THE SCOTSMAN S2 - Interview - November 8th 2000
                             Cover Story: Pretty Polly -- PJ Harvey Cleans Up

               Her Act SHINE ON HARVEY'S MOON Bridport's famously angst ridden
               supersiren PJ Harvey still sings about love and loss and melancholy, but with a
               new warmth and balance. Her raw edges, however, are still intact she tells
               Rachel Newsome Crazy, Madwoman, Screaming siren. Hysterical harpy with a
               metaphorical pistol to her head. It's easy to parody PJ Harvey as a woman
               possessed. A pale-skinned, dark-haired, she-wolf howling at the moon - all the
               signifiers are there. The self-loathing bleeding from Rid Of Me; the waxing and
               waning physique; the recurring nightmares of being trapped in a coffin - a
               classic eating disorder dream; the depressions; the therapy sessions; Freud,
               no doubt, would have had a field day with the seemingly perpetual
               pre-menstrual Polly Harvey.

               But let's not forget that in a kind of inspired existential double bluff, Polly got
               there first by setting out to parody herself. Dallying with image and the visual
               side of things (she did, after all, do an art foundation course and still
               experiments with photography), Polly made herself up with clownish streaks of
               red lipstick, skulked on stage in that bright pink catsuit - revealing every bone in
               her severely skinny body - and contrived to pose as a modern day Ophelia
               drowning in despair on the cover of To Bring You My Love.

               But since then, of course, there's been the therapy, the transitional fourth
               album, Is This Desire?, marking the tapering out of a long bout of depression
               and the quiet death of the tortured artist known as PJ Harvey.

               But without the angst where does that leave the art? Would therapy have
               produced a calmer, more balanced PJ Harvey - content but no longer charged?
               Would she be left as a damp as the coastal rain drizzling over her Devonshire
               hometown of Bridport the day of a secret gig to showcase her new album,
               Stories from The City, Stories From The Sea?

               Civilised and relaxed, with friends of the family standing around in baggy tie-dye
               trousers and kids scooting between their legs, the stage at Bridport arts centre
               seems more set for a craft fair prize-giving or a classical recital than a fiery
               performance from the town's resident siren. People chat and stand around
               smoking pipes and the only thing missing is a row of armchairs.

               Which is just as well because Polly Harvey wants to dance. She wants to
               swivel on the three-inch metal stiletto heel of her Julien MacDonald boots and
               shimmer in her glittering sequinned micro-mini skirt. She wants to shake her
               glossy "because-I'm-worth-it" salon-teased hair and cast her cares to the Devil,
               because all of a sudden nothing else can compete with the blast of hyper-reality
               that is Big Exit. Because "baby, baby, ain't it true, I'm immortal when I'm with
               you".

               Swapping her guitar for a tambourine and back again, Polly still sings of love
               and loss and of being haunted by melancholy as she taps and shakes and
               shimmies through her new album but there is something different, something
               warm like a sunny day on the beach, something more like a lighter shad of
               pale, rather than a darker hue of night. Could it be that Polly Harvey has
               lightened up? This isn't so much Poor Polly as Pretty Polly. Still brooding, still
               at times belligerent but also brave and beautiful. This is Zen Polly who now
               talks of "giving and receiving", "insight" and "outsight", serenely transcending
               pain as she languishes through We Float. This is Ironic Polly who likes to let it
               all hang out because "I used to think that love was so complex but all I want to
               do is just see you undress" on This Is Love.

               So is it love? Is it that Polly has finally found something, if not tangible, then
               certainly strong and empowering to hang on to, following the end of her much
               publicised relationship with Nick Cave? Is it love that's helped to put things in
               perspective, to pull herself together? "I wasn't sure. I'm not really sure now,
               either", Polly frowns and stares long and hard at the teapot on the table before
               her. "It seems to get harder as you get older. Maybe when you've been through
               it a few times already, you start to recognise all the signs and you're much
               more wary and protective about it all, especially if you've been hurt in the past."

               It's the afternoon following the gig the night before and Polly is sitting in one of
               her locals, the quiet friendly pub where she does most of her interviews. That is,
               when she does do interviews.

