[Photo by Monica Orozco]
“Down By the Water” by PJ Harvey
Monica: I am having a hard time with this. I know I have the photo for PJ Harvey, but I don’t know. I have things to say, but it definitely isn’t as deep as the other ones.
5songprjct: It doesn’t really have to be deep. The goal of this project is to get people’s personal reactions to music. Sometimes it taps into something on a deeper-level or it is just simply, this song always makes me feel (blank) and I don’t know why.
You’ve talked about Goth music/lifestyle in this interview and I know that one of the things you lament in this pick of five songs is not addressing hip-hop deMonica. I feel like we had a similar trajectory of music tastes from Goth to Hip-Hop, the logical progression is Trip-hop. You mentioned going to see Tricky at the Mayan, but being blown away by someone else. I think in this case Trip-Hop was the gateway drug to PJ Harvey.
http://https://youtu.be/lbq4G1TjKYg
Monica: PJ Harvey had opened for Tricky. This was the time that “Down By the Water” came out. The way that she performed left a huge impression on me. It was electrifying and very artistic. It was the first time that I ever thought, if I was ever to be a singer I would want to be her. She was a badass. She was powerful. She was gorgeous. She was bigger than life. My favorite color is red and she wore her famous red dress which she wore on the cover of her 1995 album To Bring You my Love. Oh my god, she was out of this world. Maybe it was the mushrooms kicking in (2nd time eating those from a handful of times.)
| 1995-05-18 | MAYAN CLUB – LOS ANGELES, CA, U.S.A.
Set List- Lying In The Sun / Send His Love To Me / Meet Ze Monsta / One Time Too Many / Working For The Man / Harder / Teclo / Long Time Coming / Down By The Water / C’mon Billy / Hook / Me-Jane / Driving / 50Ft Queenie / Oh My Lover. Encore- I Think I’m A Mother / Long Snake Moan. |
Ten years later I was out one night at some party, I think it was in Silverake. There she was, PJ fuckin Harvey. She was only an inch taller than me (she’s 5’4”.) That’s impossible! How could that be? She was a giant goddess when I saw her perform at The Mayan Theatre and here she was amongst us humans. A petite girl. I had a flashback to when I first witnessed her grandeur.
As I’ve seen her grow through the years, it now makes complete sense. She is an artist. Not just that, but a feminist icon. Alternative music of the 90s was very male dominated. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and it was Courtney Love and PJ Harvey that paved the way for female artists. These two women were very different from each other, but were very strong figures.
TOMORROW….how do you say deGroovay with Dee-Lite
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