PJ Harvey - Down By the Water : C/D

this is madness. it's a good song but it's so not even in my pj harvey pox.

So phhhfffflllllttttt!!

I don't dig the raw stuff or the singer/songwriter stuff quite so much. I like her when she's dramatic and way overproduced.

- "Meet Ze Monsta"
- "To Bring you My Love"
- "50 Ft. Queenie"
- "Sheela na Gig"
- "Rid of Me"
- "Dress"
-

Like "The Dancer"?

I remember rushing to the store to hear "Down By the Water" as soon as it came out ... and was sorely disappointed. Where was the rawness of the last two albums? I gradually started to like it, although it took me years (~ four) to fully appreciate "To Bring You My Love", which makes it one of the slowest "growers" in my collection.

Even seeing her tour that album didn't help. Live, they cranked out rockabilly versions of nearly everything (which was awesome) but that only frustrated me more -- why couldn't the album have sounded like *that*?

I didn't really get "To Bring You My Love" until stuff like "The Dancer" finally hit me (shoegazer blues YES YES YES).

I could see not being into it if you knew the others first, but "Down By the Water" was the only PJ Harvey song I knew for a very long time. Admittedly that might have some beareing on my current opinion, but still. I liked Rid of Me for a while but I can't see ever wanting to listen to it again.

Teclo
Meet Ze Monsta
The Dancer

I'm in the good but not as good as other stuff on the album camp

i really can't imagine the impact of TBYML w/o "Down By the Water," - it's just a very defining moment for her and her artistic growth, kind of like seeing someone learn that lowering one's voice and saying something brutal can be more effective than screaming obsenities at the top of one's lungs...also, the segue is pure genius - from the voodoo agony and ecstasy of "Long Snake Moan," to this, and then the silence followed by the quietly crawling "I Think i'm a Mother,"...the opening notes which always remind me of a barge sailing down the Mississippi one humid, sinister Louisiana night...

also, it's troubling to note that the people who dont adore this track as one of her very best, like Alex in NYC, choosing those early softer-than-louder-LOUD or loud-all-the-way-through "rocking" songs as better....really, the apex of her songwriting and storytelling skills was Is This Desire,? and this song was the first indication of her going in that accomplished direction of expressing subtle power. (After ITD though, i think she sorely lost her way).

you know, like if you've ever done something horrible and then can only obsess on how you can reverse all circumstances to undo it, to reverse or change what's happened... that's the _only_ thing you can think about then, and I believe the whispering captures this obsession perfectly.

she's always been a formalist, but the conceptual reaching here allows us to buy her performance wholesale without needing to be conscious of the "mask" of theatricality that's so obvious on some of the other songs, like during the 6 shrieks in "The Dancer" - for me, anyway. i feel that the power of this song works beyond the performance dynamic she's playing up in a lot of material. does anyone remember, say, "Taut" from Dance Hall at Louise Point ? thats a good example

Worst PJ Harvey song ever. Beyond dud, stopped me from ever buying any of her stuff again, and I was a pretty big fan. Yuck.

I assumed that was why it got brought up!

definitely one of my favourite PJ Harvey songs, off my first and favourite PJ Harvey albums: obsessive monomania filtered through this brilliantly camp cabaret style. the strings, oh the strings! hissing with tension.

Vic - 'Taut' is brilliant too! Very much the (more) evil twin of 'Down By The Water', now I think about it: DBTW freed from the constraints of formalism and tipping over into hysteria.