Watch Courtney Love cover PJ Harvey’s ‘To Bring My Love’
Artistic adoration is not something that Courtney Love goes in for all that often. Partly, that is because she has been battling her own detractors over the years. But there is a humble side to the Hole star, and she is happy to proclaim that PJ Harvey is an artist who deserves her reverence. So, regardless of what you think of her, you have to accept that she displays considerable taste on this occasion.
“The way some actors talk about [Marlon] Brando or [Robert] De Niro, she’s that to me,” Love explained to Kevin Sessums back in 2015 as part of Courtney Love & Todd Almond: The San Francisco Sessions. “Her early stuff is so much better than mine and I know it, and thank God because otherwise, I’d have to be the best,” Love earnestly adds.
A year earlier, she espoused a similar claim in a Pitchfork interview. “Early PJ Harvey is still what inspires me and makes me know I’m not there yet,” she said. “I always knew she was better than me, and I liked that. I like knowing that there is somebody who is a better guitar player, who had it down lyrically, and kicked my ass all over town.”
Of all the PJ Havey records out there, Love has also said that her favourite album is her debut Dry. It’s a record that left Love saying, “I’m nothing next to the purity that she experiences.” Love’s late husband Kurt Cobain also adored Dry. It’s an album of brute force and originality. It approaches the brink of grating with its brash unburned release, but always stays bristling on the right side.
This is something that Courtney Love looks to carry into her cover of ‘To Bring My Love’ below. The song captures Harvey’s duality of escapism and yearning at a time she moved to a new home “completely in the countryside. I have no neighbours. When I look out the window, all I see are fields.” The song sees her traverse that expanse to find comfort.
With a dirty mix of Robert Johnson and The Stooges, Harvey’s rally cry rings out like a death rattle. It is a dark and stormy beast to have to contend with which makes it a bold cover choice for an ever-bold Courtney Love.
