Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell picks her favourite PJ Harvey song
Swiftly becoming one of the indie icons of our time, Wolf Alice singer Ellie Rowsell stands out from her peers as a leading light in the genre. Moving between angelic vocals on tracks like ‘No Hard Feelings’ or ‘Silk’ to the raucous rock of ‘Fluffy’ or ‘Smile’, Rowsell draws clear inspiration from a whole lineage of women in rock, folk and indie. But one of her multitudes of influences stands out most: PJ Harvey.
Listen to any Wolf Alice song, and you’ll hear their reverence for Harvey. Refusing to be stuck in any one mode or feeling, Wolf Alice’s back catalogue holds the same level of variety as Harvey’s, featuring everything from gentle ballads to all-out, mosh-pit-opening indie-rock ragers.
Rowsell is quick to admit her regular referencing of Harvey, telling WFUV that she’s “all too often tried to emulate” Harvey’s performances. Sharing her top five PJ Harvey songs, one winner came out on top. Crowning the ‘White Chalk’, the title track of PJ Harvey’s 2007 record, as her top, Rowsell says, “This is my favourite PJ Harvey song”.
Discussing the impact of the lyrics especially, Rowsell praises PJ Harvey’s pen, stating: “The lyrics are almost like a nursery rhyme and yet I feel the personal depth of this song, especially knowing that PJ comes from Broadchurch where the cliffs are — and also the dark turn this song takes in the last verse.”
Rowsell’s lyricism smacks of Harvey’s influence, managing to be both full of sentiment while still sharp and cool. Take a track like ‘Don’t Delete The Kisses’ for example, as Rowsell moves from the wailing chorus of “What if it’s not meant for me? Love” into spoken word, flowing verses about date nights and crushes. It’s the same formula PJ Harvey masters on iconic tracks like ‘Rid Of Me’ or ‘Good Fortune’.
While PJ Harvey references Bob Dylan and Captain Beefheart as artists that have inspired her unique rock, folk and punk crossover, Wolf Alice have previously pulled out artists like Fleetwood Mac and Lana Del Rey as inspirations. Talking to Zane Lowe about their love for unique and strange details in music, Roswell said: “Sometimes I feel like when you do something weird that no one would pick it out, and often, those are the things ..the weird way you do things.”
‘White Chalk’ has weirdness in abundance as PJ Harvey’s vocals echo through the track. Picking its unique and haunting sonics out the reason the song stands out to her, Rowsell said: “I mainly love it for its instrumentation, though, and the beautiful vocal effect.”
One listen to Wolf Alice’s 2017 record Visions Of A Life, and you can hear the impact of ‘White Chalk’. Playing around with vocal effects far more than on their debut album My Love Is Cool, their second album clearly borrows from the dark, rich storytelling and experimentation PJ Harvey is beloved for. Winning the Mercury Prize for it in 2018, it’s hard not to wonder if Wolf Alice could go on to usurp PJ Harvey, who is currently the only artist in history to have won the prize twice, sweeping it in 2001 for Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea and 2011 with Let England Shake.
Only time will tell, but for now, it’s obvious that Wolf Alice are deeply inspired by the incredible impact PJ Harvey has had on indie.
