"A Perfect Day Elise" is a song by English

alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...

musician

PJ Harvey Polly Jean Harvey (born 9 October 1969) is an English singer, songwriter, and musician. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments. Harvey began her career in 1988 when she joined loca ...

. Written solely by Harvey, the song was released as the lead single from her fourth studio album, ''

Is This Desire? ''Is This Desire?'' is the fourth studio album by English musician PJ Harvey, released on 28 September 1998 on Island Records. It was re-released on vinyl LP in late January 2021. A separate demo compilation of tracks from the album titled ''I ...

'' (1998), in September 1998 through

Island Records Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, anoth ...

. The song became Harvey's highest charting single in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

, peaking at number 25. An accompanying music video for the song, directed by Harvey's frequent collaborator

Maria Mochnacz Maria Mochnacz is a British photographer and music video director, best known for her collaborations with PJ Harvey. Life Mochnacz holds a degree in fine arts. She also attended a photography course in Weston-super-Mare. Notably, she does n ...

, was released in 1998.

Background and reception

Similar to the other songs on ''Is This Desire?'', "A Perfect Day Elise" narrates individual portrait of a female protagonist, named "Elise" in the song. According to the authors of ''Disruptive Divas: Feminism, Identity and Popular Music'', Lori Burns and Melisse Lafrance, Harvey's vocals are recorded "with the effect of she is enclosed, while her voice is also layered with an

octave doubling In music theory, voicing refers to two closely related concepts: # How a musician or group distributes, or spaces, notes and chords on one or more instruments # The simultaneous vertical placement of notes in relation to each other; this rela ...

." On his review for ''Is This Desire?'', James Oldham of ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' wrote that the song "will provide you with some idea of what's to come, but even its rumbling momentum and overloaded percussion is no preparation for the brutality of some of the material here." on his review for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'',

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...

described the song as "the uptempo single" off the album; nevertheless he also stated that the song "rocks to nowhere." Paul Verna of ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' compared the song to other contemporary U2 tracks that were also produced by

Flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

Track listing

UK CD single (CID 718) # "A Perfect Day Elise" – 3:12 # "The Northwood" – 1:57 # "Sweeter Than Anything" – 3:11 UK CD single (CIDX 718) # "A Perfect Day Elise" – 3:12 # "The Bay" – 3:14 # "Instrumental #3" – 1:02 UK 7" # "A Perfect Day Elise" – 3:08 # "Sweeter Than Anything" – 3:11 # "Instrumental #3" – 1:03 US promo CD # "A Perfect Day Elise (Single Version)" – 3:03 # "A Perfect Day Elise (Research Hook)" – 0:10

Charts

References

External links

*
PJ Harvey - "A Perfect Day Elise" official music video
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perfect Day Elise 1998 singles PJ Harvey songs Island Records singles Song recordings produced by Flood (producer) Songs written by PJ Harvey 1998 songs