               You can see why Polly Harvey doesn't like talking about herself. It's all there in
               the lyrics, the heartache, the anguish, all her guts spilled out. But that's where
               she prefers to keep it, the suggestion of there always being something else
               becoming part of all the intrigue. Indeed Polly arrives to the interview early to
               give herself some quiet time to meditate and focus her mind. Polly is all for
               meditation and tries to do it at least once a day.

               "It's about making time to sit still and entering your head," she explains,
               "Maybe just looking out of a window."

               Mentally delineating what it is she does and does not think, what she will and
               won't say, what you get is a psychological peepshow, shrouded and shadowy,
               full of glimpses into what lurks behind her steady almond eyes and firm smile.
               So for example she will say of her allegorical lyrics, that, yes, she is inspired
               by the Bible, that she has a "healthy fascination" with it all. That she enjoys
               "investigating and reading about these things and I have my own ideas about all
               those things", while fiddling all the while with a tiny cross on a chain around her
               neck.

               Polly may be as uncertain as to the a priori existence of God as she is about
               matters of the heart but one thing she's keen to reiterate is that, yes, she has
               changed, and she is fairly certain that it's all for the better. It may or may not be
               love but it's definitely about having climbed to a mental plateau from where she
               can survey the view with a new sense of balance through therapy, through
               friends, through family and, she suggests, through the simple ebb and flow of
               living. Through hitting 30 and seeing babies born and friends die, that kind of
               thing. "Right up to 1995, it was very much a case of putting on a persona to
               perform because I needed it at the time," she muses.

               "I don't buy into the myth of having to be a tortured artist in order to write. It
               frustrates me no end that to hear people say that, especially because I could
               have easily gone down that route. I was certainly well on the way to
               self-destruct for many years but managed to turn it around.

               "The times I've been depressed are times when everything has seemed out of
               balance and everything becomes weighted on you and inside of you. I've found
               that my horizons have been opened by being well. That there's so much to write
               about because I'm able to receive information about what's going on around me
               instead of being sealed off in this shell where you don't actually feel that much,
               you're just numb."

               So now Polly has found herself a mental room with a view, how does it feel?
               How does Bleak Polly compare with Brave Polly? How do all those references
               to depression and eating disorders compare with the Polly who is now learning
               African drumming and attending life-drawing classes at the arts centre, where
               she's also planning songwriting workshops for local kids with her friend and
               neighbour Billy Bragg? How does it compare to the Polly who has taken up
               writing poetry ("I find it liberating because there's no guidelines or structural or
               emotional rules. Through poetry I'm a lot more open, less introspective and
               more outward looking")?

               "I feel like I inhabit my skin and body much more these days. When I'm sat
               here talking to you, I'm really here. Before, I would appear in person but I was
               never really there. It's almost like being able to look in at yourself from the
               outside all the time. And I felt like that for years, not really knowing who you
               are. I feel very real these days."

               But for all the talk of "balance" and "perspective", the chaos and emotional
               extremities are still there on Stories... There's the dazed and confused duet
               with Thom Yorke, This Mess We're In. There's the wild imagery of horses
               running across the beach on Horses In My Dreams, the 24-hour stream of neon
               lights and noise on The Whores Hustle and The Hustlers Whore inspired by the
               streets of New York, where most of the album was created.

               "I was first there working on a film with Hal Hartley," Polly elaborates on her
               Manhattan love affair. "But even though I was so busy, I was having to write
               because of all the energy of the place coming off into me - people you see on
               the streets and subways, mad men and women muttering to themselves,
               visions of Blade Runner. I felt energised by it - not just writing, but personally I
               needed a shake up.

               "I love chaos, I love the extremities in my life. I have to be very ordered for my
               work, but chaos creates a very different kind of stimulation which I really need.
               The whole experience was hard work but very happy and productive. I don't
               think I've ever enjoyed making a record so much."

               Lust-for-life Polly, rather than Lacklustre Polly, never mind the therapy speak
               and the new-found tranquillity, thank goodness for Polly Harvey's raw edges.

                                                          -- Rachel Newsome
 
 

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