60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “Down by the Water”—PJ Harvey

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

Listen as Rob highlights why ‘Loaded Weapon 1’ is the single greatest movie he's ever seen in theaters before he eventually dives into PJ Harvey’s “Down by the Water” and plenty of other ’90s songs from the singer-songwriter. Later, Rob is joined by Yasi Salek of ‘Bandsplain’ to discuss their celebrity twins, PJ Harvey’s music catalog, and much more (56:30). Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Yasi Salek Producers: Jonathan Kermah and Justin Sayles Additional Production Support: Chloe Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Joanna Robinson. Join us every week on the Prestige TV podcast feed is your favorite ringer hosts like Bill Simmons, Van Lathen, Mallory Rubin, Sean Fentasy, Chris Ryan, Julia Lippman, and many more cover the latest episodes of your favorite TV obsessions. From boardrooms to throne rooms to courtside and through the mushroom apocalypse, we'll be here throughout the week breaking it all down. Subscribe to the Prestige TV podcast feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. The single greatest movie that I have ever.

seen in the theater in my life is called Loaded Weapon One. It came out in 1993. It is a humorous, sophomoric, naked gun type parody of the lethal weapon franchise. It stars Emilio Estevez, Samuel L. Jackson, and Kathy Ireland, and it probably sucks. That's all I got. That's all I can tell you. That's all I want to know. I will not be providing audio excerpts from this movie. I will not be scare quotes researching it in any way whatsoever. Don't talk to me about this movie. I don't want to hear it. All I know and all I ever want to know about this movie, it's called Loaded Weapon One in honor of lethal weapons propensity for sequels in the grand tradition of naked gun 33 and a third or Hot Shots Part Due. All I know about Loaded Weapon One is that I saw it in the

theater when I was 14 and I thought it was the greatest movie, just the funniest shit I'd ever seen in my life, a visceral, honest, unguarded, delighted, rapturous teenage response. I laughed to the point of physical injury. I just about died, man, 14 years old. I don't remember anything I was laughing at. I don't remember who I saw it with. Nothing. I got, and I do have this, all I got is a clear mental image of the theater itself, the physical dimensions of the theater, the empty seats around me. I'm one of like six people watching this movie tops, the glowing blank screen before the movie started, the direction in which I was facing relative to the other movie screens and the multiplex. I'm in one of the tinier, crudier,

dirtier theaters within the multiplex, right? Because nobody cares about this movie because it probably sucks. Don't. Don't tell me. Don't tell me anything. Everyone should have childhood, teenage memories like this, movies, TV shows, music, whatever, that you loved. And now you remember absolutely nothing about them except that you loved them. All you remember is that visceral, honest, unguarded, delighted, rapturous response. And you will never, ever go back to see if maybe that shit actually sucked. One time a friend of mine, she was talking about Spice World, the Spice Girls movie. And she says, I loved Spice World when I was 12. And I have no intention of ever finding out how wrong I was. Exactly. I cherish this memory of loaded weapon

one, specifically because it's barely a memory at all. I cherish this memory because it consists of exactly two things, a vague sense of the layout of the movie theater itself, and a vivid sense of my dumbstruck 14-year-old delight. The second greatest movie that I have ever seen in a theater in my life is called Wayne's World. And this, of course, I remember in granular detail. I think we'll go with a little Bohemian Rhapsody. Gentlemen, 1992, 13 years old. I do believe I'm on a date with a young lady, an unfortunate junior high classmate who is palpably not.

into me but who gives a shit about that now wainsworld packed theater friday night my dumbstruck delight everyone's dumbstruck delight the collective teenage euphoria of the bohemian rhapsody scene in wayne's world heartbreak feels good in a place like this if you ran up to me on the street today and you were like Rob, top five greatest movies of the 90s, go. I'd panic, right? I'd go, uh, until you got super uncomfortable and walked away, but I'd be fixated for days, right? Top five greatest movies of the 90s. I'd scour my brain and my brain would be useless, so I'd scour the internet instead. I'd look up a bunch of prestigious canonical top 100 movies of the 1990s lists. I'd start several arduous Google Docs. I'd painstakingly go year by year and I'd obsessively curate the perfect, broad, enlightened, thirsty, surprising, urban but down to earth, sophisticated but not too sophisticated, personal top five movies of the 90s list.

And maybe I'd reserve one slot for a transcended ultra dumbass comedy that I actually loved as a teenager in the theater at the time. Maybe happy Gilmore would sneak in there. Maybe not. but I'm telling you, the ultra-arduous list I'm constructing now at 45 years old, almost 25 years after the 90s ended. That list is bullshit. What matters is my list of top five movies I loved as a teenager in the theater at the time. Number one, loaded weapon one. Number two, Wayne's World.

Number three, the trailer for Ace Ventura when nature calls. Ace Ventura when nature calls. Not the whole movie, the trailer, not even the trailer, the teaser trailer for Ace Ventura when nature calls. This particular teaser trailer is one of those surprise fake out deals where it starts out all serene and beautiful, sunrise photos of wild animals and the deep voiced in a world. Voiceover guy is rhapsodizing about the harmony between man and nature on the great plains of Africa. And then Jim Carrey jumps into the frame doing wacky histrionic Jim Carrey shit. And everyone in my theater, this totally packed theater just dies laughing, just absolute

bedlam. It takes the theater 20 minutes to recover. We're deep into the movie we actually paid to watch before we recover. I got no idea what movie we were even watching, but who gives it shit? Nobody gave a shit. Fourth greatest movie I ever saw in the theater, Cabin Boy. Now I know what you're thinking. What could be strange than a big fat ass floating cupcake? Hey, how about one that spits tobacco? I'm actually not going to give you any context for that. I'm just going to tell you that I was 15.

And I remember like six of the people I saw this with. And we all thought the big fat ass floating cupcake that spits tobacco was close to the funniest shit we'd ever seen in our lives. fifth greatest movie I ever saw in the theater. Fine. Palt Fiction. I remember both the friends I saw this with and my physical orientation in the theater, the direction I was facing relative to the other movie screens the first time I saw Pulp Fiction. But what I remember most vividly is laughing out loud at that precise moment. The opening credits. When Dick Dales, Measerlou is playing an incredible volume and the opening credits have run through all the famous people in Pulp Fiction, but now there's a super quick top to bottom scroll of everyone else in the movie,

right as that piano kicks in. I laughed out loud. I'll never forget it. The movie had just started, and I was already spellbound and delighted. And if you want to know to the truth, super intimidated. Because Pulp Fiction, now it's 1994, now I'm 16. And I'm starting to get the impression that there are movies and then there are films. There is cinema.

loaded weapon one in Wayne's World and Ace Ventura when nature calls and cabin boy are movies whereas I didn't fully grasp this when I first walked into the theater but Pulp Fiction is a fucking film then I go to college and I meet a bunch of film people and I remember vividly the very first time those film people

sat me down and said and now my friends we watch a film. I think I'm kind of falling in love with you. It's the first time for me, you know? Leon the Professional by Luke Besson from 1994, starring Jean Reno, Gary Oldman, and a 12 years old at the time, Natalie Portman.

