, a laugh of knowing pity. 

And then the penny drops.

Yesterday, a phone arrived via the postman.  A phone which we have been promising my daughter since she turned 11.  Because you see now that she is eleven she is old enough to walk home from school on her own (well most of the way), which means she will need a phone in case of emergencies that occur on the kilometre walk home (actually its not a bad idea – it shows we trust her to be responsible and besides when she is at ‘Bigger School’ next year everything is done via an app and a Google Classroom )

So yesterday for most of the evening, she has been sending messages to her friend M who also just happens to have a phone, and her bedroom, once an area where quietness ruled, is now a constant source of mobile phone beeps and buzzes and giggles.  Right now, this phone (a second hand reconditioned iPhone) is the most important thing in the world and literally everything we do right now appears to be governed by this phone. Honestly she was controlling the TV with it last night.

So today, the “STOP” command is not hollered but is brought to us via the “PING” of a What’s App message coming through, although to be fair to M it is at least typed in capitals and spelt corrected.

After all that the finger of fate was resting on the spine of ‘50ft Queenie’, the first single to be released from PJ Harvey’s second album ‘Rid Of Me’, a single that still has the free poster tucked inside, and a single which regularly spells out the word “FUCK” throughout it.  So instead I stick on one of B Sides

Reeling (4 Track Demo) – PJ Harvey (1993, Island Records) – forgetting features a few swear words as well.  Also the twelve inch of ‘50ft Queenie’ doesn’t feature the demo version of ‘Reeling’ but another version that I can’t find right now.  Still at least it was the actual ‘Rid of Me’ song which goes on about leg licking and all that.

Rid of Me (4 Track Demo) -PJ Harvey (1993, Island Record)

There were two demos on the B Side, which I think served as a taster for PJ’s ‘4 Track Demos’ album which came out a short while after ‘Rid of Me’.

Man-size (Demo Version) – PJ Harvey (1993, Island Records)

Hook (Demo Version) – PJ Harvey (1993, Island Records)

The whole twelve inch is ace of course.   There is something rather brutal and feral sounding about PJ Harvey’s early work.  They sound raw and punky and that makes them utterly captivating, sure she made better records, (just about) but those early singles remain brilliant examples of her work and of her talent – which at the time was unique and refreshing. 

Here is the five word review

“Is She In A Tunnel?” – which might be a criticism of the bad sound quality of the demo recordings, either way the eleven old is not impressed with PJ Harvey – she will be one day, its impossible not to like Polly Jean.

Here is the eleven year old recommendation – and I also thought that said Alice Cooper when I first read it – but nope, its by Axel Cooper and its kind of awful, honestly Alice, even in his schlock rock days would have been better.

Little Do You Know – Axel Cooper (featuring Keke Palmer and Aloe Blacc) (2024, Sony Records)

I’ve deleted it from her playlist and replaced it with a track from the new Kim Gordon record (which is incredible).  She hasn’t noticed yet or perhaps she has and prefers it.

Bye Bye – Kim Gordon (2024, Matador Records)

The Best 44 4th Albums of All Time #11

To Bring You My Love – PJ Harvey (1995, Island Records)

“Bring me, lover, all your power”

Points 96

Highest Rank 3^rd (twice)

Long Snake Moan – PJ Harvey (1995, Island Records)

I mean technically, I could argue that ‘To Bring You My Love’ is the fourth studio album that PJ Harvey has played on.  Because in 1992, she features and is a named artist on at least two tracks on ‘Furthest From The Sun’ the debut album by West Country indie also rans The Family Cat.  That album nestles nicely in between her debut ‘Dry’ and her second/third ‘Rid of Me’. 

River of Diamonds – The Family Cat (and PJ Harvey) (1992, Dedicated Records)

I could argue that, but I think I’d be laughed out of the nations indie clubs and never be allowed back in again.  Because, whichever way you want to spin it, ‘To Bring You My Love’ is the third album by PJ Harvey a fact that I overlooked when I made this list, I got her albums in the wrong order and I didn’t bother to check it.  Although some indie knowitall’s will tell you that ‘To Bring You My Love’ is actually PJ Harvey’s debut album as a solo artist.  But we will ignore them because they probably just need feeding or something.

