''To Bring You My Love'' is the third
studio album 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 mainstream or commerci ...
musician
PJ Harvey. It was released by
Island Records in February 1995. Recorded after the break-up of the
PJ Harvey trio, it stands as her first proper solo album. The songs on the album are heavily influenced by American blues music.
Harvey co-produced the record with
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 ...
and
John Parish
John Parish (born 11 April 1959) is an English musician, songwriter, composer and record producer.
Parish is best known for his work with singer-songwriter PJ Harvey. He has also worked with such artists as Eels, Aldous Harding, Tracy Chapm ...
. ''To Bring You My Love'' would be the first of Harvey's many collaborations with Flood and Parish. The music on the album was played largely by Harvey and Parish, with contributions from seasoned musicians Joe Gore,
Mick Harvey
Michael John Harvey (born 29 August 1958) is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, arranger and record producer. A multi-instrumentalist, he is best known for his long-term collaborations with Nick Cave, with whom he formed The ...
, Jean-Marc Butty, and others. Many of the musicians who appeared on the album joined Harvey on tour to support it in 1995.
''To Bring You My Love'' is considered to be PJ Harvey's breakthrough. It garnered massive critical acclaim worldwide and became her best-selling album. The single "
Down by the Water" received extensive airplay on radio and on
MTV. The album was placed on ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
'' magazine's original list of
the 500 greatest albums of all time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is a recurring opinion survey and music ranking of the finest albums in history, compiled by the American magazine ''Rolling Stone''. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and indust ...
.
Background and History
PJ Harvey took a break from the spotlight in 1994. After releasing two studio albums (''
Dry'' and ''
Rid of Me
''Rid of Me'' is the second studio album by English singer-songwriter and musician PJ Harvey. It was released by Island Records in May 1993, approximately one year after the release of her critically acclaimed debut album '' Dry''. It marked ...
'') and a compilation (''
4-Track Demos
''4-Track Demos'' is an album of demos by British singer-songwriter PJ Harvey. It was released in October 1993 by Island Records. It consists of eight demos of songs from her previous album, ''Rid of Me'', along with six demos of some unrelea ...
'') in less than two years, she kept a low profile for most of the year. Harvey made only one public appearance in 1994, performing
The Rolling Stones' "
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" with
Björk at the annual
BRIT Awards
The BRIT Awards (often simply called the BRITs) are the British Phonographic Industry's annual popular music awards. The name was originally a shortened form of "British", "Britain", or "Britannia" (in the early days the awards were sponsored ...
.
Using the royalties she received from her first two albums, she bought a house in rural England close to her parents' home in
Yeovil
Yeovil ( ) is a town and civil parish in the district of South Somerset, England. The population of Yeovil at the last census (2011) was 45,784. More recent estimates show a population of 48,564. It is close to Somerset's southern border with ...
. She described her new home as "completely in the countryside. I have no neighbours. When I look out the window, all I see are fields."
[DeLuca, Dan, "Songwriter PJ Harvey is reaching out to her fans", The Philadelphia Inquirer, 31 May 1995, pg. E01] Living in near isolation, she began writing the songs that would appear on ''To Bring You My Love''.
Music and Lyrics
The subject matter and tone of the songs on ''To Bring You My Love'' differ somewhat from what Harvey had presented on her earlier albums. The songs on ''Rid of Me'' (1993), for example, are more aggressive in their depictions of relationships. They focus more on revenge ("Rid of Me", "Rub Til It Bleeds"), or act as an attack on traditional masculinity
("Man-Size", "50ft. Queenie", "Me-Jane"). Although these songs do directly consider longing and loss, many of the songs on ''To Bring You My Love'' focus particularly on these topics, specifically considering the loss of, or longing for, a departed lover. The title track presents a narrator who not only desires love but is willing to sacrifice everything to get it. "I’ve lain with the devil," Harvey sings, "Cursed God above/Forsaken Heaven/To bring you my love."
Many of the songs on ''To Bring You My Love'' employ biblical imagery such as Heaven, God, and Jesus Christ. Harvey, however, is not a religious person. She wasn’t baptized and did not attend church as a child.
[Dollar, Steve. "Preview; PJ Harvey" The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Arts section, p. 2M, 4 June 1995.] She spoke of her use of religious imagery by saying "I look towards religion as possibly one means to finding an answer, to making sense why we’re here. That’s what drives the creative force, to make sense of one’s life. A very natural place to look is in that divine area, because it’s so strong and has been here long before us."
Many references are made to one of Harvey's major influences,
Captain Beefheart. The opening line of the album, "I was born in the desert", is also the opening line of Beefheart's debut album, ''
Safe as Milk''. The album's second track, "Meet Ze Monsta", borrows the line "meet the monster tonight" from Beefheart's "Tropical Hot Dog Night", the second track of his album ''
Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)'', an album which Harvey has said had a particular impact on her. A lyrical and melodic resemblance to Beefheart's "Dropout Boogie" is also found on the track "I Think I'm a Mother," and the vocal melody at the end of Harvey's "Teclo" ("Let me ride on his grace for a while...") seems to mirror Beefheart's melody in "Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles".
Musically, the album is more complicated than ''
Dry'' or ''
Rid Of Me
''Rid of Me'' is the second studio album by English singer-songwriter and musician PJ Harvey. It was released by Island Records in May 1993, approximately one year after the release of her critically acclaimed debut album '' Dry''. It marked ...
''. Two guitar parts are used in many of the songs, in most cases played by Harvey and Parish. Acoustic guitar and strings, used sparingly in her previous releases, can be heard throughout ''To Bring You My Love''. Bells, chimes, and a
vibraphone
The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist ...
add to the atmosphere of the recording. Keyboards and organ are also used extensively, a result of much of the album being composed on a Yamaha keyboard Harvey bought second-hand.
[Rosen, Craig, "U.S. radio brings Harvey its love- 4th Island set poised for mainstream", Billboard, 18 February 1995.] The deep, rumbling organ tones provide many of the lower notes on the album, replacing traditional
basslines.
[Jenkins, Mark, "PJ Harvey: Electric Blue", The Washington Post, Sunday Arts, p.G10, 5 March 1995.]
Recording
''To Bring You My Love'' was Harvey's first album of new material since disbanding the original PJ Harvey trio in 1993. For this recording she recruited producer
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 ...
, her old Automatic Dlamini bandmate
John Parish
John Parish (born 11 April 1959) is an English musician, songwriter, composer and record producer.
Parish is best known for his work with singer-songwriter PJ Harvey. He has also worked with such artists as Eels, Aldous Harding, Tracy Chapm ...
and a new line-up of session musicians including multi-instrumentalists Joe Gore,
Eric Drew Feldman
Eric Drew Feldman (born April 16, 1955) is an American musician. Feldman has worked with Captain Beefheart, Fear, Snakefinger, The Residents, Pere Ubu, Pixies, dEUS, Katell Keineg, Frank Black, The Polyphonic Spree, Tripping Daisy, Reid Paley, C ...
,
Mick Harvey
Michael John Harvey (born 29 August 1958) is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, arranger and record producer. A multi-instrumentalist, he is best known for his long-term collaborations with Nick Cave, with whom he formed The ...
and drummer Jean-Marc Butty. She herself played guitar, keyboards, vibraphone and bells on the record, as well as co-producing it with Flood and John Parish.
Reception
As her second full-length release on a major label, ''To Bring You My Love'' received a heavy promotional push from
Island Records. Extensive
MTV rotation and college radio airplay for the first single "Down by the Water" — with its eccentric, eye-catching
Maria Mochnacz-directed
music video
A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device ...
of Harvey drowning in an emerald pond while wearing an extravagant wig, heavy make-up and a slinky red satin evening gown — gave Harvey her biggest radio hit to date, reaching #2 on ''
Billboard''s Modern Rock chart.
The album itself debuted at #40 on the ''Billboard'' 200
and #12 in the UK, and went on to sell roughly one million copies. The moderate commercial breakthrough of ''To Bring You My Love'' had nothing to do with any scaling-down of her trademark lyrical intensity: the
infanticide fable "Down by the Water" — whose whispered
coda of "Little fish big fish swimming in the water/Come back here, man, gimme my daughter" references the old
Lead Belly blues standard "Salty Dog" — ostensibly deals with a mother drowning her child.
The critical response was overwhelmingly positive. ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
'' praised the record as "astonishing" in its four-star review.
''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'' shared the same point of view, writing that Harvey's performance "make
the record stand out from its peers"; reviewer Nicholas Barber saw it as "a threatening, nightmarish creature", adding "imagine
Siouxsie
Susan Janet Ballion (born 27 May 1957), known professionally as Siouxsie Sioux, is an English singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. She was the lead singer of the rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees (1976–1996). They released 11 ...
and the
Bad Seeds". ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'' noted the "rich imagery" of the lyrics, writing that "in the most gripping moments,
.. arveyspeaks with the captivating clarity and force of someone reaching for a final, life-saving anchor."
Accolades
The album received universal acclaim. It was voted as the best album of the year in ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, th ...
''
's
Pazz & Jop
Pazz & Jop was an annual poll of top musical releases, compiled by American newspaper ''The Village Voice'' and created by music critic Robert Christgau. It published lists of the year's top releases for 1971 and, after Christgau's two-year abs ...
critics poll by a wide margin,
and was also voted the year's number-one album by publications such as ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
'', ''
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 d ...
'', ''
People
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
'', ''
USA Today
''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...
'', ''
Hot Press
''Hot Press'' is a fortnightly music and politics magazine based in Dublin, Ireland, founded in June 1977. The magazine has been edited since its inception by Niall Stokes.
History
''Hot Press'' was founded in June 1977 by Niall Stokes, who co ...
'' and, in "the biggest landslide victory in 15 years", the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
''. It featured in Top Ten lists for magazines like ''
Spin'', ''
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 ...
