Pj Harvey, song correspondent

One of my favorite records of all time is Let England Shake by PJ Harvey. I love PJ’s entire body of work, and the way she approaches making art feels kindred to me. She’s taken some twists and turns and she can never be accused of trying to do the same thing twice. Her songwriting bench is so deep and her words are so deliberately chosen and treated with such care that in my eyes she is peerless.

I saw her play at Salt Shed in Chicago this past September and was reminded of her artistic range - the show began with a performance of her latest work, I Inside the Old Year Dying, moving back into the past with selections from the rest of her extensive catalog. The set ended with a performance of “White Chalk” that squashed me like a bug when she hit the harmonica solo. Other than “Man-Sized,” she didn’t play anything from Rid of Me, to the audible chagrin of some audience members who would not shut the hell up and in addition to saying some frankly gross things that I won’t repeat, got restless in the second half and yelled, “I think you should get mad!”

This heckle felt the most infuriating to me, I thought: She is mad, you jagoff. How can you hear songs like “The Glorious Land” and “The Words That Maketh Murder” back to back and not hear the deep anger and sorrow there? These songs - and the whole of Let England Shake - are a damning condemnation of war set to music that she describes as being almost joyful, both as a counterweight to the lyrical heaviness, but also, I suspect, as a way to get people to sing along and actually listen to the words. The record looks back at the effects of World War I while openly criticizing Western involvement in the Second Gulf War. The fact that she chose to play these songs on this tour, as Palestinian civilians - many of them children - are being displaced and killed, felt extremely meaningful. She talks about conceptualizing this record and how the language of war and the outcomes on the people and the land have been and will continue to be the same.

At the end of this (very good) interview, she refers to herself as a self-appointed song correspondent. Relatable! She also says that she feels like all of her records are political, also relatable! Relationships to one’s self, to others, to nature, to the world: deeply political.

This record challenged me to think about how I would write a record about the future - Cosmovisión. A topic that is so vast and trying to understand where the edges of it are, what the shape of it is. Looking inward to see the threads of connection to the outward. Looking at the past and the present in all of its complexity. I wrote the lyrics almost entirely before I thought about chords. I carried around a packet of lyrics that I stapled together for over a year to continually edit. I confused my musicians with song structures that don’t repeat in exactly the same way because the words were there and I needed to do right by them. I don’t know if my record is good or important, and frankly, it’s not my job to judge. It is what I found when I listened to the world around me, and what spoke itself into being from inside.

tour! tour! tour!

Ok! Going on a little trio tour with Brenden on the keys and Chris on the drums next month. We’ve got a headliner in Bloomington and then some support dates with Lizzie No until Austin, where we’ll play some Not South By shows - more info on that to come. Please buy tickets in advance and give a shout if you’re coming :)

March 8 - Bloomington, IN at Blockhouse

March 9 - Nashville, TN at The Basement*

March 10 - Memphis, TN at Folk All Y’all*

March 12 - Dallas, TX at Deep Ellum Arts Company*

March 13 - Austin, TX TBD