This isn't the filmist film you ever heard of in your life. Okay, fine. It's not Stalker or the Seventh Seal or whatever. Fine. You got to start somewhere. as a film person. And I started with a professional. The gurgling noise there is Jean Reno

doing a spit take with the milk. He's drinking. He does that way too many times in this movie, which is not necessarily everyone's biggest problem with this movie now. How do you know it's love if you've never been in love before? Because I feel it. Where?

You're in my stomach. And 12-year-old Natalie Portman sprawled out in the bed and now the camera's on her stomach. Anytime anybody interviews, Natalie Portman now about anything. They asked, remember when you were in the professional, when you were 12 years old and it got a little,

uh, letcherous? And Natalie's like, yeah. Most recently in May 2023, Natalie diplomatically described this movie as cringy. That's a good word. I don't bring up the professional to relitigate this. I bring up the professional because it's the first movie I ever watched with the expectation that it would be art.

I knew going into this movie that my visceral, honest, unguarded, delighted rapturous, still teenage response was not as important as my intellectual response. You know, true story. I'm sitting in somebody's off-campus apartment watching the professional amidst film people, and there's a match cut in the movie, right? I think there's a shot of Jean Renaud's suitcase with a rifle in it. It's on somebody's table, and now it's on the roof of a building. And when the match cut happens, somebody in the room with me calls out match cut, just like that. Match cut, if you want to be a film person, whenever you see a match cut in a film, you have to say match cut out loud.

It's the rule. You know how when you're on a road trip and you pass a field full of cows and somebody in the car is to call out cows, same principle. All right, but now here I'm in college. Every movie I watch going forward, no matter how highbrow or lowbrow it might be, I'm processing it now as film, as cinema, as art, as an intellectual exercise. not an emotional exercise. So I follow young Natalie Portman to a movie called Beautiful Girls. So what do we do?

Last poor Romeo, we can't eat dilly. You'll go to penitentiary. I'll be the laughing stock of the Brownies. If you're feelings for me a chew. You'll wait. Beautiful Girls by Ted Demi from 1996, starring Matt Dillon,

Timothy Hutton, Rosie O'Donnell, a bunch of other famous people and a 14 or 15 year old Natalie Portman. Great movie. A comedic on Wii. A real mellow midlife crisis dudes rock vibe. Super chill and genial. Also, arguably, Beautiful Girls is cringier than the professional as cringy uses of super underage Natalie Portman go. Given that Timothy Hutton plays a dude back in his hometown for his 10-year high school reunion and Natalie Portman plays a 13-year-old girl.

in his old neighborhood, who does indeed try to convince Timothy Hutton to hang around for five years until she turns 18 so they can be together. It was a different time. Was it a different time? It was an earlier time. Wait? Yep. Wait, five years. I'll be 18. We can walk through this world together. I don't think Timothy Hutton's character considers this proposal, and I don't think the movie, considers it, but the heartwarming piano that kicks in right there don't help. That's my observation. Adult Natalie Portman has talked about this movie as well. She's talked about being aware of the fact that she was portrayed as this Lolita figure in her early movies. She's talked about the consequences of being

sexualized as a child, but I don't bring up beautiful girls to relitigate this either. I bring up this movie because there's a scene in a bar. There's a rowdy bar band playing in this small town bar. and Michael Rapapore and Uma Thurman are slow dancing. Never mind why. It was an earlier time. What matters is the music they're slow dancing too. Forget Michael and Uma and Natalie for that matter. Who is that guy?

Is that guy singing in tune? Who cares? How rad is that guy? Exactly. Tell me about that guy. Let me tell you about that guy. guy, Greg Dooley, the pride, the joy, the id, the libido of Cincinnati, Ohio. Greg is the lead singer of the Afghan Whigs, Rock Soul Legends, the single greatest band ever

emerged from Cincinnati, Ohio, with apologies to the national, the ass ponies over the Rhine or the Isley brothers. Shit. The Afghan wigs are way, way up there in terms of all-time bands from Cincinnati, Ohio. Afghan wigs are an all-time great rock band who genuinely appreciate the all-time greatness of the Isley brothers. There we go. I love the Afghan wigs with all my heart. I love Greg Dooley with all my heart.

Greg Dooley's voice drops on this weirdly sweet movie, beautiful girls like a bomb. It is fantastic. He sounds so dissonant, so lecherous, so sleazy, and yet so earnest. He transcends both conventional morality and tonality. He oozes charisma and deceit and gin. He's like if your dad's secret pornography stash was a person. He's like if a dive bar bathroom condom machine could write poetry. He is the toxic masculinity Avenger.

He makes mellow slow jams sound like blood-soaked orgies. He's a pretty rad guy, in my opinion. Well, you can kiss me on. You can kiss me on. That song is called But Listen, and it appears on the first Afghan Wigs album, Big Top Halloween, released in 1988. They sound like their replacements a lot of the time

and an undeveloped but promising version of themselves the rest of the time, which was true of lots of debut albums from 80s and 90s rock bands. The Afghan Wigs signed with sub-pop records, hook up with extremely recent Nirvana producer Jack Andino, and in 1990 they put out up in it, the first sub-pop album by a band outside the Pacific Northwest. And look out,

these fellas don't sound much like the replacements no more. Greg's this sort of guy who can make even the word, yeah, sound confrontational and ill-advised and world historically obscene. Also, I interviewed Greg Dooley once over the phone for a thing, and I asked him about being in the movie, beautiful girls, and he was like, yeah, it was great, man.

We just played in that bar, and Natalie Portman and Uma Thurman were in charge of bringing us drinks. And I go, oh man, that's awesome. That must have been one of the greatest days of your life. And Greg goes, not even close, dude. I can fix him. 1992. Afghan Wigs put out their third album, Congregation. And starting with the album cover, there's a whole lot going on here, including an alarmingly sincere cover of a song from Jesus Christ Superstar.

Greg Dooley's tongue works fine. Now, once again, we approach a perplexing crossroads, where I tell you that the next three Afghan Whigs records, gentlemen in 1993, Black Love in 1996, and 1965 from 1998, are three of my favorite albums of all time. And that three album run is among my favorite three album runs by anybody ever, including the Isley brothers.

I love the Afghan Whigs, truly. madly, deeply. I love Greg Dooley's harsh, pornographic band for life from multiple national hotel chain's ass voice. I've loved it since I was like 14. But what perplexes me is I love these records so much that I don't have a lot to say about them now. They transcend analysis, or at least my analysis. I long ago crossed a threshold. My response now is entirely emotional and not at all scare quotes intellectual. All I have to say about the album Black Love, for example, is that on a song called Bulletproof,

Greg moves on from the word, yeah, and finds a new conventional pop song word that he can make sound confrontational and ill-advised and world historically obscene. But gentlemen, from 1993, that's the record, right? That's the truly beloved and feared Afghan Whigs record. Starting with the album cover, there's a whole lot going on here. The gentleman album cover, without it all being explicit or exploitative, is quite disturbing in a Natalie Portman in the professional sense.