Obviously if I played the Family Cat card then we would need to revisit so many of the other acts in this list – New Order’s fourth album would become ‘Power, Corruption and Lies’ (I think) and we would need to revisit Radiohead because of their work on the second Drugstore album, Spiritualized would drop off the list entirely and I wouldn’t even know where to start with the Aphex Twin or Two Lone Swordsmen (although I suspect with the last one, Swiss Adam could tell us).  So we are not going there, I got it wrong, let’s leave it at that.

Your Silent Face – New Order (1982, Factory Records)

El President – Drugstore (featuring Thom Yorke) (1998, Roadrunner Records)

Hypnotized – Spacemen 3 (1991, Fire Records)

PJ Harvey’s fifth album was the monumental ‘Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea’ and I stupidly thought that came after ‘To Bring You My Love’, but it didn’t because stuck in the middle of the two of them was, ‘Is This Desire?’.   Which is of course what we should be discussing today.   That is in itself a marvellous record and I’m struggling to think how I overlooked it.

Is This Desire? – PJ Harvey (1998, Island Records)

As marvellous as ‘Is This Desire?’ is, it isn’t a patch on ‘To Bring You My Love’.  An album that positively sizzles with filth from start to end.  This is PJ Harvey at her most sultry, an album where she explores religious imagery, craves sex and is full of a lust all accompanied by this seethingly sultry bluesy indie rock sound.  It is an album full of angry guitars and the odd eerie sounding organ (particularly on the title track) and its fifth album excepted, probably PJ’s most complete record  – so consider yourselves lucky that I made that mistake.

Down by the Water – PJ Harvey (1995, Island Records)

Send His Love To Me – PJ Harvey (1995, Island Records)

Tomorrow we usher in the Top Ten and here as usual is a lyrical clue as to where will be starting

“I offer him embarrassment and my usual excuses”

Song with Fruits in the Title – A Three Day Series –#2 The Orange

Rip It Up – Orange Juice (1982, Polydor records, Taken from ‘Rip It Up’)

You can blame Heston Blumenthal for this one.  Although saying I happen to think he is a genius. Anyway, Heston once made a wonderful looking chocolate orange steam pudding.  This was being Heston not your average chocolate orange pudding.  It wasn’t full of snail porridge or anything like that, it just had a surprise waiting for the people eating it.

Inside this pudding you when you cut into it was an actual orange, peeled and cooked from within the dome shaped sponge.  The trick was that when you cut into the cake you would also unleash the warm sticky orange juice from the inside the orange.  Heston made it look easy and wonderful at the same time.

Now I’m no slouch in the kitchen, some scones that I made for instance, had a week before I saw this orange cake thingy come second in a village show and won a rosette (the rosette was for best rockery display, boom and indeed, tish) and buoyed by this now found confidence I proudly declared to anyone who was listening that I could make that pudding.  It was literally a piece of cake.

In an hour I had all the ingredients I needed, I’d even dusted off the old pudding basin that had sat unloved in the cupboard for about four years and I set to work and in an hour or two my steamed chocolate orange pudding was done.  The kitchen was a mess but it smelt like a chocolate orange mess and that is a good thing.

Anyway, I slide a plate under the pudding basin and strode into the dining room and prepared for the gasps of wonder. I tap the bowl with the back of wooden space and slowly ease the bowl up revealing a perfect domed chocolate sponge.  I yell out a “Yes” (might have been a bit tipsy on the old brandy) just in time for the dome to collapse onto the plate and for the orange to kind of sit on a mound of really quite undercooked chocolate pudding.

So in tribute to the orange which was the only vaguely edible part of my chocolate orange steam pudding, here are five songs with orange in the title and perhaps most fittingly we should start with this.

