How PJ Harvey’s collaborations with Thom Yorke came to be: “He’s somebody whose voice I have loved”
“New York is an ugly city, a dirty city,” American novelist John Steinbeck once said. “Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous. But there is one thing about it – once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough.”
New York remains one of art’s greatest muses, its imposing skyscrapers and the overwhelming bustle of its streets beckoning like a sort of welcome chaos. From a music standpoint, it birthed some of the most imperative movements in history, from downtown’s punk rock explosion to hip-hop in the Bronx, to salsa’s boom from Puerto Rican and Cuban immigrants in Latin neighbourhoods.
Such is a sensation that PJ Harvey felt when, in 1998, she spent time in New York filming The Book of Life, a project by director Hal Hartley, and although she was based in Dorset, England then, Harvey spent extended periods in New York for over two years, inexplicably compelled by the city. As a result, she wrote songs that would form the basis for her fifth studio album, 2000’s Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea.
The album’s cover, a photograph taken by Maria Mochnacz, shows Harvey posed in a black dress and large black sunglasses, clutching a gold handbag. Taken on New York’s 46th Street and 7th Avenue, the heart of Times Square, Harvey is surrounded by the blurred rush of the city.
“New York certainly gave me a different kind of energy. I do think that has permeated to some of the music,” Harvey told the Los Angeles Times in 2000. “I had long wanted to [live there]. I made a film with Hal Hartley in New York, and I realised at that time what an inspiring sort of place it felt to me. I can remember even when we were filming, I was writing songs, some of which ended up on this record. I just felt very inspired.”
While written between New York, Paris and London, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea plants its roots in the former, its grit and grime permeating the thrash of songs like ‘This Is Love’ and ‘Big Exit’, and within the album, however, is a familiar feature: Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke, the two musicians having first met in 1992, according to Harvey, keeping in touch by exchanging letters over the years. “He’s somebody whose voice I have loved and felt very moved by for a long time,” she describes.
Yorke is featured most prominently on the duet ‘This Mess We’re In’. Dominated by Yorke’s point of view, its verses describe two lovers reuniting in New York, opposed in their desire for one another, living up to the song’s title. “The city sunset over me,” Harvey croons, set against Yorke’s wails in the background. “I don’t think we will ever meet again,” they declare, “And you must leave now / Before the sun rises above the skyscrapers.”
Yorke also features in backing vocals and keyboards on the songs ‘One Line’ and ‘Beautiful Feeling’. “I’d long been interested in the idea of somebody else singing a whole song on a record of mine, to have a very different dimension brought in by somebody else’s voice,” Harvey explained, of her decision to have Yorke on the album. “It adds so much dynamic within the record to have this other character coming in. I get tired of my own voice. It’s nice to hear somebody else’s.”
Harvey’s fixation with New York yielded one of rock’s greatest collaborations in Yorke’s inclusion, the merging of two brilliant minds to form a haunting, immersive experience.
