stings your face into remembering
cruel nature has won again.
On Battleship Hill's caved in trenches,
a hateful feeling still lingers,
even now, 80 years later.
Cruel nature.
Cruel, cruel nature.
The land returns to how it has always been.
The scent of Thyme carried on the wind.
Jagged mountains, jutting out,
cracked like teeth in a rotten mouth.
On Battleship Hill I hear the wind,
Say "Cruel nature has won again."
Polly Jean Harvey (born 9 October 1969) is an English singer-songwriter. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments.
Harvey began her career in 1988 when she joined local band Automatic Dlamini as a vocalist, guitarist and saxophonist. The band's frontman, John Parish, became her long-term collaborator. In 1991, she formed an eponymous trio called PJ Harvey and subsequently began her career as PJ Harvey. The trio released two acclaimed studio albums called Dry (1992) and Rid of Me (1993) before disbanding, after which Harvey continued as a solo artist. Since 1995, she has released a further ten studio albums with collaborations from various musicians including Parish, former bandmate Rob Ellis, Mick Harvey, and Eric Drew Feldman, and has also worked extensively with record producer Flood.
Among the accolades Harvey has received are both the 2001 and 2011 Mercury Prize for Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000) and Let England Shake (2011), respectively, making her the only artist to have been awarded the prize twice. She has also garnered eight Brit Award nominations, eight Grammy Award nominations and two further Mercury Prize nominations. Rolling Stone awarded her three accolades: 1992's Best New Artist and Best Singer Songwriter, and 1995's Artist of the Year. Rolling Stone also listed Rid of Me, To Bring You My Love, and Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea on its list of their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2011, she was awarded for Outstanding Contribution to Music at the NME Awards. In the 2013 Birthday Honours, she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to music.
I'd like to argue but I can't find a fault in your statement. England is still feudal.
Sadly, you're right, as has been very clearly proven by our current regime being made up of ruling-class public schoolboys (and occasional gel, don't you know) whose class disdain for us plebs is clear. A large chunk of the English population still venerates the aristocracy and the inbred descendants of German robber barons - sorry, the 'Royal Family'. England did have its revolution, as did France, but unlike our Gallic neighbours our revolution stalled and the robber barons made a comeback. One day maybe the revolution will be completed, but perhaps unlike the French we'll spare the blue bloods from the guillotine - more fitting would be making their palaces into hostels for the homeless, and putting the aristos into sink estates. I could just see Charlie Windsor Saxe-Coburg slumming it in Easterhouse...
I digress and fantasise. As a previous poster pointed out, correcting my earlier comment, PJ's album is more about war and violence than it is about Englishness, though as the dominant reactionary conception of Englishness is so based on war and battles then being anti-war is implicitly being anti-reactionary-Englishness. It is a very powerful album, and a rewarding though tough listen. Nice one, Polly.
it's most definitely not a commentary on England today in the way your referring (englishness)
It's about battle, about war. It's specifically about England at war and about England as a country built on war and bloodshed. Generally, it's about the futility and destruction that war brings.
Besides...
Everyone in my local pub likes this song.
Eh? English singer, song about the WW1 Battle of Gallipoli (in Turkey if you need help with that one).
On_The_Beach wrote:
Eels squeal? Dang, ya learn sumthin' ever day.
I believe that they shriek. At least according to one of the most important films to ever be produced. ("Princess Bride")
This should explain it...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGcat9tGZVU
BTW - I kinda like this one by her. Going to have to hear it again...(sorry percheron)
When people ask me who some of my favorite musical artists are, I always say PJ Harvey, and 95% of the time they say, "who?" How someone so talented can be unknown to the masses is a mystery to me.
I think it may be due to how she can sound and look like 10 different people. Which is fantastic but also a curse for being recognized.
(I am responding to derogatory comments by Bam23 and Fred Riley which I choose not to repost and will likely be removed in the future)
Still puzzling. Although this post is from 2014, it still astonishes me that anyone could have read what I wrote and come away with any sense that it was derogatory toward Germans, or anyone for that matter. I generally enjoy reading comments here, more often when the context is musical, but often interesting observations surface. And then, we have comments that create offenses from nothingness. Were the comments that you found objectionable removed? And who would do that? Of course, we all live inside our minds to some degree, but such labyrinthine corridors must exist for some of us!
"Let England Shake" is a great album but it takes a couple listens to get into. In Dark Places and Written On The Forehead are my other favorites from this album.
big stud romeotuma wrote:
I have looked into this song, and from what I understand, the haunting music matches the historical ghosts defined in the lyrics—
Harvey told NME: "Battleship Hill was the place of a particularly bloody battlefield. The 'scent of rhyme' was because it grows wild in Gallipoli."
Harvey told The Sun about this song: "Throughout the songs on the album, nature plays a great role. I'd chosen to look at a lot of ancient folk songs from all over the world. Songs from hundreds of years ago passed down the line in Cambodia, Ireland, Vietnam, Russia. And a theme which comes through in all these countries' music is your relationship to the land. The lyric: 'I hear the wind say, cruel nature has won again,' captures that feeling. No matter what happens to us, nature will always be there. Which is comforting but also quite brutal."
I like this song a LOT...
Everybody in my elevator loves this groovy song... we be dancing like happy hippies... love sex, drugs, and groovy rock 'n roll...
I love this song. You must have ears like a large horse!
Eels squeal? Dang, ya learn sumthin' ever day.
Wow, indeed! What the hell are you referring to? Curious, I looked through a fair number of the previous posts and cannot determine what you are on about. The song is definitively England-based, and you appear not to be. Although the general thread of the comments to songs here is music-based, obviously other aspects of our lives intrude, and this makes the reading much more interesting and often informative. But, coherence should not be overlooked. Hate speech? Where? All I see is a discussion about the German heritage of the British royal family, a carryover from the era when elite families made alliances based on marriage across the European continent. Is this what you are discussing?