The Garden, a PJ Harvey Discussion Site

Romario11 wrote:(...)

I love PJ! she just doesn't give a damn. I've always wondered how can she do it, she's got a Saint's patience. And we all know this inquisitorial verbal torture went on for more than 30 years, i'll never stop admiring her.

I start to sweat in her cool gaze

i was pissing myself laughing.

That Guardian interview is a cracking read

“I think it’s really difficult for everyone in that area for all sorts of different reasons, isn’t it?” Does she have an opinion? “I do, but I’m not going to talk about that,” she says. Defeated by her stonewalling, I move on.

This trademark "stonewalling" is indeed kind of hilarious, but also frustrating I must admit. I get it when it comes to questions about her personal life, but I personally wish she would stop employing this tactic when discussing politics... it's been like this since LES and it's no fun.

I somewhat get the impression that her own personal political opinions are perhaps not committee-approved and she’d like to avoid taking on criticism for them. Though she doesn’t have any problem mentioning her love of that devil Ricky Gervais, so fair play to her for that!

Guessing she won’t be playing “Sheela” on the coming tour, given her remark about how she was “17” when she wrote that album (I think her memory might be slightly off there). But I despair at the thought of her not playing so many songs she seems to only play when Rob is intricately pounding away as only he can. How I’d love to see and hear “Joe” and “Man-Size” next year… sigh.

alonbp wrote:... it's been like this since LES ...

I think it's been a lot longer than that - nothing personal, no politics, no religion; 'the work speaks for itself and anything I could say would narrow its scope and hamstring its effectiveness'. Laura Snapes has been talking to Polly for years and knows how it goes, but I suppose you can't blame her for trying.

alonbp wrote:This trademark "stonewalling" is indeed kind of hilarious, but also frustrating I must admit. I get it when it comes to questions about her personal life, but I personally wish she would stop employing this tactic when discussing politics... it's been like this since LES and it's no fun.

I agree it's a bit frustrating, but I don't know, I think she's on her rights. After all, when I want to know an artist's opinion on politics, religion, gender and other things, I look to Nick Cave lol.

Personally, I'm more interested in getting to know a bit more about the music making, which I find fascinating since it's very different from artist to artist. In these aspects that I am most attached to her interviews (pity those are the ones interviewers have the least interest, usually).

It’s because most journalists who write about music don’t actually make music themselves, they just like it. And they write about stuff for a living. And somewhere in the chain-of-command, a directive is issued to make nearly every piece about a musician a “human interest” story, so that people who don’t know anything about music and maybe aren’t even interested in it at all will still read it.

Yeah, I understand that. At the end of the day, the interview has to be attractive enough to give the vehicle a killer headline and a great engagement, and in that regard, they did a good job on this one.

I mean, lads... paying attention to multiple sources, i would say i know more or less what PJ's views are, at least on certain political/personal topics; She doesn't share openly her private/political opinions and i appreciate that, a lot. I do not see her like a political/personal inspiration, i have my own opinions. She's "just" an artist, and her art is as purer as it can be, because it's not poisoned with a precise political agenda. Music is all about unfiltered emotions, in my opinion, and scheduling it into an ideological crusade would just sterilize it. I would say that she doesn't want to even talk about those topics simply because it would surely create division and hate, something alien to Polly's sweet nature (nature that has been confirmed by multiple people who actually met her and know her, E.G. Enrico Gabrielli). We had and still have plenty of megalomaniac musicians who brag about everything, who need to embark themselves in a moral-ideological total war; They virtue-signal every personal decision they make, they scramble on social medias to insult and point fingers against others. It's sad, honestly. Polly has never been like that, and hopefully, i would add, she will never be like that. Last thing, i'm quite closed on sharing my personal opinions on the internet, especially here, and i'll continue to do so, but trust me, i do not follow PJ because i share her (more or less known) political/personal opinion, at all. That's it, goodnight.

I'm sure there was more than one experience that keeps her from expressing personal/ political opinions, but as I remember this was the last time she offered to -

"PRO-HUNT POLLY CAUSES OUTRAGE

POLLY HARVEY(pictured)has been criticised by the League Against Cruel Sports and scores of outraged readers after she made pro fox-hunting comments in a recent NME feature. During an interview in our October 3 issue, Harvey said she was not opposed to fox-hunting and said: “Seeing the hunt out on the fields is just so natural to me.”

Since then, scores of letters have poured in from readers shocked at her support for the highly controversial ‘sport’. Steve Rackett, spokesman for the League Against Cruel Sports, blasted the singer’s stance, and said: “Polly has always done her best to wave the flag for Cool Britannia, now she’s carrying the standard for Cruel Britannia.”
...
Andy White, from Brighton, articulated a view expressed in dozens of letters and e-mails sent to NME. He wrote: “After reading your feature, I’m banning Polly’s records from my house. I can’t believe someone I thought so intelligent could support something so outdated, unnecessary and barbaric.”"

https://www.nme.com/news/music/pj-harvey-150-1385377

Another Interview on Wednesday with Lauren Lavern https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001n53k

I'm glad she changed her mind after saying she would do no more interviews in the future...

Hell and High Water wrote:I'm sure there was more than one experience that keeps her from expressing personal/ political opinions, but as I remember this was the last time she offered to -

"PRO-HUNT POLLY CAUSES OUTRAGE

Yes, that’s the first thing that came to my mind, too—that offhand fox hunting comment back in the 90s has cast a long shadow. Also, when she guest-edited BBC Radio 4’s Today show 10 years ago she got a lot of flak from right-wingers and conservatives—”leftist tosh”, “liberal drivel” etc.—even John Parish penned an op-ed to defend her choices. I guess I can understand why she now chooses to be mum on certain subjects.

AineteEkaterini wrote: Laura Snapes has been talking to Polly for years and knows how it goes, but I suppose you can't blame her for trying.

What I think Laura Snapes managed to do well in this piece is she succeeded in presenting Polly as a complex person with some strict/unusual boundaries without resorting to the “oh, she’s difficult” cliché, so kudos indeed!

For information : album has leaked

I absolutely love "A Noiseless Noise". Very Swans-like. I think this album is a one of her most experimental album since Is This Desire ? Need time to say it but I think it's one of my favourite with TBYML, White Chalk, LES and ITD.

i bet it has leaked, the whole thing got played on french radio this past week

Ahaha right ! But it's better to listen to it with better quality sound and the whole songs (not with Micha Assayas voice at the beginning or the end). For example, "The Nether-edge" strange end was completely cut during the show. And we can finally properly hear intro and outro with all these interesting noises "in the backgroung".