PJ Harvey - Is This Desire?

Hell Hath No Fury like PJ Harvey's "Is This Desire?"

by Jeffrey Overstreet

Copyright © 1998 by Jeffrey Overstreet.
Reproduction is forbidden without permission of the author. Contact Jeffrey Overstreet at joverstreet@gmail.com.

It might be easier for people to introduce themselves to the work of PJ Harvey by hearing her fourth record, "Is This Desire?", first. Many get scared off by the searing sound of "Dry", "Rid of Me", "Four Track Demos", and "To Bring You My Love". Harvey is one of a kind. More self-assured than Patti Smith, more honest and shocking than Liz Phair and Courtney Love, and I challenge you to find a female vocalist more willing to share her feelings despite the consequences. She's not a sensationalist or a poser; she's real, and that's why she's scary.

On this record, Harvey decides to stop being scary herself and instead give us something of a breather by pointing to other scary characters around her. It reminds me of Christ finally tiring of trying to explain things to people and saying, "Let me tell you some stories." The stories inspire contemplation. But they're also very puzzling. This album is appropriately titled with a question mark.

And the question seems to officially introduce a new theme to her work. PJ's usual theme is simple: she demands R-E-S-P-E-C-T. From men, from women, and from God. These characters, however, demand something more than respect. They demand perfect love, and are devastated by its elusiveness.

PJ carefully avoids making this an "I - am - woman - and - I - never - get - a - break" record. Men and women are given almost equal time. (In fact, Christ himself may be walking in "The Garden", yearning for a cup different than the one he is given to drink.)

In "A Pefect Day Elise", the album's champion track, she tells about a man "who got lucky one time/ hittin' with the girl in Room 509". After an afternoon's lovemaking, in which his eyes are opened to the transcendent glories of intimacy, he is cast out. Not just out of her room, but out of intimacy… forever. He will never find the same heights of joy and transcendence as he did in the girl's bed. Perhaps years later, we're not sure, he returns to the room and stares out the window at the same beautiful view, his mind imprisoned in that memory of stolen passion. The possibility of an experience as beautiful as that connection now haunts him, and his loneliness is worsened by his knowledge.

But it is the women of the record that dig the deepest scars in the listener. In "Catherine", Catherine is a woman so beautiful that the singer cannot find a moment's peace while someone else enjoys Catherine's love. (The singer's sex is ambiguous—PJ's voice is slowed down to frightening effect) Another nameless woman is so terribly beautiful "under electric light" that the singer says to look upon her tears his (?) heart out. Desire is a devil on this record, ever seeking who it may devour, tormenting those who recognize beauty and cannot reach it.

PJ tinkers with her music to fit the spooky stories she has to tell. After four records of pushing her electric-guitar trio to the edges of searing noise, she seems now exhilarated by the freedom electronic music gives her. (She co-produced the album with Flood, who transformed U2 into an electronics powerhouse with "Zooropa".) Vocally, she dons a shocking array of personas: Shrieking banshee. Howling wind. Sultry beat poet. Frail prostitute yearning for a salvation that seems two thousand miles away.

In "The Wind", a lonely woman moves to an isolated hilltop where she can rest and make "noises like the whales"; the music cooperates, and the eerie whale-cries and winds that envelop the scene pulls the listener above the clouds to that beautiful and desolate place. (Is this lonely Catherine—who has been so hurt as to run from the world—the same Catherine who is so desired by the desperate singer of "Catherine"?)

The new sounds cast appropriately dark enchantments; but the guitars are still the backbone, buzzing and thundering so we experience something of the urgency of these lost souls. It sounds like a world where time is running out.

As I listened to the album over and over, addicted to its contagious rhythms and subtle undercurrents, haunted by its stories, I began to wonder, is there an answer offered to the question of the title? Does PJ believe desire is a hopeless compulsion that brings only pain? I thought of U2 singing that, although they have found salvation in Christ Jesus, they "still haven't found what [they're] looking for." In the last song, the title cut, the question is spoken outright, by a couple who sees their love's first flush fading—"Is this desire enough to lift us higher…?"

And perhaps we should not expect an answer. How could we? Those who understand the sufferings of Christ are those who know that love makes one a stranger in a strange land. If we aspire to dwell in heaven, to love faithfully, this world becomes something of a hell. Most of these characters are doomed never to find heaven because they place their hopes in frail human objects. But there are signs PJ Harvey suspects a higher plane of love. In "The River", the closest thing to a ballad she's ever written, she describes a couple walking along a river bank, casting their sufferings into the water, finding some kind of grace in the way sunlight scatters on the water, like a whisper from God. This is a place where love transcends sex and romantic passion. One hopes it is a resolution for the troubled couple of the title track.

Overall, Harvey's concocted a dangerous brew that opens our eyes to things we might not want to see, but which are true nonetheless. Love is a risky journey, fraught with perils, and more often than not leads to disappointment. Jesus especially knows this heartbreak, and that might well be Christ himself in "The Garden", who is greeted by a close friend with a kiss. PJ freeze-frames the moment, turns to us, murmuring, "and there was trouble taking place."