Waxing Night And Dwindling Day

PJ Harvey “A Child’s Question, August”

In the context of Polly Jean Harvey’s incredible body of work “A Child’s Question, August” falls into an intriguing aesthetic space between the relentless grey atmosphere of Is This Desire? and the ghostly sound of White Chalk. The arrangement is creeky and plodding, as though a series of unrelated mechanical and naturally occuring sounds have magically clicked together into music. Harvey sings near the top of her register on the verses, adapting poetry written in Dorset dialect from Orlam, her recent novel-in-verse. I have not read the book so the greater context is mostly lost on me, but the song is very effective in conveying a mournful tone and a sense that we’re listening to a broken person who’s resigned themselves to a very small life of bleak fatalism. The one flicker of hope in the song is in Harvey and Ben Whishaw invoking Elvis Presely on the chorus, referencing “Love Me Tender,” but approaching the concept of tender love with skepticism. It doesn’t quite crack the cynicism and despair, but it registers just enough to suggest a way out.

Buy it from Bandcamp.