As for our pal Greg's morality and tonality, I think he sums it up quite efficiently on an extra vicious slow jam called When We Two Parted. Yeah, in 1993, at 15 years old, after acquiring this, record in a Columbia House transaction, if you want the truth? I very quickly grew to love this record, gentlemen, precisely for how bad it was for me, how detrimental it was to my moral and tonal development. Greg Dooley darkened and poisoned words like, yeah, and love and baby. He collapsed the distinction between love and hate, between sex and emotional violence, between the barroom dance floor and the penitentiary. He was feral and illicit and malevolent and from Ohio. And incredibly, this lady was from Ohio as well. Marcy Mays, member of the great Columbus

Ohio band Scrawl and the guest star lead singer of the Godtier Afghan Whig song, My Curse. Marcy suggested to 15-year-old me, politely but firmly, that Greg maybe didn't have a monopoly on feral, illicit, pornographic, emotionally violent malevolence. This should not have been a great revelation to me. It for sure should not have been a great revelation to me that a woman could sound this illicit and malevolent. But I hasten to remind you that I was 15 and my favorite movie was Loaded Weapon One. Greg Dooley seems to realize on this song that as galactically licentious as he might sound, there's still a hard limit to how galactically licentious he can sound. A glass ceiling, if you will, or a glass floor. In 1994, the Afghan Wigs play the Redding Festival.

That's in England. I wasn't there. I was in Ohio. But during their set at the 1994 Redding Festival, Greg Dooley and the Afghan Wigs played part of a song that to many people is a great deal more sacred than anything off Jesus Christ Superstar. Greg Dooley likes his cover songs. I have heard Greg Dooley sing songs by Usher, Frank Ocean, The Clash, The Police, TLC, Prince, and the Rolling Stones. Greg's always on the hunt for new frontiers in dissonant malevolence. I can assure you that Greg took great delight in informing the 1994 Redding Festival about his child-bearing hips and ruby red ruby lips. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 97th episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s and I can also assure you that this week we are discussing down by the water by

PJ Harvey from her 1995 album to bring you my love. P.J. Harvey is both the person, the Deified singer-songwriter Polly Jean Harvey and her band, whatever musician she's got backing her up. Think Santana or Chade. I consider like 12 different PJ Harvey songs if you want the truth, but let's do Down by the Water, shall we? That's this one. But I also considered the earlier PJ Harvey song that our friend Greg is currently singing. So let's let Greg take a shot at singing the chorus to that song first. Eh, nah. Greg gets a little drowned out by all the super doodly guitars, right?

We better let her take over. A Shealy and a gig is an 11th or 12th century carving of a naked woman with super exaggerated nether regions. I spent quite a lot of time deciding how to say that. for more information on that, I refer you to a 2021 article in The Guardian with the headline Big Vagina Energy, the return of the Sheelan a Gig. I haven't read that article yet. Now, I'm not saying that Polly Jean Harvey in the early 90s named this song Sheelan A Gig because she knew that it would supremely embarrass me, a dude bro podcast host from Ohio 30 plus years later when I had to

explain that song title out loud to you. No one is saying that. I'm not saying that. That would be narcissistic of me to assume that she named this song, that then, just to antagonize me now. That's ridiculous. However, Polly Jean Harvey is such a supernatural, all-powerful, illicit, malevolent type figure that I don't think we can rule it out. You know? Okay, the first thing you ought to know about PJ Harvey is that Natalie Portman is a huge fan and always has been. We got Natalie Portman on the cover of 17 magazine

in November 1995. Natalie's only 14 at the time. But she says, quote, I love girl singers like Julianna Hatfield, Bjork, and PJ Harvey. You can really relate to their lyrics and they have such angelic

voices. Most heavy metal guys just scream. End quote. Match cut, cows. In 2018, Natalie Portman played a pop star in this movie Vox Lux. And she told the Toronto star, quote, I came of age in the 90s. And I was listening to Jeff Buckley, Julianna Hatfield, and PJ Harvey, the indie and all rock moment. I had my Doc Martins and little baby barrettes and baby doll dresses. I don't really remember who was pop back then. But I started to listen to a lot of pop music for this movie. And I read. really have come to appreciate it. End quote. I haven't seen that movie. Vox Lux. Somebody I trust saw it and she was like more like Vox sucks and I thought, okay, well, never mind. I will tell you that I'm genuinely glad that 1995 Natalie Portman found

PJ Harvey. I think the 12-year-old girl who made the professional was primed to truly get PJ Harvey on a frightening and necessary molecular level. That song is called Dress from PJ Harvey's debut album called Dry and released in 1992. A quick litmus test for how you might interpret her lyrics going forward. Is the line Must Be a Way I Can Dress to Please Him Entirely Viscously Sarcastic? Is it humorously sarcastic? Is it only partially sarcastic? Or is it not sarcastic at all?

The notion of Polly Jean Harvey doing anything at any time, solely to please anyone else feels absurd to me. Maybe that's just because I personally find her tremendously intimidating. That may be a failure of my imagination. But then again, the snare drum here sounds like a shotgun to me, and I don't imagine that's an accident. You purdy-th-th-ang, my man says. That's Purdy, P-U-R-D-Y and Thang, T-H-A-N-G.

That's very funny, actually. That explains some things. Polly Jean Harvey was born in October 1969 in Bridport in the County of Dorset in rural southwestern England. Our dear friend Yasi Salick, who hosts some mighty Bansplain podcast, we'll be

chatting with Yassie in a little while here. Yassi devoted two full episodes like eight hours total to PJ Harvey, joined by the great critic and author Ann Powers. They talk about Polly Jean Harvey's childhood for at least one of those hours. It's fantastic. I listen to that while I

my kids to the park. Here, I took some notes on the Bansplain overview of Polly Jean's childhood. Let's see. Ringing the sheep's testicles. Mom carved headstones. Do I want to bone Paul McCartney or be him? Favorite song, Soft Cell Tainted Love? Excellent choice. Captain Beefheart isn't just for boys. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And finally, PJ Harvey's Dry. is like Weezer's Pinkerton. Ooh, we'll have to ask, Yossi, about that one. I love Pinkerton a whole lot, but Pinkerton ain't got anything quite as rad as this slide guitar.

The backing vocals there. Storm is gone. The call and response. The eerie echo. Sometimes it's Polly herself. Sometimes it's her bandmates. Sometimes it's both. The backing vocals are key there and key throughout.

The sense of an audience. of a choir of a Greek chorus, of an army, of a ghost. The sense that she's screaming into an abyss, but a disembodied voice in that abyss is screaming back at her. This song is called Victory, and it gets quite victorious indeed. Young Polly Jean Harvey learns to play saxophone and guitar, for starters. She studies art and sculpture at Yoville College. She falls in with a Bristol-based band called Automatic Dlamini, a noisy, percussive art folk sort of deal,

but she is destined to take a couple dudes from that band and form her own, basically eponymous band, PJ Harvey. Dry comes out in 1992. Polly Jean is joined by Steve Vaughn on bass and Rob Ellis on drums and some other stuff. This is a debut rock record in 1992. It certainly doesn't sound anything like the replacements, but Nirvana has broken, punk has broken,

Alt Rock has broken. Super quiet verses and super loud choruses have broken. It's a great era if you like bombastic, subversive ominousness, punctuated by snare drums that sound like shotguns. Cactus by the Pixies just popped into my head just now. And I can hear so clearly either PJ Harvey or the Afghan wigs covering cactus. That'd be so rad. Do you want to hear that now?

