The Garden, a PJ Harvey Discussion Site

From the mailing list:

PJ Harvey says, "This delicate and beautiful song eluded us until the very last day in the studio. Over the previous five weeks we had tried so many times to capture it and failed, but then John reinvented the feel of the guitar pattern. As he was demonstrating it in the control room, Flood handed me a microphone and pressed record whilst I sat next to John trying to work out how to sing to it. The result somehow captures the ethereal and melancholic longing I was looking for.

In the lyric everyone is waiting for the saviour to reappear – everyone and everything anticipates the arrival of this figure of love and transformation.

There is a sense of sexual longing and awakening and of moving from one realm into another – from child to adult, from life to death and the eternal."

Love this new single.

I see the album credits have been reprinted in the Uncut magazine review of the album. Polly is listed first as producer. Why have other outlets and even the literature from the record label (see the credits on the official videos on YouTube) omitted Polly from the ‘Produced by’ credits? So irritating. I knew it had to be just a particularly egregious oversight. After all, hasn't she always been a co-producer on her albums (with the exception of Rid Of Me)? Why would this album be any different?

an tha wrote:Love this new single.

I love it too! really exciting.

BobSimms wrote:I hope someone is able to record and upload Polly’s interview on the BBC this morning.

There was no actual interview, they just read out the press release.

anyone can post the review from uncut?

The credits for the song from the YouTube description:

Polly Jean Harvey - vocals, electric guitar
John Parish - acoustic guitar, drums, vocals
Cecil - keyboards, field recordings
Colin Morgan - backing vocals

Produced by Flood & John Parish

I love the second single more than the first one. The second single to me has more depth and more feeling. The first single was good but it was too short. My two cents.

Personally, I still cannot say I love it. After many listenings I'd say I like it, in that I find it pleasant, but it doesn't strike me as something particularly original... (maybe I'm too harsh, but it sounds a lot like a billion other indie songs you hear around and forget immediately)

pjharveyofficial The Other Voices, part 2

"Colin Morgan and I became friends when we realised our mutual appreciation of Seamus Heaney and we would meet to read his work. He sings with me on the choruses of 'I Inside the Old I Dying'.

Colin's voice stepping into the scene at this choral refrain adds all the emotion I was hoping for. He also sings on one other song on the album - its title is 'A Child's Question, July'.

Here Colin and I are pictured in the studio amongst Flood's array of equipment."

https://www.instagram.com/p/CtRlay9sYbw ... BiNWFlZA==

I enjoyed the second single. It sounds like it is going to be a subtle soundtrack album that requires careful listening. Not a lot of responders on this site compared to the last album she did. All getting older.

i really like the second single. Now, for originality, the melody reminds me of something, but i can't grasp exactly what, so it may be just a fallacy. did you notice the bells toll from 02:16? probably i'm reading a bit too much into it, but they may have a specific purpose: they sound like festivity bells, tolling exactly when Ira "unrays" (undresses) herself of her childhood skin and joins the chalky children of evermore. She becomes free, in a way. It's like an Easter. Or at least that's what i read into it.
Colin's( i call him by the first name 'cause i used to watch the series he was starring in back in the late 2000's, it was quite popular here in Italy) voice is really good (at first i thought it was John Parish's!), and it "dances" quite well with Polly's singing.
Hopefully next week a new song will come out.



oh Wyman Oh Wyman ooooh

Uncut magazine:

Thank you so much for the scan!
I notice the journalist talks a lot about lyrics and Polly's voice, but not so much about the instrumental parts of the songs. Probably I'm being pointless but since I saw the photos in the studio with all the gears - including some very interesting guitar pedals - I've been expecting a record with a lot of atmospheric soundscapes (as in A Child's Question, August) and not simple acoustic guitar sounds (like the second single). And this review being so vague about it, is not a good sign.

(maybe I should just shut up my expectations, I know. Sorry for the rant)

Thanks for that natinhos! I've been dying to read it.