Which wars are PJ Harvey’s album ‘Let England Shake’ about?
There is war poetry, war novels, and war paintings. There are museums worldwide dedicated to archiving the horrors and atrocities committed by armies. There are minutes of silence year upon year in the hopes that the world will remember and learn, but yet we let it happen again. There is textbook after textbook teaching about centuries of warfare. Then, when PJ Harvey released Let England Shake, the topic gained a new opus of a war album.
Writing conflict into music is nothing new. Protest music especially has a long and rich history as artists across eras, cultures, and genres have used their pen to oppose injustices and call for peace. But there is something different about Polly Jean Harvey’s 2012 record that puts it in a different class.
Sure, she is taking a stand against warfare merely by shining light on the issue in song and then dedicated much of the album’s release campaign to discussing the topic and sharing videos and images made in collaboration with war photographer Seamus Murphy. But rather than filling her lyrics with slogan sentiments, instead, Harvey takes on the role of a journalist or historian more than a musician endorsing a message. Her own thoughts and feelings don’t really get a look in as she dedicates the tracks to retelling stories from conflicts throughout history, borrowing greatly from first-person accounts from people on both sides.
It was an incredibly difficult undertaking for the artist. She’s most commonly found writing lyrics about mythical, folkloric or made-up characters, where she can choose to present her creations however she likes. She could sing those songs as theatrically and energetically as she wanted, like the tense, swelling delivery of ‘Rid Of Me’. But, the task of taking on real-life stories involving others took her a long time to figure out. It took her over two years to make the recording, including time researching the historical wars she was dealing with and then figuring out how best to do them justice. It required a total transformation as she said, “I couldn’t sing [the songs] in a rich strong mature voice without it sounding completely wrong. So I had to slowly find the voice, and this voice started to develop, almost taking on the role of a narrator.”
Which wars specifically inspired PJ Harvey’s album Let England Shake?
As suggested by the title, Let England Shake is specifically about England. It’s a critical look at England’s role in the history of war. In terms of which war exactly, it covers World War I, as well as modern conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the later two especially, a major inspiration for the album came from reading first-person testimonies from soldiers and civilians caught up in the battles.
But Harvey’s consideration of the topic is incredibly complex. She confronts the shame that England should hold, examining the country’s role in inciting major and history violence and in the atrocities its armies have committed world wide. She doesn’t shy away from critique, nor does she shy away from weaving political complexities into the album’s lyricism, all while still making it a captivating listen.
But she also doesn’t shy away from considering the multifaceted role that war and violence play in British identity and the personal, small-scale effect on it. It’s an incredibly difficult topic to try and explain, let alone put into song, but Harvey manages to consider the many ways that British people wear and remember war like a medal while still being full of shame, trauma and fear, especially on ‘This Glorious Land’.
Yet somehow still, the songs on this album became some of her most beloved. The success of Let England Shake, and the fact that it’s title track especially is still a key moment during PJ Harvey tours, is proof that audiences are capable of engaging with difficult works. And Harvey is proof that musicians, just like journalists, poets or photographers, can play a role in capturing and retelling history.