Cactus by the Pixies? I thought so. me too okay okay sorry rock music broadly defined in the early 90s broadly defined at its best as defined by me takes after the pixies narrowly defined so here in nineteen ninety two p j harvey's dry fits into that zeitgeist in the 80s in america at least we called it college rock but now here in the 90s we call it alternative rock and you maybe don't even have to go to college to hear it dry is not quite quite quite high profile enough to get played on mainstream radio, but it's certainly great enough to be an immediate massive influence on the high profile alt rockers who are getting played on mainstream radio. Kirk Cobain put both Dry and the Pixie Surfer Rosa on his famous handwritten list of his 50 favorite albums. What sets dry apart? What sets PJ Harvey apart to my mind is this sense that she's standing apart, that she's this figure of grave, ferocious isolation.

There is this singular, spectacular folk horror malice to her voice, her lyrics, her stern aura. This song is called Fountain. To this day, I hear that word, fountain, and I think of Bjork singing, I'm a fountain of blood. And that's the sort of fountain I'm picturing here as well. I can't watch horror movies at all, man. scary movies bleak movies I can't do it I'm too compassionate

I think it makes me sound cooler I think the last scary movie I saw in the theater was scream the first one from 1996 when I was 18 it's pretty cool of me but I do respect scary movies

as the spiritual twin to my beloved transcendent ultra dumbass comedies in the loaded weapon Ace Ventura Cabin Boy, Vane. I respect that scary movies also trigger a visceral, honest, unguarded, delighted, rapturous, but also terrified response. So with apologies to scream and Dr. Giggles and any other scary movies I saw in the theater

at the time, let me tell you now about the scariest thing I ever watched as a teenager, the video for man-sized by PJ Harvey. This is the first time in my life I ever heard or saw Polly Jean Harvey. Man Size is on the second PJ Harvey album, Rid of Me, from 1993. So I'm 15. I'm watching late night MTV. And I fancy myself a tough, sophisticated, unintimitated, open-minded guy. But what the hell's going on here?

First of all, the snare drum sounds like a shotgun again. Second of all, I am processing this song correctly as a number. 1993 rock song with quiet verses that will inevitably lead to a very loud chorus. But at 15, I am having trouble processing just how unnervingly quiet this first verse is. You have to lean in unnervingly close to Polly to even begin to make out what she's saying. She just said skinned alive, by the way. And that's how she's going to get you. Oh, goodness gracious.

Even the kick drum sounds like distant cannon fire. that's not anywhere near distant enough, if you ask me. But the real problem with this video is Polly Jean Harvey herself. Pretty much the whole man-sized video is just her, sitting in a chair, lip-sinking most but not all of the song,

and also bouncing around and winking, and making jazz hands, and head-banging, and playing with her hair, and using her fingers to pull the corners of her mouth up into a smile, and generally radiating this truly discomforting combination of goofiness and total hostility. She's somehow the scariest thing I've ever seen on

either a TV or a movie screen, even before the very loud chorus finally shows up. Also, Polly Jean is not wearing pants in the man-sized video, but I swear to you that at 15, I was too confused and frightened by this video to ever even notice that. I'm serious. What would be the point of my lying about that now. Rid of Me, the album is produced by your friend and mine. I'm joking on both counts. Steve Albini, the infamously scabrous and minimalist anti-super producer Grumpus, best known for working with the Pixies, and also the breeders, and also in 1993 Nirvana, on in utero. So Rid of Me vibrates with the infamous, glorious, antisocial austerity of a Steve Albini project, the almost but not quite cartoonish severity, the grinding guitars, the grating drums,

the radiant terrible attitude. If you're 15 years old and you were listening to Death Leopard two years ago and then Nirvana happens, so now you're listening to Nirvana, but you're used to Nevermind era, Nirvana, the Death Leopard-esque gloss and glitz of smells like teen spirit and so forth. If that's your vibe, it was my vibe, then your first exposure to rid of me might be fatal. It almost killed me. In the video, she's pretty much head-banging the whole time at this point. Oh, sorry, except for this part right at the end where the lights are dimming and she leans way over to one side in her chair and just smiles right at the camera. This is the scariest music video of the 1990s. I just decided that. I'm amazed I survived watching this

for the first time as a 15-year-old. I'm way too compassionate and sensitive for this sort of thing. Dau's hair with gasoline. Set it light and set it free. Rit of Me, the album has the song called Legs, about how maybe she's going to cut off your legs. It has a song called Dry,

because you leave her dry. It is a song called Rub Till It Bleeds, which is maybe about a, uh, duh, oh, right. It also has a song called 50 foot queenie. Tell you my name, F-U-C-K, that's extraordinary.

The unhinged sprinting downhill rhythm of this song, bu-bah, bu-ba, is extraordinary to me. 50-foot-queenie is the sound of Polly Jean Harvey decimating several city blocks. This song is what Godzilla's saying, on karaoke night. Godzilla and Mothra sharing a mic on karaoke night. Listen to this shit.

When the scary voice screaming into the abyss fully aligned with the even scarier voice screaming out of the abyss, that's when it's time to get the hell out of town. This song is also tremendously funny. I think you'll agree. And I suspect you'll get your ass kicked if you don't. And so on. I got to watch it. I'm getting dangerously close to badassifying PJ Harvey, if you'll forgive the term. I do believe I once promised in this venue to stop calling women, stop calling female rock stars badasses who are super intimidating and are going to kick my ass up and down the street. Quit it.

Knock it off, Rob. But that pretty much sums up my teenage mentality. It's tempting now to spend all my time now making fun of me back then. Right? There's 15-year-old me back in 1990. curled up into the fetal position under my bed, just deathly terrified of PJ Harvey. It feels a little silly to me now.

Yeah? It feels like quite a shallow reed of her. I'd listen to gentlemen by the Afghan wigs and think, what a fascinating, sophisticated, psychosexual exorcism of the pain you inflicted in yourself or all the pain you've inflicted on the sexy people you love. And then I'd listen to PJ Harvey and I'd think, this scary lady is going to throw me out the fucking window.

I don't know that I had the critical. or emotional faculty to really process this person and this person's music at the time as a teenager given my woeful, swagless cabin boy mentality. And indeed to this day, P.J. Harvey triggers this reflex in me. A primal fear, a visceral, honest, unguarded, delighted, rapturous, terrified teenage response. Rid of me, the album starts with the title track, which starts with 45 seconds of wordless, innocuous, bone-chilling, barely audible buildup, this folk horror world-building flourish. And to this day when I hear it, I still lean in toward it, subconsciously, still fascinated, still terrified. I know what's coming, and I can't stop myself.