Orange Crush – R.E.M (1988, Warner records, Taken from ‘Green’)

Next up some surf rock from Glasgow from The Van T’s who were a band that caused a bit of a buzz about seven years before sort of vanishing, which was probably something to do with Covid.  The Van T’s were called so because the two main members of the band were sisters with the surname Van Thompson.  In 2016 they released a track called Blood Orange.

Blood Orange – the van T’s (2016, Big Indie Records, Single)

From surf rock to indie folk now, as we catch up with Big Thief (who are just about to release some new material) and revisit their third studio album ‘U.F.O.F’ which if you haven’t checked it out before you probably should because its bloody amazing, not at least because it has a track on it (track six) called ‘Orange’.

Orange – Big Thief (2019, 4AD Records, Taken from ‘U.F.O.F’)

From indie folk to the vastly underrated UK slacker rock scene which briefly threatened to get itself out of bed in in the mid 2010’s.  Somewhere near the top of that scene were London trio Happyness and their debut album ‘Weird Little Birthday’.  On that there is a track called ‘Orange Luz’.  A Luz for those in the dark is the bone that sits at the end of the spine, also known as the coccyx.  It supposed to be indestructible (according to religious folklore) but can’t be because a guy I know called Jamie, broke his after falling off a snowboard in the Italian section of the Alps.

Orange Luz – Happyness (2014, Weird Smiling Records, Taken from ‘Weird Little Birthday’)

Finally for today PJ Harvey who really needs no introduction but the seventh track on her ninth studio album ‘The Hope Six Demolition Project’ is called ‘The Orange Monkey’.

The Orange Monkey – PJ Harvey (2016, Island Records, Taken from ‘The Hope Six Demolition Project’)

Tomorrow – The Peach.

A month all about music’s greatest females- #11 Polly Jean Harvey

Bring me, lover, all your power

Long Snake Moan – PJ Harvey (1995, Island Records, Taken from ‘To Bring You My Love’)

I’ve tried and failed to find footage of the first time I saw Polly Harvey on stage.  I have failed, largely because it was when she ambled on stage with The Family Cat to sing backing vocals on their 1991 non hit ‘Colour Me Grey’ at the Tuffnall Park Dome sometime towards the end of 1991.  I had no idea who she was back then, although I do remember the crowd going crazy and PJ Harvey being introduced as ‘Dorset’s very own Polly Jean’ or something similar.

Six months or so later Polly Jean Harvey was everywhere after her debut album ‘Dry’ flew up the charts and made her a star and pretty much everything else we know is history.   Of course, by then I knew exactly who Polly Jean Harvey was.  I owned ‘Sheela Na Gig’ on twelve inch for a start.

Sheela Na Gig – PJ Harvey (1992, Too Pure Records, Taken from ‘Dry’)

I bought this twelve inch because a female called Rachel told me too.  I’d been wasting time in a branch of Our Price when Rachel – whose mum and dad owned the book shop next door – had popped in, gone straight to the twelve inches, picked up ‘Sheela Na Gig’ and purchased it there and then.  An hour earlier, Rachel had rejected the advances of my mate Chris.  Largely because he was 16 and a half and she was 21 and virtually living with her boyfriend Mark, (might have been Matt, I forget) at the time. 

As she was leaving she said hi to me and in between mortally embarrassing myself by sniffing this poor young lady and telling how nice she smelt (I mean she did, I wasn’t trying to be weird, it just erm, came out wrong) and her leaving the shop in a rush, she told me that I should buy ‘Sheela Na Gig’ because its brilliant.   I mean you can’t ignore advice from lovely smelling older women with great taste whose parents own bookshops.  Can you?

Possibly. Regardless Polly Jean Harvey is amazing and I’m glad I sniffed Rachel in order to find that out.

Polly Jean Harvey is fast becoming considered to be a National Treasure, the indie rock equivalent of Olivia Coleman if you like.  Everything she touches is brilliant, from her early indie work with the Family Cat through her more mainstream work with Nick Cave, Thom Yorke, John Parish, Josh Homme and many others  – like these two for instance.

Eyepennies – Sparklehorse (and PJ Harvey) (2001, EMI Records, Taken from ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’)

Broken Homes – Tricky (and PJ Harvey) (1998, Island Records, Taken from ‘Angels with Dirty Faces)

But of course then there is Polly’s standalone work – as good a back catalogue as any artist in any genre in any country anywhere.  Barely a bad note, a duff second, a rubbish track amongst the lot of them.

There have been 75 different acts so far chosen for the Nearly perfect Album series and none of them gave me such an agonising choice as PJ Harvey did.  I love ‘Dry’ for its feral intensity, I adore ‘Rid of Me’ for its ferociousness, ‘To Bring You My Love’ is one of the sexiest records ever made, ‘Stories from the City…’ is a bloody masterpiece.  ‘Let England Shake’ is songwriting as its very best.  I could go on – I will in fact but not before some music.

We Float – PJ Harvey (Taken from ‘Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea’)

Man-size – PJ Harvey (Taken from ‘Rid Of Me’)

Words That Maketh Murder – PJ Harvey  (Taken from ‘Let England Shake’)

The last time I saw PJ Harvey she was dressed from head to toe in a white suit and was playing to a couple of thousand people at the Eden Project in Cornwall.  She looked and sounded immaculate.  She ended her set with a roaring version of ‘Good Fortune’

Good Fortune – PJ Harvey (Taken from ‘Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea’)

Precisely eight minutes after she had left the stage the heavens opened and gave us the sort of rain that made Noah built a big bloody boat.  Even the weather knows not to interrupt Polly Jean Harvey.

Tomorrow sees a guest post from the wonderful JTFL, or Johnny The Friendly Lawyer to you and I.  Here is a lyrical clue to who he is writing about.

I hear a wind Whistling air

A Month all about Names – #9 – Billy

Billy Whizz/Blue 1 – Spacemen 3 (1991, Fire Records, Taken from ‘Recurring’)

Billy Whizz you may recall was a cartoon strip that ran in the Beano.  Billy had an ability to run very fast indeed.  In fact he was so fast that in one cartoon, Billy was being interviewed on television about something that was happening in Beanotown.  Billy asked the TV reporter when the interview would be played on TV and the reporter told him it was going out live.   Billy ran home so fast that he was able to be home to watch himself live on the telly.  He was so fast that he could effectively be in two places at once. 

I like to think that Jason Pierce was reading the Beano when he sat down and wrote the track ‘Billy Whizz’, which is closing track on Spacemen 3’s final studio album ‘Recurring’.  I like to think that Pierce was so impressed by Billy’s can do attitude and his positive thinking that he decided that the bequiffed speed merchant would be the perfect role model to patronise in song.  

Of course, it might just have been that Pierce was using drugs at the time that he wrote it and that he wasn’t a fan of the Beano at all, but I find that impossible to believe.  Although, at the time The Beano was of course going through its ‘Drug Phase’ and continuously published comic strips where  the heroes were given names were synonymous with drug use.  Smackhead Pete for instance, a story about a boy Pete who had an extremely flat head from all the things that got dropped on his head.  Mary Jane was a strip about an extremely lazy girl who was simply too tired to get out of bed and finally Special Agent K was about a boy who worked as a spy for the government and had a weapon that made people’s legs stop working.

There are quite a few songs in the music library that have ‘Billy’ in their title.  Here are just three that I have picked at random.

First up Peter Hook’s short lived New Order bass heavy side project Monaco, who had some minor success in 1997 with their debut album ‘Music For Pleasure’. 

Billy Bones – Monaco (1997, Polydor Music, Taken from ‘Music for Pleasure’) – The vocals for the majority of the songs on ‘Music for Pleasure’ were provided by David Potts, with whom Hooky also performed with when he was in the band Revenge. 

