PJ Harvey Quotes
-
I've always felt profoundly about what's going on in the world on a daily basis. What I hadn't felt was that I was at a point in my writing career where I could write about these things in songs and do it well.
→ -
I think I've been interested in music since I was little.
→ -
I'm always trying to swim to new ground.
→ -
I think I'm a maker of songs, and songs are like films or a picture: You put them over there, and they have nothing to do with you.
→ -
I work on words quite separately to music. They're both ongoing, and I don't ever feel like I'm working in a cycle in that respect, because it's every day anyway, no matter what I'm doing. Then I get to a point when I've collected together enough words that seem like they want to be songs rather than poems, or sometimes not.
→ -
If anything, I hope being an artist opens up more opportunities 'cause I feel there's a lot of things I could do, like musically and stylistic-wise that I can write, but I don't really have an avenue to show it 'cause most of the things I'm writing are in Hip Hop.
→ -
Maybe I'm just purely lucky. If I've come up against obstacles I've always found another way around it.
→ -
Obviously, the emotions I want to convey through music are streamed through the way I interpret life.
→ -
But even when I do give interviews, I always come across as such a completely different person. It seems like there's no controlling it anyway.
→ -
I try to see as much dance, theatre and films as I can because all of it feeds me in a way that I need feeding for what I do.
→ -
People like Howlin' Wolf, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, John Lee Hooker, Nina Simone, Captain Beefheart - all of these artists were what I grew up listening to every day of my life. And there's a very healthy music scene in the west country of England, where I grew up.
→ -
I feel like "Not For Long" was one for me just because I got to work with two people that I looked up to...
→ -
Yeah, I mean I am somebody that makes an effort to go and see a lot of exhibitions, painting, drawing, sculpture.
→ -
I firmly disbelieve that one has to be a tortured soul to write good music.
→ -
I was like just writing and writing and then I kinda developed my sound. And then, my managers were like, "Okay, we're gonna try to get a deal." And then first it was Interscope, and then it was Atlantic. And then, I ended up signing with Atlantic, but it was like a long process, a really long... it was A LONG PROCESS. I feel like it took me two years to do it.
→ -
I was working with D'Mile - he's amazing! And I don't know, it was like that guitar riff was so crazy to me, and so I think I was frustrated about something that happened earlier and I feel like I'm just a good guy, I don't cut people off, I don't really call people out when they do stuff that they should be called out on, and I'm just always the one being the bigger person. So, that day "Gangster" just came out. That's just how I feel in that day to day life.
→ -
As I grew older, I actually was prepared to go into fine arts school and do a degree. That was what I was actually settled upon when I was offered a record deal.
→ -
Ive always been very visceral in that I feel things very deeply.
→ -
I would listen most particularly to the countries whose language I didn't understand, didn't know what they were singing. But being a singer myself, I could understand because of the emotion.
→ -
In the past members of my family on both my mother's and father's side have fought in the war, in the first and second World Wars. Unfortunately, they're dead and I wasn't able to speak to them, but that was in our family history too.
→ -
When I'm writing for rappers it's kinda like switching, "Okay, you're not PJ. Now you have to act like a rapper."
→ -
Some people, like Leonard Cohen, write one album every 10 years, and labor over a song for five years at a time.
→ -
I've always been very politically interested from a very young age and I hadn't felt that was something I could begin to bring into my songwriting because I hadn't felt I'd reached the stage, that I had the skill with language enough, yet, to do that.
→ -
In college, I thought I wanted to be solely an artist, and then when I got here, to college, I was like, "Okay, well I want to be a songwriter," 'cause it was like close to Nashville.
→ -
My father is actually a quarry man - he deals in stone. He also at one point had a lot of sheep, he owned a sheep farm, but primarily the family business was in stone.
→ -
I've always been very interested in the visual aspect of what I do.
→ -
Writing is something that I practice at every day to get better at.
→ -
Making me into a role model is placing too much importance on what I see as a work in progress.
→ -
[Writing] has helped me meet people.
→ -
I didn't know folk music growing up, no. It's something I've come to study, really, because I think there's so much to learn from traditional music in the sense of the way music began as a way of communication, the traveling storyteller, the bard, the minstrels.
→
Related Authors
-
Mark Lanegan Musician -
Laura Marling Musician -
Kate Bush Singer-songwriter -
Grace Slick Singer-songwriter -
Steve Albini Singer -
Nick Cave Musician -
Patti Smith Singer-songwriter -
Tori Amos Singer-songwriter -
Joshua Homme Musician -
David Bowie Musician -
Iggy Pop Singer -
St. Vincent Singer-songwriter -
Thom Yorke Musician -
Cat Power Singer-songwriter -
Marianne Faithfull Singer -
Jeff Buckley Singer-songwriter -
Bjork Singer-songwriter -
Siouxsie Sioux Singer-songwriter -
Liz Phair Singer-songwriter -
Tom Waits Singer-songwriter