45 seconds of that. Forty-five seconds of waiting to hear her voice and knowing that her voice will barely be audible even when you can finally hear it. And at this point, I'm leaning in even closer, and I'm just bracing myself for the jump scare, right? Large Marge. Large Marge from Pee Wee's Big Adventure. A top five movie of the 80s, if you want the truth. Large Marge is probably, to this day,

in context, the scariest shit I've ever seen in my life. I listen to Rid of me now, and I feel like Peewee Herman riding shotgun in Large Marge's semi. It's pitch black outside and Large Marge is telling a scary story and I'm just bracing myself

insufficiently. And when they finally pulled the driver's body from the twisted burning wreck, it looked like this. You would better appreciate how brave

I was just now to go watch the large marge scene again on youtube i did not want to do that i was legitimately scared to do that tremendously brave and noble of me to once again deal with large marge i did that for you you're welcome all right polly jean tell us what the driver's body looked like when they finally pulled it from the twisted burning wreck that was my pee-wee hermit impression. Incredibly brave and noble of me to do that as well for you. You're welcome. So that's where I am on PJ Harvey in 1995 when I'm 14, 15 years old. And now I got to deal with this lady

scaring the shit out of me on mainstream alt rock radio as well. BJ Harvey's third album to bring you my love comes out in February 1995. The first two records, band was a trio technically, but Steve Vaughn and Rob Ellis are out of the picture now. And PJ Harvey, the band, now more than ever, will from this point on consist of Polly Jean Harvey and those with whom Polly Jean Harvey chooses to collaborate. It's a nine-inch nails type situation, I suppose. To Bring You My Love is her best-selling album. It debuted in the top 40 of the Billboard album chart at number 40, but it counts.

Billboard's chart search function sucks now. I wish it ill. But down by the water is comfortably P.J. Harvey's first big radio hit. And I believe it peaked at number two on Billboard's modern rock tracks chart. And I do believe it was kept out of the number one spot by lives lightning crashes. Now that's funny. That's funny to me. I imagine she wouldn't find that funny.

You tell her about lightning crashes, dude. Ain't no way I'm going to do that myself. Storm is gone. The backing vocals are back. The echo is back. The ghost is back. The Greek chorus. The voice in the abyss.

We are no longer in a Steve Albini grumpus austerity frame of mind. A big part of what gets down by the water on the radio. And to bring you my love on the charts is the newfound lushness. The Gothic gloss. The alternative rock finery. The speaker rattling baseline. Right? The shakers.

The shakers are super important. This is high production value unease. Down by the water was produced by Flood, the actual super producer of U2 and Nine Inch Nails Renowned, and frequent PJ Harvey collaborator John Parrish and Polly Jean herself. This song sounds humid. It sounds alive. It sounds fantastic on headphones,

especially when the super antsy strings kick in. And that's all you really need chorus-wise right there, eh? That and a little mortifying whispering. Yeah, that's mortifying, eh? How many times did I hear this refrain, this fade out on alt rock radio in the mid-90s, sandwich between boppy saws by counting crows and like bush? The car radio's on and that whispering fades out and I'm white as a sheet. And then I'm supposed to just listen to Wonderwall, like a calm, well-adjusted person.

I don't think so. This is a murder ballad, eh? That seems fairly straightforward. And Powers in the bands playing PJ Harvey Opus. And hypothesizes that there's a sexual subtext as well. Little fish, big fish, swimming in the water. There's a sperm aspect. That tracks.

I can't believe I just said that. But that tracks. But no, mostly murder is transpiring here. A? Fictional murder, notably. In 2005, Polly Jean told Spin, people assume my songs are autobiographical, but I'm not a dark person like the characters in my songs. Some critics have taken my writing so literally to the point that they'll listen to Down by the Water

and believe I have actually given birth to a child and drowned her. End quote. She doesn't sound annoyed, though, by this misconception. You can interpret this song however you want as long as you keep the hell away from her while you're doing it. Talking to spin back in 1993 around the time of RID of Me, Polly was already talking about critics, about media intrusion, about not telling interviews anything personal, about encouraging these projections and misconceptions.

She said, The biggest protection you can have is if people think they've got you and they haven't got you at all. End quote. To bring you my love is where Polly moves even more forcefully into fiction, into short story territory, but blunt, gothic, menacing, unsparing short stories.

Think Flannery O'Connor. Think the lottery. Think the lottery if she personally were throwing stones at your head the whole time. We're back to badassifying her a little bit, but I don't know any other way to process a song that loud that is actually called Long Snake Mown.

Another notable parallel between PJ Harvey and the Afghan Whigs is that we've got white alt-rockin types adopting the sound and the swagger of American Southern blues. Right? The Afghan Whigs call an early song, Son of the South.

And I'm like, yeah, Southern Ohio. Okay, Kentucky's right over the bridge, sure. Big deal, relax. And to bring you my love is where PJ Harvey leans further into the John Lee Hooker, the Howlin Wolf, the Robert Johnson of it all. Listening to her sing about how you ought to hear

her long snake moan, there is a subversion here, an audacity, and not just across gender lines. But look, I love, say, Tom Waits, but I don't necessarily believe everything Tom Waits says he's done. But even when she insists, she's not being autobiographical, I don't believe PJ Harvey when she tells me in interviews not to believe her in songs. got a book. This is the opening and title Tracted to Bring You My Love and there's a long, slow,

ominous fade in here as well. And a palpable Large Marge energy as well. And if Large Marge could sing like this, maybe I'd believe she's a Southern blues band too.

P.J. Harvey actually toured with live the bands, the Lightning Crashes. B.J. Harvey opened a bunch of shows for live. I just stumbled across that. I knew that. I forgot about that. Now, that's funny. I can so clearly picture trembling teenage me going to see live and getting super excited for lightning crashes and I alone. And hell, even white discussion. But then out of nowhere, I metaphorically, but also physically murdered by Lives Opening Act. Tell him Large Marge sent you. Real quick. Quick, can I tell you my all-time favorite PJ Harvey song? It's from the year 2000. It's from her stories from the city, stories from the sea album.

But here's where a decade or so of cultivating a disquieting, forbidding, threatening, quote-unquote, badass mystique really pays off. A rooftop in Brooklyn morning, watching the lights flash. In Manhattan. This song's called You Sest. something. It's about how she was on a rooftop and quote unquote you told her something and she's never forgotten it. I don't go in much for solving songs, right? I don't need the right answer. I don't need to know who you're so vain is about. Frankly, I wish I didn't know who you ought to know is about,

etc. But this song, you said something. I really want to know what you said to her. I'd pay a couple thousand bust to know what you said to her. I feel like Polly Jean Harvey has achieved the precise amount of artistic distance, not too close to us, but not too far away from us, still sitting in the chair from the man-sized video and staring us down that makes us curious what she's talking about, precisely what she means. We know she'll never tell us. We know she'd just as soon kill us as tell us anything. But that only makes her more intriguing. Now, doesn't it? said something that I've never forgotten. I forgot everything I knew about Loaded Weapon One and so much of all the other shit I used to love.