Next up some classic PJ Harvey.

C’Mon Billy – PJ Harvey (1995, Island Records, Taken from ‘To Bring You My Love’) – ‘To Bring You My Love’ is despite being PJ Harvey’s third album, actually considered to be her first as a solo artist and ‘C’mon Billy’ was the second single to be released from it. 

Finally uncompromising experimental noise rap from Death Grips. 

Billy not Really – Death Grips (2014, Third World Records, Taken from ‘Niggas On The Moon’) – the fourth Death Grips album was a double album released over six months, the first instalment was called ‘Niggas on the Moon’ and it heralded a slight change of pace from the band.  Previous records were intense and bruising affairs, the musical equivalent of a mouthful of broken teeth.  This one was more the musical equivalent of a gap toothed smile, although it’s still abrasively addictive though.

Tomorrow – Angela who holds a grudge over nothing.

A Month all about Names – #2 – Jane

Hey Jane – Spiritualized (2012, Double Six Records, Taken from ‘Sweet Heart, Sweet Light)

Fans of Spiritualized will know that they are no strangers to songs that clock in at well over seven or eight minutes.  They will know that Jason Pierce revels in constructing a song that has multiple layers and sections, that experiment with different instruments, sounds and moods.  Fans will also know that Pierce is hardly a fan of the radio edit and so if he wants a comeback single to be a nine minute epic, then it will be a nine minute epic and that’s that. 

So when, ‘Hey Jane’ the first taste of their seventh studio album, was released and its nine minute running time was announced, fans rubbed their hands with glee and strapped themselves in for ride, because judging by the bands other lengthy songs (‘Cop Shoot Cop’, ‘Medication’, Feels So Sad’) it was likely to be mind blowing.

Sure enough we were right, ‘Hey Jane’ is a marvellous affair.  It’s all crunchy guitars, swooping soundscapes and a killer chorus.  About halfway through the song does this sort of mid song flip that throws the song upside down and the fires up again near the end into a harmony tinged singalong. All nine minutes of it are incredible but then again its Spiritualized and I’m almost bound to say that given how much I love them.

The album that followed ‘Hey Jane’ was just as stunning, the songs that it contained were full of big sounding choruses and harked back to some of the more muscular songs that were found on ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘Let It Come Down’.  Almost all the fragility of the band’s previous album had been swept away. 

Three more ‘Jane’ songs for you (well four actually)

First up New Jersey rockers The Gaslight Anthem and their acoustic version of ‘Antonia Jane’.  A song which they stuck on their 2011 B Sides album. 

Antonia Jane – The Gaslight Anthem (2011, Sony Records, Taken from ‘B Sides’) – ‘Antonia Jane’ is a cover version of a Lightning Dust track (Lightning Dust are a Black Mountains off shoot band and make gentle alt country and piano inspired music and are worth checking out – here’s the original, which is far better.

 Antonia Jane – Lightning Dust (2009, Jagjaguwar Records, Taken from ‘Infinite Light’)

Next up are Jacksonville’s Black Kids, and their track ‘Hurricane Jane’ which was the fourth single to be released from their 2008 debut album ‘Party Traumatic’.  In 2008, Black Kids looked set for world domination but it took nine long years for a second album to emerge and by that time music had moved on.

Hurricane Jane – Black Kids (2008, Columbia Records, Taken from ‘Party Traumatic’)

Finally for today, Ms Polly Jean Harvey and the track ‘Me-Jane’ which is taken from Polly’s rip snorting second album ‘Rid of Me’.

Me – Jane – PJ Harvey (1993, Island Records, Taken from ‘Rid of Me’)

Nearly Perfect Albums – #48

Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea – PJ Harvey

Let’s be honest, damn near any of PJ Harvey’s albums could have been contenders for this series.  I mean I can take or leave the piano led mumblings of ‘White Chalk’, and bits of ‘Uh Huh Her’ are a little too claustrophobic, but the rest, are all firmly embedded in the section of the library I reserve for records called ‘Essential’.

