The song "The Wind" was inspired by Saint Catherine, and in particular St Catherine's Chapel, Abbotsbury. [6] [7] dawn is also said in, "electric light," but it's ambiguous as to whether dawn is a girl or a time of day. Never big on lyrical explication, Harvey has always complained that people tend to project her personal life on to songs that she approaches like a short story writer, something evident from Send His Love to Me’s saga of an abandoned wife going slowly nuts in her remote desert home. 40. The Wind (1998) One of the most important elements of this personal growth was Harvey deciding to be kinder to herself. “You come to a point where you have to allow yourself to like yourself a bit more,” she told The Times. “I used to feel I didn’t deserve it. That was always seeing the negative again. Now I have learned to say it’s all right to like yourself.” As for how she was able to get to this point, she cited age (“One develops a much larger perspective on life”) but also life’s vicissitudes. “There has been a lot of death around me, people I know. But there have been quite a few births around, too — friends of mine having children. That broadens your horizons. It has allowed me to see what is worth worrying about and what isn’t.” The main character in Working For the Man could, theoretically be a travelling salesman with religious leanings, but it seems considerably more likely he’s a serial killer: certainly, the murmured, close-mic’d vocal and skulking spookiness of the music – not to mention its abrupt ending – suggest something very unpleasant indeed. 29. Oh My Lover (1992)

it was the first time I was listening to a woman sing about being imperfect as well as many of the uncomfortable experiences women face. This was a huge change from the more polished pop I was used to." Christgau, Robert (15 December 1998). "Consumer Guide". The Village Voice . Retrieved 15 November 2011. a b Sheffield, Rob (15 October 1998). "Is This Desire?". Rolling Stone. No.797. Archived from the original on 12 November 2007 . Retrieved 28 June 2004. French compilation certifications – PJ Harvey – Is This Desire" (in French). Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique.

She eventually got help from bandmate John Parish and video/art director Maria Mochnacz, who moved her into their basement.

Leah” proved a turning point. She began therapy while continuing to work on the record, and her growing understanding of herself crept onto Is This Desire?. She composed on a keyboard rather than her usual guitar, which affected her process: hunched over a small portable keyboard, she found herself writing “more thoughtfully.” You would describe On Battleship Hill’s keening vocal and folk-inspired melody as pastoral, but it is hardly a hymn to bucolic serenity: a walk through a former battlefield, unable to shake its lingering sense of death, troubled by the thought that, this time, human nature has irrevocably ruined nature itself. 16. C’mon Billy (1995)dawn is nervous about her relations with joe (again, the romantic idea that women wish to civilize men and their feelings.). as lord pembroke said, dawn becomes nervous when they go to the forest. she's not as willing to embrace her carnal desire for joe, but she was willing enough to go to the forest in the first place. dawn tries to distract joe by building a fire with him. perhaps the building of a fire represents that she wants her feelings for joe to build up to the point where they're flaming with passion. her fire had been cooled once they arrived in the woods, meaning that she was passionate and willing until she was actually in the situation. she needs things to be heated up again before she goes all out. i assume that dawn is a virgin, because she's young and nervous about the concept of sex.

Perhaps because she didn’t shy away from anger or sexuality — and was a young woman expressing anger, at that — her persona was scrutinized more closely. “On the first couple of albums, I was finding a voice for the first time to say an awful lot of stuff that was stored up inside me,” Harvey told The Times in 1999. “I was very young and confused, so yes, those early albums are very angry. I was exploring that and finding a way to express it, and thought there is joy and a vibrant energy there, too. But you get categorized and it becomes rigid, and it doesn’t allow you space to develop and grow.” i think that the sylvan imagery/natural setting is a metaphor. the characters desire each other in a primative way; the fact that they're building a fire, that they're in trees, walking on sunsets, barefoot, etc, helps to show the carnical nature of their desire for each other. British album certifications – PJ Harvey – Is This Desire?". British Phonographic Industry . Retrieved 13 August 2018. With PJ Harvey's tenth album on the horizon, Rough Trade East's Amelie Grice (a musician herself in Skin and Blister) examines her long-lasting fascination with Harvey's idiosyncratic discography and the impact she has made as one of Britain's most inspiring female artists. There is a compelling argument that Let England Shake is Harvey’s masterpiece: its richness and breadth are clear here, an implausibly pretty, echo-drenched song about rioting cities and drowning in sewage, bolstered by a sample from Niney the Observer’s 1970 reggae hit Blood and Fire. 5. Sheela Na Gig (1992)The year was 1998 and the era of the angst-ridden artist was coming to a natural conclusion. Grunge was long dead, Radiohead had just changed the face of mainstream music in a way no band really had before and that left PJ Harvey in a strange position. She had made a name for herself in the early 90s as foolhardy lyricist on albums such as Rid Of Me (when “PJ Harvey” was a band) and it was clear that if she kept that image up she would end up becoming just another forgotten artist of the time. It could be argued that Polly began her transition on To Bring You My Love but Is This Desire is where her transformation truly began from a headstrong, no nonsense lover to meditative and contemplative songwriter. And essentially, this is why I rank this album higher than any of her preceding or subsequent ones; there are just too many emotional stories and secrets waiting to be unraveled, all of which incredibly significant in their individual compelling ways, and in some ways, even entwined.