But I'll never forget her, not forgetting the thing you told her that I'll never know. And that's why I love her so much. It is our privilege to be joined once again by Yassi Salik, the best podcaster alive, host of both Bansplaine and her new interview show 24 question part. people. She keeps putting Zoom screen grabs of my giant head on her Instagram stories. I think that's great. Thank you. Yasi, hello. Welcome back. Hello. Bange, Rob. Yes, that's right. I'm in Paris. Thank you for asking. First of all, you already know that you are the best podcaster alive, and you know that because many people message both of us about it. They like to tell you, which is gorgeous, and I think

they should, but it does seem slightly like none of my business, not my problem for them to continuously tell me. Do you know what I mean? Well, I tell them to tell you, but yes, that is. I will tell them to stop doing that now. It's just needed a little validation there for a little while, but I'm fine now. I'm better. Yasi, if you don't mind my saying, you have mentioned from time to time that you look quite a bit like Polly Jean Harvey. It was. What's that like for you? Do you feel like you hear her music in a more intense and perceptive way given this connection that you have? Okay, first of all, the way you said that makes it sound like I'm like one of those psychos that tells people the doppel ganger that I have, which like you're not allowed to do because it's crass. People have told me that, first of all. Let's clear that up for the record.

Please. I apologize. Yes. I happen to agree, but it was told to me. Yeah, it's like, you know, I don't know. It's like how dogs can hear a certain frequency. I think I can just hear it better being a fellow dark-haired, unusual beauty. People tell me I look like Ray Romano. So hopefully that makes you feel better. I wasn't telling you that. So you would tell me that.

That was not, okay. It's not even just that you look like him. You have the like ambiance of it. You carry the same genus sequo. Did I mention that I'm in Paris? Yeah, okay, let's move on. Wow. During the two-part bands played episode that you and Ann Powers did on PJ Harvey, you compared the first PJ Harvey album Dry to Weezer's Pinkerton, which was a new one on me. What's the connection there? I don't know about you, babe, but I like blackout when I record these podcasts. And often people will be like, oh, my God, you said this thing. And I'll be like, I believe you. because you listened, but I don't know what you're talking about.

Because when you pre told me that that was a thing that you were going to ask about, in my notes, I just wrote what? So, no, I don't know. I don't know what I was meant by that. Sorry. That was a me of one year ago, and that me doesn't talk to this, me, who's down in Paris. I was going to say, Paris, you has a very different perception of both PJ Harvey and Weezer. I think dry, I could, are you sure that I said that?

I'm fairly certain that you said it. I was at a playground. There were like children around. I was like hastily taking notes like on my notes app. It's possible that I misidentified that. But why would I make that up, I guess, was my thought. Was I saying rid of me was like Pinkerton? Because Dry is the first.

Was I making like a second album comparison? It's possible it was rid of me. Any PJ Harvey album being compared to a Weezer album is frankly a new one on me. So if you just want to pick the album that's, Weezer-like and say why? I think one thing about PJ Harvey that's really interesting, especially in those first two albums, is that she does a lot of exposing and unearthing of ugly parts of her own desire and sexuality,

which I think we can all agree is also a hallmark of the album Pinkerton. So if I had to guess, perhaps that's what I was getting at or not. I have no idea again. Yossi from a year ago, I don't know her. That sounds plausible. That sounds like a plausible thing, Yossi from a year ago would say. We just leave it at that. I was thinking about the song, dress, about the line must be a way that I can dress to please him,

which I have always taken as like 100% sarcastic and biting and caustic. But I think that's my exaggerated like intimidation talking. Like am I missing a huge part of her appeal if I insist on seeing her as this daunting and scary an invulnerable person who's never trying to please anybody. Just to be clear, you're scared of BJ Harvey. This is adding, we're adding this to the list of the things that are scared. My fears, that's right. We do have a running, yeah, it's, that's, that's way up there, way more than the Abba side project.

Or the corn album cover. That's, yeah, she's scarier than corn. I'll say that. Yeah, I do think that you're wrong. I think that. Ray, if you don't mind me saying. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think it is caustic, but it's also earnest, like at the same time. It's like sort of like desperate but resentful.

You know what I mean? Like it's holding within it this truthful desire that is ugly and that she resents having, but it doesn't make it nonetheless there. Like, I think that's what makes it so resonant. Like she's not one of those like, you know, Andrea Dworkin, like, man-hating femme cell feminists, you know, who just like actually just hate sex and they're like, man, the worst. It's like a little more nuanced what she's doing. And it's more like, I don't know, I feel like it's more, she's reckoning with herself more than she's, I think people love to sort of distill it down to like her music is like in relation to the man that she's addressing. but it's more, I think, in relation to her own desires and experiences of how she experiences.

Galaxy brand, do you see what I'm saying? That was amazing. It's, yeah. Paris U is just, just amazing. I know, she's so much more sophisticated than she. It's philosophical. Yeah, I, you know, I always grouped together, rid of me, pod by the breeders, and in utero in my head, right? And I love all three of those albums, but I'm pretty sure that rid of me is the best one.

Like, is PJ Harvey the ultimate the best Steve Albini collaborator? Like something about her harshness and his harshness just meshes perfectly for me. Do you think that you sonically group them together? Like, or just because those are like three famous Albany albums? I think it's sonically. There's something, it's like the drums first. There's just, I keep going back to this word. harshness, but there's just, there's something so stark and menacing to me about them, you know,

and in utero feels like a direct sort of reaction to rid of me, you know, that was, that was Kirk Obain trying to get that sound, you know, and pie. I think quite literally was, right? Didn't he like, yeah, didn't he hear rid of me and then say, get me that albany man on the horn? That's exactly, that was verbatim what he said. get me that Albini man on the horn. On the horn, bro. Kirkobane. No, yeah.

Well, is it the best one? I think so. Me personally, I'm a little biased. Those are three excellent albums. So it's a neck and neck. It's funny that you said that because I remember when I was researching this album that she said she specifically wanted him because of how he records drums. So your thinking is

spot on. You are the world's best music podcaster. With a Ray Romano aura. I'm still processing that. Yes, okay. A Ray Romano, should I say, yes.

I think about down by the water is the moment where PJ Harvey breaks through. Wait, I have another thing to say about Steve Albini. Please. You're just trying to just get through this, huh? You don't even want to talk to me.

I don't want to be told who Elis. else's aura I resemble, right? Like, I feel like we're going downhill. You brought it up again. You brought it back into the conversation. That's true. We had put Bram Romano back behind us.

Yes, that's true. This is my fault. Please. It's the wincing. I think he's also a big winser. I am wincing. I know, for those of you, audio on the podcast. There was a very interesting thing where I think that there was, I think, P.J.

Harvey made Steve Albini uncomfortable. And I think that that was really valuable to the album because the album sort of has this tenseness in it. And they talk about it. It's like he had this whole like sort of like it's not, you know, like it's not fair how women are treated. They're coddled when they're recorded and blah, blah, blah, but then he would still do that. Right. Yeah, that's what she said. And then he would catch himself.

Yeah. And it does really feel like you can kind of hear that, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Albany, known feminist who did pen an entire op-ed in the whatever Chicago paper about how Liz Farr is a hack and in like an industry plant or whatever and would never amount to anything. Also, smashing pumpkins. He was like they won't have a long career. Or urge overkill.

He hated pretty much everyone from Varuka Salt. Yes. Yes. He seems to have repented someone. He seems to have blanket apologized for the 90s. The top one, top three, honestly. I was talking about down by the water, like, as the moment where she breaks through to alt rock radio and you can hear her, you know, amid Oasis and Everclear and Silver Chair or whatever. Did she make a lot of sense to you as a mainstream 1995 rock star and could she have stayed that way if she'd wanted to or was she always going to get bored and move on and like do something else and do something weirder? It's so funny that you say that she was a mainstream rock star because I don't.

don't know that I experienced it like that, but maybe I just have, you know, as we said, the relationship with Yossia of a year ago is foggy and the relationship of Yossi of 1995 is loose at best. I do, I mean, I remember that drag being what she was presenting, which almost like is put so much distance between her and the actual world. And I remember the video for Down by the water being on MTV all the time and the song being on Kerok all the time. But I don't remember like having her in my face as much as like, like, Oasis or like as people. But I don't know, am I wrong? Do you remember it that way too? Also, hilariously, she hated Oasis. She, she publicly talked like multiple times about how they're, they're not good and they're bad. And I don't know why

you guys like this band. And they are just the most popular. They're not the best. And truly just had no problem saying this on record multiple times queen i don't agree but it's very funny i don't think i put her on an oasis level but i it made it the me of 1995 there were like people who are on the radio and there were people who were on like m tv at like two in the morning right and i feel like down by the waters in the moment where she went from m tv at two in the morning to like on the radio at like noon or whatever totally it seemed like and then she went on tour with live For example, live in Varuka Salt. And that doesn't seem like something the rid of me era, PJ Harvey, would have or could have necessarily

done. I don't even know if they're down by the water era PJ Harvey makes any sense being on that live tour. I don't know who put that package of that up together to be out. Do you think she converted some people? Like people showed up just to hear lightning crashes, but they walked out like die hard to this day. You think those people were like her placenta babe?

it falls right to the floor. I think that they were like, actually, I'm not here for this garbage. I'm waiting for the placenta to fall to the floor. That's right. And I'm going to go get a beer while I wait for this. I like live quite a bit. And I have seen them in concert in the last five years, if you must know. I'll tell you who didn't like it, the Washington Post. Did you read that where they were like, yeah, live was kind of bad, but what, PJ Harvey great. Actually, far more impressive, was PJ Harvey. Far more impressive. That's a beautiful mid-90s rock critic.

They fucked up taking her on tour. Like, if I was live and like, great band, they're thriving. Lightning crashes is on the radio 400 times a day. But like, I would have took one listen to down by the water and been like, you know what? Go get me better than Azra, babe. Get over the Azra on the phone. I would have seen that. That's a great.

They would have gotten along great. Yeah. You were right into the placenta falling on the floor. It's a fucking amazing night. That's... 1999 remains undefeated. It's a great better than Ezra impression. There we go.

Is to bring you my love her best album? Like, what's her best album? I can't figure this out. I think that ranking things is a masculine trait. Hmm. It's a very live fan. It's for the ringer. It's a very Steve Albini thing to do.

No, I don't know. I mean, I think it's... For like, is it my favorite? No. I love it. I mean, there's so many goes, Victory bitch. People don't talk about victory.

That baseline. Slaps. Working harder for the man. If you throw that on when you're DJing at a little party, best vibe. Best vibe. I don't go to parties. I party vicariously through your parties.

Much like Ray Ramona. Yeah. Okay. That was you this time. Yeah, but like, I mean, to bring you my love is great. is stories from the city, stories from the sea. Great. Also, I'm one of those annoying people who likes dry the best.

Her early stuff is. Her early stuff. I like her earlier stuff. I just really love dry. I think it's fucking perfect from start to finish and like nothing I had heard before. Just this morning you sent me an excerpt from an interview she did with Bust magazine. And the interviewer says, do you feel a sense of responsibility towards, the many young women who look up to you and Polly Jean just says no queen absolute iconic

shit just no period that's it no follow up nothing I'm I'm obsessed with that and also nor should she yeah it's so you're suspicious of somebody who says that yes I do you know I feel a sense of responsibility I'm doing all this for them like it's better to just say no I don't think about it but just to to to model I think that it's suspicious of an interviewer to ask that. I think it is, I don't know if you're going to ask me about this, about the 90s being a good time for being a woman in a band.

Okay, so you're not, the 90s, we've talked about this off, off mic in our personal friendship life, which is growing so thin, the more photos I post of you on the internet against your will. Yikes. But I think it's so interesting because the 90s was such a good time financially to be a woman, especially fronting a rock band because there were so many that were given the opportunity,

given the opportunity, but that's kind of how it was. I mean, signed and given money to make interesting albums and stuff. But they were also like so ghettoized. You know what I mean? It was just like they were all lumped into one category. when they were so different, not just musically, but in their stances towards being women. Like you were like Gwen Stefani on one end who was like a tradcath who like sang about wanting to be a wife and a mother, which again, totally fine. And then you have like, you know, Courtney Love on the other end.

And you have PJ Harvey here just being like, I don't know why you keep asking me about being a woman. I'm an artist. I think about myself as an artist, not as a woman artist. And that question is very like, what's it like being a woman artist? artist, you know? And I think she really bristled against, again, rightfully so. She was just like, I'm just out here making music. Remember that? I mean, I'm sure you found it in your research to write your six hour long intro, but it's like eight or nine. Eight or nine. She's a full work day. When she said it's like, I would be so humiliated to be called Riot Girl. It's something

like that. I'm not quoting it exactly perfectly, but I'm like, she's not wrong. Right. Anyways, I don't know if that answered the question. I already forgot what the question was. It wasn't really a question. That totally answered the question, yes. I sort of remember that era, you know, as you would hear like Oasis or better than Ezra, and then you would hear Toriamos or Liz Phair or Hull or Bjork. Like it seemed more integrated on alt rock radio that it had been.

You know, they didn't feel as lumped together or ghettoized, but that may just be the way I remember. I think more impressed, not in reality. obviously. I'm going to play like a rock block of women or whatever. Right, right. But yeah, press-wise, of course. Like, yeah, as, as Anne says, it was the, it was the decade of the year of the woman in rock. Yes, the decade of the year of women and rock, exactly. And people, and you know what, listen, I'll say it in controversial opinion, I think that benefited them for sure, like, that it was like such a circus attraction for people to be like, this woman plays guitar? She's just running a band. This is, And you can use that, you know, you can use that to your advantage.