In fact up to about a month ago, the PJ album selected for this series was going to be the all conquering ‘Let England Shake’ but then a PJ music marathon over Christmas changed all that.  For a while I plumped for ‘Dry’, and I sat ready to wax lyrical about its feral intensity but then ‘The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore’ came on and gave me lines like

“Speak to me of heroin and speed/Of genocide and suicide/Of syphilis and greed”

 and there could only be one winner.

The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore – PJ Harvey (2000, Island Records)

Because ‘Stories…’ is just stuffed to bursting with brilliance.  Its overflowing with ideas, with images, it has this almost primal urgency about it that doesn’t just need your attention it prods you aggressively on the shoulder repeatedly just so you can’t possibly ignore it even if for some reason you wanted to.  It is an incredible album, the way the guitars clang on ‘Is This Love’, the way Polly’s vocals soar, whisper, growl and yowl on ‘A Place Called Home’, the way that ‘We Float’ literally floats around your speakers especially that line where she questions herself “We just kind of lost our way” before the chorus just shimmies into view all sparkly and gorgeous. The way that ‘You Said Something’ is deliberately the most Patti Smith song that Patti Smith never recorded.

A Place Called Home – PJ Harvey (2000, Island Records)

We Float – PJ Harvey (2000, Island Records)

You Said Something – PJ Harvey (2000, Island Records)

About halfway through the record we come to ‘This Mess We’re In’ and here you get the third of three guest vocals from Thom Yorke (the first and second are blink and you’ll miss it vocals to ‘Beautiful Feeling’ and ‘One Line’).  Around ninety seconds into that song, you hear Thom Yorke take an audible breath and then he croaks

“Night and Day I dream of making love to you now baby”

and it is delivered in such a way that you can almost picture PJ standing there in the studio grinning and telling everyone that she actually got Thom Yorke to sing that.  You also wonder if the whispery ambience that swirls around that song in some way inspired future Radiohead releases.  Maybe.  It’s great regardless.

This Mess We’re In – PJ Harvey (and Thom Yorke) (2000, Island Records)

One more song that I want to mention is possibly one of the most overlooked PJ Harvey songs.  ‘One Line’ is perhaps, well, for me at least, the one song of this album that brings the whole record together.  An album that has songs about love, sex lust, frustration, desire and general living is summed up in one beautiful line in track four.

“And I draw a line to your heart today, to your heart from mine/One line to keep us safe”

It’s the one point on this record where things seem calm and for want of a better word, normal. 

One Line – PJ Harvey (2000, Island Records)

Retrospective Musical Naval Gazing – #2 (1992)

1992’s end of year list was scrawled on a piece of paper that was tucked inside an old folder that I was using for my ‘Business Studies’ course.  The fact that there was more writing about music in that folder than there was about Business Studies probably tells you everything you need to know about what I thought about studying Business Studies. 

My 1992 Top Ten was very indie heavy something that wouldn’t change until around 1995, but it’s still even today a very good list.  Some of the entries are in different coloured pens as well, which probably means I was doing something like revealing a different song every day or some such nonsense, but sat at the top ten, in blue and underlined was this: –

Medication – Spiritualized (1992, Dedicated Records, Taken from ‘Pure Phase’)

‘Medication’ is an astonishing record, it starts all whispered and vulnerable sounding but descending into a complete avalanche of guitars, feedback, and crashing drums.  It is classic Spiritualized, and whilst it may not be their finest moment and ‘Pure Phase’ may not be their greatest album (it kind of bridges a gap between their two monoliths and gets overlooked because of it, well by me at least) back in 1992, it sounded incredible.

