by Dana Poland (@danazsz)
After touring her 2016 album, The Hope Six Demolition Project, Polly Jean “PJ” Harvey felt she had become disconnected from music. “I was quite lost,” she stated. “I really wasn’t sure what to do: if I wanted to carry on writing albums and playing, or if it was time for a change in my life.” So Harvey turned to poetry. She describes poetry as her greatest inspiration, stating there “seems to be a magic and magnificence in their words that conjure the meaning of life.” The result? Orlam, her 2022 poetry book, chronicling the nine-year-old protagonist, Ira, in her last year of childhood innocence as she navigates the village of Underwhelem. Ira worships a divine figure known as Wyman-Elvis, a soldier-ghost inspired by Elvis, even singing a song called “Love Me Tender,” a nod to Elvis’s 1956 ballad. “Well, I loved Elvis, a lot of children of my era did, and I still love Elvis,” she told Rolling Stone. “I love everything about him. I could lose myself in that voice, but not only that, the way he looked as well. He is almost a godlike figure in Orlam.” I Inside The Old Year Dying’s twelve hauntingly poetic songs cement the world of Underwhelem and serve as a companion piece to Orlam.
Set in the woods of Harvey’s hometown of Dorset, I Inside The Old Year Dying constructs a folk-horror universe with the assistance of her longtime collaborators, Flood and John Parish. Old Dorset dialect, musique concrète materials from field recordings, audio libraries, and standard instruments reshaped ingeniously by Flood create surreal sounds that transport listeners into the world of Underwhelem, of Dorset, of Harvey’s solace. The sound is not as driving as her early work and the lyrics aren’t nearly as tortured. Instead, I Inside The Old Year Dying is delicate and controlled, concerned with world-building and narrative construction. It’s reminiscent of timeless folk music, transcending temporal and spatial boundaries; a “sonic netherworld” adaptable to the setting she imagines. Much of the album feels between worlds – an atmosphere on the cusp of real life and fiction, life and death, youth and adulthood, masculinity and femininity.
While embracing its otherworldliness, I Inside The Old Year Dying is profoundly human. Written and recorded using a studio set up for live play in just three weeks, just about everything on it is rooted in improvisation and spontaneity. Even Harvey’s vocal style was at the mercy of improvisation – if Flood thought she sounded too much like PJ Harvey, the recording was scrapped. In the celestial ballad “Prayer at the Gate,” Flood encouraged her to sound “much older” as she sings about nature, religion, and Wyman-Elvis. The slow, ambient atmosphere made from Flood’s masterful manipulation of standard instruments reflects the line between real life and fantasy that the record walks upon. The vocals featured in “The Nether-edge” are more traditional compared to other tracks, but have been subtly distorted to captivate listeners, evoking a slight dissonance – not completely otherworldly but not naturally of our own.
Aligned with the theme of existing between two realms, I Inside The Old Year Dying grapples with the nuances of gender (neither fully female nor fully male) and sexuality (the space between childhood innocence and adult desire). While her work should not be reduced to her gender or femininity, the experience of struggling with the concepts is an undeniable aspect of her artistry. As a child, Harvey went by the name Paul, wearing swim trunks with no shirts, and peeing standing up. “I don’t even think of myself as being a female half the time,” she told The Sunday Times in 1993. Ira herself struggles with gender, describing herself as a “not-girl, a bogus boy,” cutting her hair short and exclusively befriending boys. She grapples with her girlhood, sexual awakening, and religious faith by confusing her desire for Wyman-Elvis with her longing for divinity. The lyrics plead “Oh Wyman, Oh Wyman. Unray I for en,” expressing in an Old Dorset dialect Ira’s will to undress for Wyman-Elvis. “Lwonesome Tonight” asks “Are you Elvis? Are you God? Did Jesus send to win my trust? ‘Love Me Tender’ are his words // As I have loved you, so you must” over haunting plucked guitar. A response to Elvis’s 1960 ballad “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” where he asks “Shall I come back again?,” Ira pleads, “My love, will you come back again?” Ira could be manifesting her sexual desire into her religious faith, or vice versa. Her sexual desire for a man could be so intense and confusing that it takes on religious significance.
The lyrics are pure poetry. They are observant, though non-linear, painting the constructed world with juxtaposed images of earthly nature and metaphysical deity. In the sense of traditional instrumentation, most of the songs are subdued, drawing focus to the poems and ambient atmosphere. In reference to the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem, “Answer to a Child’s Question,” “A Child’s Question, August” pleads “What says dunnick, drush, or dove? ‘Love me Tender,’ tender love”. The answer is found in the next track, “August”: “‘Vore I leave // Someone please // Love Me Tender // ‘neath the trees”. In reference to Elvis’ “Love Me Tender,” the supernatural god manifests through the earthly Dorset woods. Along with the haunting melodies, these lyrics transport listeners into the ethereal world where nature and divinity coincide.
Though a continuation of her poetry book Orlam, I Inside The Old Year Dying holds up alone as an ethereally cathartic account of love, lust, religion and adolescence. While it’s not a typical PJ Harvey record, it’s an interesting and necessary step in solidifying what we’ve always known: PJ Harvey is a poet.