You can use the male gaze to your advantage. You and Anne talked quite a bit about Nick Cave, of course, the doomed romance between her and Nick Cave. And he's always been super intimidating to me as well. You can add him to the list of it. But in, in 2023, like, he's a very different public figure. You know, he's suffered these unimaginable family tragedies. You know, he's got like an advice blog.

that's very warm and kind. Like he still irks people sometimes like when he goes to the coronation or something, but he's a very different public figure now than in 1990. And I wonder if you think that people hear even his older music differently based on his persona now

and what it means for Polly that she's far less of a public, you know, person. I can't really speak to how people hear his music based on him being sort of more public, I guess. But I do think that people think about him more. And I think that he's sort of like, there's a good feeling extended to him. Do you know what I mean?

Like a sort of like, and that makes, that sort of raises his artistic achievements in people's minds more than maybe PJ Harvey's are thought of. even though, of course, she was like, you know, she's held in high regard, but she has remained extremely private for her entire career. And especially for, I think, what they both do, which is sort of play with character in their, you know, songwriting. I still believe that whatever you write is ultimately about yourself. But still, they do a nice character thing. the more you start to get to know the real person,

it does, of course, color the way you hear their music. Like, perhaps like the friends of Tom Waits are like, I can't listen to this shit, bitch. I don't know. I know this guy. He's not like that. He loves Gilmore Girls. I don't know.

I bet he does. I bet he does, too. Yeah. I bet Nick Cave loves Gilmore Girls. Sure. He seems the type. Yeah. She's done great duets.

with Nick Cave, with Tom York, with Mark Lanigan, with Tricky, with Bono. Like, is the intense, you know, sexually charged, super intimidating duet a lost art now? Like, is anybody good at that anymore other than like Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper? Great song. I'm glad you mentioned. Can I even say this? I heard a demo of a mutual friend of ours and that did a duet. And it is really fucking good.

I wonder if there's just less appetite for it now. Yeah. It does seem like a moment, a mid-90s-ish sort of moment. My mind sort of wandered away because when you said Bono, I was remembering back when you two asked Captain Beefhard to open for them, and the guy wrote it back to say no and said, Dear Bongo. Dear Bongo.

I'm so sorry. Every piece of correspondence I send. We'll start Dear Bongo, regardless of who I'm talking. That Tom York and PJ Harvey duet off of fucking stories is so fucking good. I was listening to it the other day and I was like, just next level how good it is. And the way that she positioned herself was just so antithetical to like how you would imagine a woman to place themselves in a duet because of course, PJ Harvey, where like he sings and she's talking. He starts it and she's sort of echoing. He wrote, she just wrote him the lyrics was like sing these and I'll just say them behind you.

Right, right. It's so, it's so good. It is. You seem to know everything about her. So I'm going to ask you on that album, like, what is you said something about who is she talking to? And what did that person say to her? It's very important that I figure this out. Did you speculate about it in the intro?

Yes, I did. I just said, I don't know. I really want to know. Somebody please tell me to tweet me immediately with the right answer to this. The general consensus is that the entire album is about Vincent Gallo. It's speculated that they dated prior to this. I don't know, again, I'm not the Dumois. Sometimes I am the Dumois of 90s alternative rock.

But I respect Paul Eugene Harvey's practice. privacy and I wish I could have just a modicum of it myself, unable to keep one single secret about myself. Vincent Gallo has like a really interesting history of having these like sort of like intensely platonic relationships with women. Viv Albertine. Yeah. Did I talk about that on the PJ Harvey episode?

Yeah. You did. And it's really fascinating. And it's yeah. It's really fascinating. He's like an emotional support pet for these women. or something. You know what I mean?

I don't know how to explain it. So it's, it is also like totally possible. Because even you said something, it, don't you sort of read it as like, unconsumated romance? Yeah, I don't necessarily see it as a romantic song.

No. You know, like the first, I think that that album is so comparatively sort of joyous and open that like when I first heard the song, I was like, did they say something to offend her? But like that's, I don't think that's it, right?

Like, I do think... That's such a Ray Robano type thought. Okay. This is a very kind and compassionate song, but it doesn't feel particularly romantic to me. Vincent Gallo is the most likely answer. Well, she says acting like lovers, which just leads me to believe that it's...

They're not actually lovers. So... Okay. Not that I'm a, you know, professor of linguistics or anything, but is simply just reading between the lines here. See, now I'm thinking about Vincent Gallo is an emotional support animal.

Like, you can take him on the plane. On the airplane for free, $200 if you have a note from your therapist. Yeah, see, when will Polly Jean Harvey appear on your new interview show 24 question party people? And will you be best friends when that happens? I don't think she will appear. She already said no. That is discouraging, but let's, yeah, okay.

But, you know, you know me. No is simply a starting point for negotiations, much like Jeremy Piven in Judgment Night, which we saw what happened to him. Wow, that's a very grim comparison to make about yourself. I'm really existing in the ringer multiverse right now. Yeah, I think it's better. Sometimes it's better not to meet your heroes, you know?

Absolutely. And I respect her decision to not do my questionnaire style podcast on the, like should PJ RV even ever be on a podcast? Like should she know what a podcast is? It'd be better if she never found out what a podcast is. Absolutely. Just I don't know her to the entire field of podcasting. That would be the best.

Exactly. I want her just wandering the moors, thinking beautiful thoughts, writing freehand in a journal. Playing on her auto harp. I mean, she lives in L.A., so she probably goes to Arawan and gets the Haley Bieber smoothie. And like, what if I see her doing that? I'll fucking lose it. Disillusion forever. Just sitting in sweet green. Yeah. It's not sweet green. I'm sorry. I'm in Ohio. It's that. Yeah, Rob doesn't know about Aeroon. You guys know, though.

some of you guys. Bange. I also want Bange to be like Aloha, where it's both hello and goodbye. So the French aren't into it. The friend in your experience, so. They're not into me, okay? Simply, the waiter at the restaurant last night

got angry with me because my wine glass was filthy. He got angry with me. He was mad at me. I don't think that was your responsibility. He was so mad. It was actually funny because he was like, it was a comical, like he was a cartoon character of a mad French man. Made me laugh, which I don't think he liked that either. It is always wonderful to talk to you, Yasi.

The French will come around, I promise you. Bring a towel, I guess, and clean your own wine glasses. Do you think the French love Ray Romano, like the way they love Jerry Lewis? Jerry Lewis, not Jerry Lewis, not the singer. The way the French love Jerry Lewis. different people. Ray Romano is internationally beloved. Everybody loves them.

That's what they say. Perfect. Thank you. Jesus Christ. Do you think PJ Harvey's going to be happy that we talked about Ray Romano so much in this episode about her? I can see PJ Harvey watching

everybody loves Raymond. Just to relax just as a come down after she's written on her auto harp. You know, just her sitting with Vincent Gallo, you know, just binging Season five.

She loves the brother the most. Okay, Rob. Enjoy France. Thank you. Bonsch. Bange. Thanks very much to our guest this week, Yassi Salick.

Thanks to our producers, Justin Sales and Jonathan Kerma. Thanks to Chloe Clark for production help. And thanks very much to you for listening. And now, without further ado, I advise you to go listen to Down by the Water. by P.J. Harvey. We'll see you next week.