1992 was of course, the year that I somehow managed to get myself a proper girlfriend, one that would shape my world for at least the next 16 months on and off and much of the top ten (and tomorrows) is heavily influenced by her and my friendship grounds as well.  For instance at Number Two was this: –

Summer Babe – Pavement (1992, Big Cat Records, Taken from ‘Slanted and Enchanted’) – which is a record that I still utterly love and was a record that she introduced me to. It is a track, for a reason that I have long since forgotten, that I always play every time I sleep somewhere new, this is mostly done via headphones now, but when I moved into my halls at university, it was played very loudly.

Elsewhere in that Top Ten at numbers four, seven and eight respectively are tracks by other bands that I still love today more than thirty years after first hearing them

Sheela Na Gig – PJ Harvey (1992, Too Pure Records, Taken from ‘Dry’) – the first time I head PJ Harvey I was eating a bowl of Rice Krispies.  She was the featured artist on a Channel Four breakfast programme and her debut album ‘Dry’ was everywhere at the time.  By the end of that day I had ‘Sheela Na Gig’ on 12” and it remains in the vinyl cupboard today.

Creep – Radiohead (1992, Parlophone Records, Taken from ‘Pablo Honey’) – Near the start of 1992 I went to London to see Kingmaker, the train was late and by the time I got to the venue (which I think was the Town & Country Club) the support band was near the end of their set.  That support band was Radiohead and even though I saw three songs, they were still someway better than an entire Kingmaker set.

Reverence – Jesus and Mary Chain (1992, Blanco Y Negro Records, Taken from ‘Honey’s Dead’) – In December 1992, I saw the Jesus and Mary Chain at Brixton Academy and it was and still is one of the greatest gigs that I have ever been to.

The One Word Countdown – #36

If you put it on…..

Dress – PJ Harvey (1992, Too Pure Records, Taken from ‘Dry’)

Points 107 (Amended after tie)

In 1992, Polly Harvey first appeared on the cover on the NME.  It remained to the day it stopped printing, one of its more controversial covers (even more controversial than the infamous Elton John crack pipe cover*) with the letters page (‘Angst’ as it was called then) spilling over in two pages for three weeks with debate and discussion about it. 

It wasn’t the fact that Polly appeared topless on the cover (back to the camera), that much was apparently ok.  What caused the umbrage amongst the record paper buying public, was that Polly had the absolute temerity to stand there on the cover of the bestselling weekly music paper, with an unshaven armpit clearly on display.  Such harlotry caused much wailing and gnashing of the teeth, from the knuckle dragging brigade.  After these goons had finished wiping the froth from their mouths, they called called for Polly to be burnt at the stake for crimes against music and for generally being a witch.

‘Dress’ was Harvey’s debut single, and whilst she (or her press people did at least) fashioned herself firmly in the riot girl camp, it is ultimately a song about femininity and the struggles women face (and as a man dangerously close to knocking on the door marked ‘50’ I am perfectly positioned to talk about this).  It’s still furious though, as she viciously taunts the man who bought her “beautiful dresses” through a series of demented guitar hooks and an excellent Pixies-ish loud quiet dynamic.

If that wasn’t enough to, two months later she released ‘Sheela Na Gig’ a song that talked abut “Ruby red lips” and was poppy enough to earn a smidgeon of radio play until the media twigged that she wasn’t talking about those sort of lips and promptly stopped playing it.

Sheela – Na – Gig – PJ Harvey (1992, Too Pure Records, Taken from ‘Dry’)

Several PJ Harvey songs were considered before I plumped for ‘Dress’ including two more from ‘Dry’

Victory – PJ Harvey (1992, Too Pure Records, Taken from ‘Dry’) – although I actually prefer the Peel Session version so I would imagine I have linked that.

Water – PJ Harvey (1992, Too Pure Records, Taken from ‘Dry’)

There was one other song called ‘Dress’ that deserves a brief moment of your attention, from a pop star who might cite Polly as a major influence**.

Dress – Taylor Swift (2017, Big Machine Records, Taken from ‘reputation’)

* This never happened.

** she also might not – given that this song is (very) allegedly about Ed Sheeran