PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love
- FaceOff - עימות חזיתי
- 1h
- 4 min read
Written By: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 27.02.1995
“I don’t loathe ideas, I’m just one of those people who can best express themselves through music.”
One of the lowest moments in a musician’s career is the lack of appreciation from the audience that came to see them. At some point early in her career, when PJ Harvey was performing as part of a trio alongside Rob Ellis and Ian Oliver, the venue, which had been nearly empty to begin with, just fifty people in attendance, grew even emptier. From the crowd came a humiliating request: “We’ll pay you, just please stop playing.” It was the club owner who saw customers walking out and feared for his income.
But the trio did not give up. They continued playing their next shows. During the tour for the trio’s second album, tensions began to surface, eventually leading to the band’s dissolution and to PJ Harvey’s recognition of her own strength as a solo creator. That realization led to the release of her breakthrough album "To Bring You My Love", which was released on February 27, 1995.
Polly Jean Harvey was born in October 1969 in Bridport, Dorset, England. The daughter of a sculptor and a stonemason, she grew up on a small sheep farm. During her childhood she attended school in Beaminster, where she received guitar lessons from folk singer Steve Knightley. Her parents deeply influenced her musical taste through the blues performances they hosted in their home.
In addition to guitar, she studied saxophone for eight years and sang backing vocals, gaining the versatility she would later need when she joined Automatic Dlamini. The band was founded by John Parish, whom Harvey calls “my soulmate” and with whom she would later release two albums, and Rob Ellis, who would continue to collaborate with her in the trio format.
As mentioned, Harvey sang backing vocals in the band and played guitar and saxophone, gaining valuable ensemble experience. In January 1991 she formed the PJ Harvey Trio with her fellow Automatic Dlamini member Rob Ellis and Ian Oliver, who was later replaced by Steve Vaughan.
In October 1991, Harvey released her debut single “Dress”, which received a significant boost from John Peel, the guest reviewer for Melody Maker, who selected it as Single of the Week.
After two albums with the trio, the second produced by Steve Albini of Nirvana fame, and the release of an additional EP within a year and a half, Harvey took a break to rest. During that period she bought herself a rural house near her parents’ home.
She wrote all the songs for "To Bring You My Love" within three months, and she credits much of the album’s bluesy tone, its dirty and noisy sound, and its vivid imagination to the atmosphere of the house she purchased.
It was a quiet countryside home with no neighbors, surrounded by endless fields. The peaceful environment and the presence of nature brought her back to her childhood and gave her the silence she needed to fully focus on writing and shaping the album.
For the album’s recording sessions, she recruited her musical soulmate John Parish, who co-produced the album with renowned producer Flood. Flood had previously produced albums for Depeche Mode, Nick Cave, "New Order", "Erasure", "U2" and "Nine Inch Nails", among others. Additional musicians included Mick Harvey on bass, (Nick Cave’s partner in "The Bad Seeds" and "The Birthday Party"), Joe Gore on guitar, and Jean-Marc Butty on drums.
As Harvey herself testifies, she is a musician who deals with emotions, stories, and real-life situations. On this album she writes about love, femininity, violence, and even cinematic characters, as in the case of “Teclo”, which was inspired by a character from the 1968 French film "Guns for San Sebastian".
There is no doubt that this is a more diverse album in terms of instrumentation. You can find bells, vibraphone, keyboards, organ, and a Yamaha keyboard throughout the record. The organ, in particular, is present across much of the album, its low and rumbling tones offering a powerful alternative to the traditional bass role.
A classic example of the album’s musical diversity can be found in its first single, “Down by the Water”. The song opens with stark vocals and a heavy organ, but as it progresses it layers in additional elements such as percussion, drums, and a sweeping orchestral ensemble.
The lyrics tell the story of a woman who drowns her daughter in the water. According to Harvey, the song’s narrative is not connected to events from her own life. The repetitive chorus draws from the traditional American folk song “Salty Dog Blues.”
In the title track, “To Bring You My Love”, which opens the album, Polly Jean sings about a desire for love so intense that she is willing to sacrifice everything to attain it. “I’ve lain with the devil,” she declares, expressing just how far she is prepared to go.
Ennio Morricone and Captain Beefheart are among the artists who influenced her during childhood. Beefheart’s fingerprints can be found in the album’s opening line, “I was born in the desert,” which mirrors the opening line of one of his own albums. His influence also surfaces in “Meet Ze Monsta”, where she borrows the line “Meet ze monsta tonight” from Beefheart’s “Tropical Hot Dog Night.”
Harvey’s lyrics throughout the album range from serial killings in “Working for the Man”, perhaps inspired by her future partner Nick Cave, to gender reversal and sexual role inversion in “Long Snake Moan”, and a plea to her personal God to send her the lover she so desperately desires in “Send His Love to Me.”
Although she grew up in a secular household, she was not baptized and did not pray in church, she frequently uses biblical imagery in her songs. She once explained that she looks at religion as a way of finding an answer to why we are here.
Harvey’s constant motivation and creative force stem from her persistent attempt to understand human life, while contemplating the powerful divine realm that existed long before us.
Before us stands a rock singer at the peak of her power, radiating danger and sensuality, a bold and uncompromising artist unafraid to reveal the darker side of her soul.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
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