'', ''
Melody Maker'', ''
Mojo
Mojo may refer to:
* Mojo (African-American culture), a magical charm bag used in voodoo
Arts, entertainment and media Film and television
* MOJO HD, an American television network
* ''Mojo'' (play), by Jez Butterworth, made into a 1997 film
* ' ...
'' and ''
The Wire
''The Wire'' is an American crime drama television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The Wire'' premiered on June 2 ...
'', though a contrarian ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' list dubbed it the "Worst Album of 1995." The album received two
Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pr ...
nominations as Best Alternative Music Performance and Best Female Rock Vocal for the single "Down By The Water", and was nominated for the
Mercury Music Prize
The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize, is an annual music prize awarded for the best album released in the United Kingdom by a British or Irish act. It was created by Jon Webster and Robert Chandler in association with the B ...
. ''Spin'' magazine later ranked it at number 3 in a list of the best albums of the 90s.
In 2003, ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
'' magazine ranked the album at number 435 on its list of
the 500 greatest albums of all time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is a recurring opinion survey and music ranking of the finest albums in history, compiled by the American magazine ''Rolling Stone''. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and indust ...
.
''
Slant Magazine'', in 2011, rated ''To Bring You My Love'' as the 20th best album of the 90s. As of December, 2005, (according to AskBillboard) ''To Bring You My Love'' has sold 371,000 copies in the US.
Track listing
Personnel
Musicians
*
PJ Harvey -
vocals
Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...
,
organ,
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...
(1, 4, 5, 8),
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
(5, 6),
vibraphone
The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist ...
(1),
marimba
The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...
(9),
bells (5),
chimes
Tubular bells (also known as chimes) are musical instruments in the percussion family. Their sound resembles that of church bells, carillon, or a bell tower; the original tubular bells were made to duplicate the sound of church bells within a ...
(5),
percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...
(9)
*
John Parish
John Parish (born 11 April 1959) is an English musician, songwriter, composer and record producer.
Parish is best known for his work with singer-songwriter PJ Harvey. He has also worked with such artists as Eels, Aldous Harding, Tracy Chapm ...
- guitar
(1, 2, 6, 9, 10), organ
(6),
drums (4-8, 10), percussion
(1-4, 6, 7, 9, 10)
*Joe Gore - guitar
(2-4, 6, 7),
e-bow
The EBow, short for electronic bow or energy bow, is an electronic device used for playing string instruments, most often the electric guitar. It is manufactured by Heet Sound Products, of Los Angeles, California. It was invented by Greg Heet i ...
(1)
*
Mick Harvey
Michael John Harvey (born 29 August 1958) is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, arranger and record producer. A multi-instrumentalist, he is best known for his long-term collaborations with Nick Cave, with whom he formed The ...
-
bass (6), organ
(9)
*Jean-Marc Butty - drums
(2), percussion
(9)
*Joe Dilworth - drums
(3)
*
Pete Thomas - string arrangements
*Sonia Slany -
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...
(4, 7, 9)
*
Jocelyn Pook
Jocelyn Pook (, rhyming with "book"; born 14 February 1960) is an English composer and viola player. She is known for her scores for many films, including ''Eyes Wide Shut'', ''The Merchant of Venice'' and '' The Wife''.
Education
Pook gradua ...
-
viola
; german: Bratsche
, alt=Viola shown from the front and the side
, image=Bratsche.jpg
, caption=
, background=string
, hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71
, hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow
, range=
, related=
*Violin family ...
(4, 7, 9)
*Jules Singleton - viola
(4, 7, 9)
*Sian Bell -
cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...
(4, 7, 9)
Production
*
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 ...
-
producer,
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...
,
mixing
*PJ Harvey - producer, engineer
(1, 4, 5, 7)
*John Parish - producer
*
Howie Weinberg
Howie Weinberg is an American audio mastering engineer with over 2,257 mastering credits, three TEC Awards, 21 Grammy Awards, two Juno Awards, and one Mercury Prize.
Career
Weinberg mastered Herbie Hancock's 1983 album '' Future Shock''. Other ...
- mastering
Design
*Martin Callomon -
artwork,
art direction
*
Valerie Phillips
Valerie Phillips is a New York City-born fashion photography, fashion photographer, based in London.
Biography
Valerie's biggest influences are things she loved as a child: outer space, gymnastics, skateboarding and the paintings of Dante Gabriel ...
-
photography
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employe ...
*
Kate Garner
Kathryn Mary Garner (born 9 July 1954) is a British photographer, fine artist and singer.
Early life
Born in Wigan, Lancashire to Anne Philomena Shannon and George Sandeman Garner, a factory worker and a sailor, Garner was expelled from high s ...
- photography
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Singles
Certifications and sales
!scope="row", Worldwide
,
, 1,000,000
, -
References
{{Authority control
1995 albums
PJ Harvey albums
Albums produced by Flood (producer)
Island Records albums
Albums produced by John Parish
Blues rock albums by English artists