In praise of PJ Harvey
and proof that children are always listening…
I have severe FOMO today, as Ian’s gone to see PJ Harvey at Gunnersbury Park in London with our daughter, Becky. It was her gift to him for Father’s Day this year. I’d have gone too, but I’m heading off on a choir trip.
I’ve seen PJ Harvey play live several times over the years. The way her voice and style changes from album to album is miraculous.
In 1995 I used to play her album, To Bring You My Love, on repeat after my daughters, then aged eight, were in bed, and the house was put back in order.
I knew the rhythmic bass lines would carry up the stairs and I wondered what the children made of its passion and rawness. Would they one day come to appreciate it in the same way I did as I sang along? “Big black monsoon, take me with you…” A release. A shrugging off of maternal, adult responsibilities and embrace of inner wildness.
Decades passed. My daughters strode off into their own lives. Then Becky1, wrote this poem.
It’s included in her collection, Dangerous Enough (Salt Publishing, 2023) and with her permission, I’m including it here:
Wight
For Wendy Varley, after PJ Harvey’s ‘Meet Ze Monsta’, 1995
Living being, creature, person, a little child, little girl, spirit of the earth, dwarf, gnome, imp, creature, demon, a thing, something, anything
– various etymologies of the word ‘wight’
The road misty as ghost intestines,
we drive through rising white
as an eagle hunts through snow.
I grow homesick.
On St Catherine’s Down, a ruined chapel echoes
hollow as a bone flute, where beacons were lit
for those drowned at sea.
Its continuity reassures us
even in its hauntedness,
as, before it, the clay cliff
crumbles and collapses,
white chalk glowing over surf
like a calmer cousin.
I wash up on shore again,
too nervous to make it past the bay.
Sometimes paths break on nothing;
we adjust our hopes or steps.
My mother doesn’t direct me,
knowing we must get up on our own;
she says her dreams are full of storms
and she doesn’t know the way.
Like her I wake at 5am
with thoughts racing,
remember her singing in a nearby room
to the record’s slow monsoon, mysterious life.
Child or gnome or wight, I knew
that I was only part of her.
I was astonished and moved. It answered my question. Becky had caught the music drifting up the stairs, remembered it, understood it (understood me), and like the alchemist that she is, all those years later expressed it better than I ever could.
So if you wonder whether children are listening when you’re in the next room, they probably are.
Mind you, you can’t guarantee that they will “catch” your musical enthusiasms.
When my son Milo was small, the two of us would go together to Camp Bestival, Rob and Josie da Bank’s family-friendly festival at Lulworth Castle in Dorset.
We listened to talks in the literature tent (Charlie Higson on the origins of the novels Dracula and Frankenstein; Jon Ronson on The Psychopath Test). Milo learned to knit a scarf for his teddy (well, two inches of it before he got bored). He produced a wicker boat that’s still perched on a shelf. One of those small child creations I have no clue what to do with, but can’t bear to part with.
The live music was almost secondary some years, but in 2009 PJ Harvey was playing the Big Top and I pleaded with Milo to humour me.
“You know how excited you’d be if you got to see Doctor Who? Can you imagine it? Well, I LOVE THIS WOMAN like you love Doctor Who!”
“He’s called The Doctor, not Doctor Who,” he said.
But he relented and watched her set with me.
In a demure white dress, she played old favourites, then sat with the auto-harp to debut songs from what became the Let England Shake album.
My son’s review as he meandered sleepily back to the tent afterwards was, “That lady is proper crazy.”
I just checked with Milo, now 22, whether he is a PJ Harvey fan. “Not really. I know you and dad and sisters are fans, but I don’t know her music.”
“Do you remember seeing her at Camp Bestival when you were seven?”
“No. No recollection whatsoever.”
He does remember Camp Bestival with affection. Finding the tent in the dark, the vibes, the activities. And some of the music. Just not PJ Harvey.
Ah well. I tried!
Thanks for the lovely feedback on my previous posts. Please do like, share, comment.
Do you agree that children are always listening? Are you a PJ Harvey fan? Have you taken children to music festivals? Did you go to music festivals as a child?
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Until next time!
© Wendy Varley 2024
Becky’s Substack is here:
For good or ill, the children are always listening.
What an amazing and evocative poem by your daughter, Wendy!
🥹