Over ten years with PJ Harvey

I bought PJ Harvey’s “To Bring you My Love” about ten years ago.

During that time I was hanging around with wonderfriend Mike and, one night, on a whim, I bought this album. The video for “C’mon Billy” had been in moderately high rotation on MTV (when they used to show videos during reasonable hours) with its strange whispered chant:

little fish, big fish, swimmin’ in the water, come back here and gimme my daughter

I would never have said “I love this album” - but I never tire of it either.

In recent years I’ve come to believe that the album is essentially maternal. In many ways, I wonder if the “love” she is singing about is the blood of a child, the father of whom is away, has left, or is dead.

Here’s a brief catalog of some of the turns of phrase dealing with child quickening, birthing, or the act by which life is perpetuated:

Here she’s talking about this deep desire to bring this love, and the offspring to this mysterious, dark, absent, father.

Cast down on my knees
I’ve laid with the devil
Cursed god above
Forsaken heaven
To bring you my love

I believe she believes this devil to be the father, perhaps named William?

C’mon Billy
You’re the only one
Don’t you think it’s time now
You met your only son

Or about a lost daughter?

Oh, help me Jesus come through this storm
I had to lose her to do her harm
I heard her holler, I heard her moan
My lovely daughter
I took her home

Birthing children reaches a final desperate plea with her desperate wailing of:

Left alone in desert
This house become a hell
This love become a tether
This room becomes a cell
Mommy, daddy, please
Send him back to me

How long must I suffer?
Dear God, I’ve served my time
This love becomes my torture
This love, my only crime
Lover please release me
My arms too weak to grip
My eyes to dry for weeping
My lips too dry to kiss
Calling ,Jesus, please
Send his love to me
I’m begging ,Jesus, please
Send his love to me

It just leaves me in the mind of dark-haired Polly Jean in some dusty, western, hardscrabble town, her lover leaving, her belly swelling… It just shows what a desperate act - a sneer in the face of circumstance - birth can be. It’s all very Schopenhauerian.