Revisiting the artwork that Nick Cave and PJ Harvey made for each other
During the 1990s, it seemed only inevitable that such similarly-minded, reflective and creative beings as PJ Harvey and Nick Cave would begin a romantic relationship. Both musicians had a catalogue of tracks containing raucous punk and gentle ballads – they seemed to be the perfect coupling.
Harvey joined Cave and his band, The Bad Seeds, to record ‘Henry Lee’, a duet that appeared on Murder Ballads. Inspired by the traditional folk song ‘Young Hunting’, Harvey sings to Cave, “You won’t find a girl in this goddamn world that will compare with me.” The sexually charged video, bubbling with tension as they sing, slow dance, and hold each other, ignited a short-lived yet passionate relationship between the two.
The pair seemed to be head over heels for each other. However, issues arose that caused Harvey to pick up the phone and end the relationship, which caused Cave to react with such shock that “I almost dropped my syringe.”
In retrospect, Cave has looked back on the relationship, writing on his Red Hand Files blog, “Deep down, I suspected that drugs might have been a problem between us, but there were other things too. […] At the end of the day, it came down to the fact that we were both fiercely creative people, each too self-absorbed to ever be able to inhabit the same space in any truly meaningful way.”
Their fleeting relationship provided plenty of creative fuel for each individual, both during and after. Cave, a long-time fan of making collages, paintings, and drawings, channelled his artistic skills into creating several artworks that declared his love for Harvey.
As part of Cave’s Stranger Than Kindness exhibition, fans had the chance to see some of these pieces. Harvey said on Twitter, “Like many musicians, I came out of art school and drawing has been an ongoing part of my life. Nick and I made a lot of drawings for each other, and here are two lovely drawings of his currently on display in his ‘Stranger Than Kindness’ exhibition at The Black Diamond, Copenhagen.”
The drawings show sketches of Cave as a naked angel, holding a sign that says “GOOD MORNING POLLY JEAN.” Another shows Cave as a devil and Harvey as an angel, kissing.
Around this time, Cave wrote Harvey an intimate love letter, which read, “Polly Jean, I love you. I love the texture of your skin, the taste of your saliva, the softness of your ears. I love every inch and every part of your entire body. From your toes to the beautifully curved arches of your feet, to the exceptional shade and warmth of your dark hair. I need you in my life, I hope you need me too.”
Harvey also made Cave a beautiful collage centred around a Polaroid photo of the two with the words “It’s not far now. We are almost there,” she said. “He saw stars and stars and stars in the sky. They had never seemed so bright. Far away he seemed to hear happy voices singing. ‘Even the skies seem to be happy tonight.’ And outside, the bright stars shone, and the happy voices sang.”
Sadly the flame that ignited during the making of ‘Henry Lee’ faded to black. The singer channelled her experience of the relationship into one of her most significant works, Is This Desire? Writing about the collage she made for Cave, Harvey said, “in some ways, the words of the collage went on to inform the song, ‘Is This Desire?’, and indeed the whole album.”
Similarly, Cave writes, “I remember our time together with great fondness though, they were happy days, and the phone call hurt; but never one to waste a good crisis, I set about completing The Boatman’s Call.”
“The Boatman’s Call cured me of Polly Harvey. It also changed the way I made music. The record was an artistic rupture in itself, to which I owe a great debt. […] The break-up filled me with a lunatic energy that gave me the courage to write songs about commonplace human experiences (like broken hearts) openly, boldly and with meaning – a kind of writing that I had, until that date, steered clear of, feeling a need to instead conceal my personal experiences in character-driven stories.”
Check out Cave’s drawings and Harvey’s collage below:
