FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
PJ Harvey – To Bring You My Love
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QUITE a few classic albums are celebrating anniversaries…
IN THIS PHOTO: PJ Harvey in 1995/PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Cummins
very soon but, last week (on 27th February; some sources say 28th February), PJ Harvey’s brilliant and hugely memorable To Bring You My Love turned twenty-five. Released through Island Records, it is the third album from the iconic songwriter. Before To Bring You My Love, Harvey was performing as part of the PJ Harvey Trio; this was her first proper solo album. Producing alongside Flood and John Parish, it would be the start of a rich and long-running relationship between the three. In terms of the topics addressed on her third album, there is a shift away from previous efforts. If Rid of Me (released in 1993) is more negative or angry regarding love and loss, there is a since of longing and passion. Powerful, moving declarations sit alongside biblical imagery in an album that sounds as staggering and memorable now as it did twenty-five years ago. I think that, in terms of musical brilliance, 1994 and 1995 are hard to beat. Maybe there was something in the air, or perhaps it was a golden time for music that cannot be explained. In any case, To Bring You My Love ranks alongside the finest albums of 1995. The reviews at the time were hugely positive and, since then, critics have been keen to laud and explore an album from a singular talent. In their review, this is what AllMusic had to say:
“Following the tour for Rid of Me, Polly Harvey parted ways with Robert Ellis and Stephen Vaughn, leaving her free to expand her music from the bluesy punk that dominated PJ Harvey's first two albums. It also left her free to experiment with her style of songwriting. Where Dry and Rid of Me seemed brutally honest, To Bring You My Love feels theatrical, with each song representing a grand gesture. Relying heavily on religious metaphors and imagery borrowed from the blues, Harvey has written a set of songs that are lyrically reminiscent of Nick Cave's and Tom Waits' literary excursions into the gothic American heartland.
Since she was a product of post-punk, she's nowhere near as literally bluesy as Cave or Waits, preferring to embellish her songs with shards of avant guitar, eerie keyboards, and a dense, detailed production. It's a far cry from the primitive guitars of her first two albums, but Harvey pulls it off with style, since her songwriting is tighter and more melodic than before; the menacing "Down by the Water" has genuine hooks, as does the psycho stomp of "Meet Ze Monsta," the wailing "Long Snake Moan," and the stately "C'Mon Billy." The clear production by Harvey, Flood, and John Parish makes these growths evident, which in turn makes To Bring You My Love her most accessible album, even if the album lacks the indelible force of its predecessors”.
Maybe it is the mix of a raw and transfixing voice set against desirous lyrics and yearning that makes PJ Harvey’s third studio album such an intoxicating brew. Perhaps it is something else. I have revisited the album recently, and I am still struck and moved by this remarkable work. Back when the album was released in 1995, Entertainment Weekly reviewed To Bring You My Love:
“Polly Jean Harvey doesn’t give love a bad name, just an intense one. On album No. 4, she continues grappling with all things carnal and sensual: Her lyrics convey desire and love, while her barbed-wire voice betrays uncertainty about giving over that much of herself. Instead of topping the musical squall of her earlier work, though, the British alterna-queen has opted for arrangements (some of them sans drums) as spare and spooky as the sound of footsteps on an empty street. She should have pared down some of the excessive wind-rain-desert imagery, but To Bring You My Love (Island) is the most welcome of rarities: a move toward maturity without any loss of Harvey’s visceral power”.
Although one cannot find To Bring You My Love on vinyl easily, there are options, and I almost decided to do this as a standalone feature, rather than put it in Vinyl Corner. I think, if you can, grab it on its true format, as this is an album that demands to be played on vinyl! Of course, PJ Harvey has gone on to record so many other phenomenal albums, and she has evolved, grown, and captured the heart of millions. There is debate as to which of her albums is best, though one feels To Bring You My Love should be in most people’s top-three. Rather than bring in my own feelings and experiences of the album, I thought mixing in some reviews and other pieces would better serve this stunning album. The Quietus have been celebrating To Bring You My Love’s twenty-fifth anniversary, and discussing the evolution of Harvey from her first couple of albums:
“By 1995, Harvey had spent a depressing amount of time debunking the assumption that her music was autobiographical. Many had figured that the brutal imagery of her 1992 debut, Dry, must have stemmed solely from real-life experience; the truth was that if you’d cut her open, she’d have probably bled greasepaint. It could be violent and disturbing, but she also played for murky laughs by deliberately sending up tired virgin-whore tropes, pivoting from a licentious other woman’s leer on ‘Oh My Lover’ to an ingenue’s clumsy breathlessness on ‘Dress’. And while her nervous breakdown gave Rid Of Me a bleak backstory, that album wasn’t a confessional outpouring either.
As Judy Berman’s terrific reappraisal explains, its songs were about performances – the parts people were forced to play, or tried to challenge – as well as being stellar performances themselves. Sometimes Harvey became other characters, like Tarzan’s fed-up other half, or Eve venting her spleen at the serpent. Sometimes she adopted a terrifying alter-ego: her delivery on ‘50 Ft Queenie’ was, she said, inspired by the braggadocio of hip hop, a literally monstrous way of bigging herself up.
Harvey knew she had to throw herself fully into her ideas to pull them off. "If you write words like that and sing it in the wrong way, it’s a complete disaster," she told Rolling Stone. Her voice may have sounded like a force of nature, but focusing on its elemental power sold short her judicious precision, the way she manipulated it to do her bidding. When she told the LA Times her favourite singer was Elvis, they assumed she meant Costello because of their shared sense of musical ambition; she was actually talking about Presley, another artist who, like her, knew exactly how to use their primal talent. “I love his singing, the passion, the depth in his vocals,” she enthused.
But on To Bring You My Love, Harvey is less like either Elvis and more Marlon Brando: an actor with intense, chameleonic charisma, as tough, scary, heartbreaking or unnerving as each role demands, bringing the record’s desperate souls to life with her full-blooded, full-bodied portrayals. “I’ve lain with the devil, cursed God above,” she seethes over the title track’s sinister, serpentine guitar and eerie organ, full of such bitter longing that her voice shakes and trembles and sounds inhuman; when she rasps “I was born in the desert, I’ve been down for years”, she sounds like a hungrier, lustier incarnation of the rough beast from WB Yeats’ The Second Coming.
On an album that explores how anyone can be unhinged by the all-consuming craving for sex, love, spiritual salvation and human connection, it’s the perfect transformation: a spurned admirer turned into an unearthly creature, dragging herself across the sand and bringing the apocalsypse with her”.
I have featured PJ Harvey a few times on my blog, but I am not sure whether I have covered To Bring You My Love. If you can track down a vinyl copy, then that is awesome; if not, you can stream the album. It is a wonderful work from one of the world’s greatest talents. I am not sure what she has planned next in terms of studio albums and plans, but I am sure (whatever comes) will be amazing. 1995 was, as I said, a year that had more than its share of genius albums but, in my opinion, PJ Harvey’s To Bring You My Love had…
VERY few equals.