Having taken 1994 off to regroup, purchase a home within the Somerset countryside, and write her third album, PJ Harvey reappeared in February 1995, a modified character. And “character” is the phrase. To Carry You My Love had her appearing out a sequence of roles, from the homicidal mom of “Down By The Water” to the B-movie heroine going through down a monsoon on “Meet Ze Monsta.”
On the cracked blues-folk quantity “C’mon Billy,” she was a single mom, imploring the kid’s father to fulfill the son he’s by no means seen. Within the video for that one (which VH1 refused to air due to its darkness) she forces Billy to remain by tying him to her mattress.
The momentum stoked by her first two albums (Dry and Rid Of Me) assured that this one can be a industrial and cultural success, which it was: a million copies offered worldwide, a No.2 American single (“Down By The Water,” by far the freakiest hit single of the yr) and a raft of accolades, together with Grammy and Mercury Music Prize nominations. Evaluations have been additionally uniformly rapturous – in a yr dominated by Britpop and the Macarena, Harvey had made an outlier that was, even by her requirements, one thing else.
In its fearlessness and creativeness, To Carry You My Love was proof that PJ Harvey was constructed to final. Comparisons to giants like Patti Smith and her much-admired Captain Beefheart, have been apt. Furthermore, she’d break up along with her band on the finish of 1993, and was now a solo artist. “I just wanted the experience of playing with different people, and didn’t want to feel tied in any way,” she defined in an interview on French TV.
Essentially the most vital good thing about going solo was being accountable for all inventive decision-making. Whereas U2 producer Flood may need helmed the recording periods, the buck stopped with Harvey. Considered one of her choices was to open the album with the growling title monitor, whose first line, “I was born in the desert,” occurred to be an identical to the primary line on Beefheart’s debut album.
1 / 4 of a century later, To Carry You My Love hasn’t aged, as a result of its themes are ageless. Faith, sin, and nature are the touchstones; Jesus known as upon, and the satan usually replies. The moms, lovers, and voodoo priestesses within the songs would match into any century. If any ingredient ties the manufacturing to the 90s, it’s “Teclo,” a minor-chord creeper that might have come from the Twin Peaks soundtrack, however that’s a one-off.
Harvey’s innate theatricality was ramped up on To Carry You My Love, helped by the infusion of recent blood – consisting of John Parish, an outdated pal from her first band Automated Dlamini, and Nick Cave collaborator Mick Harvey – that helped steer the album in a extra experimental route.
Whereas the album is fairly heavygoing at occasions, Harvey engineered in some mild aid, too. There’s a second within the swamp-rocking “Meet Ze Monsta” when she bellows in faux-fear on the approaching “big black monsoon.” It’s even funnier within the demo – launched with different beforehand unheard variations as a separate album – as a result of reasonably than bellow she emits a campy shriek. On the spaghetti-Western-inspired closing monitor, “The Dancer,” her used-and-abandoned character tries to entice her man again by squealing “Ah! AH! Aaah!”
In a means, she by no means hit such wild heights once more, however she’d already proved herself and didn’t have to.
