You know if I see a work that really I am very affected by and inspired by then it makes me want to try things with my work that maybe I hadn't considered trying before and I think that is the biggest complement that you can pay somebody.

PJ Harvey

Categorized in : Thinking Trying Want

As I grew older, I actually was prepared to go into fine arts school and do a degree. That was what I was actually settled upon when I was offered a record deal.

degrees art school

I don't loathe interviews, I'm just one of those people who makes music because I find it difficult to talk.

difficult interviews people

We just kind of lost our way. But we were looking to be free. One day we'll float. Take life as it comes.

one-day life way

Love for money is my sin, any man calls, I'll let him in. by PJ Harvey

Love for money is my sin, any man calls, I'll let him in.

sin men sex

My father is actually a quarry man - he deals in stone. He also at one point had a lot of sheep, he owned a sheep farm, but primarily the family business was in stone.

sheep men father

Ive always been very visceral in that I feel things very deeply. by PJ Harvey

Ive always been very visceral in that I feel things very deeply.

visceral very-deep feels

I'm always trying to swim to new ground. by PJ Harvey

I'm always trying to swim to new ground.

always-trying swim trying

The devil wanders into my soul. by PJ Harvey

The devil wanders into my soul.

wander devil soul

I'd want to read the stories that I'd written, I'd want to show the drawings that I made. That was just purely natural. So I knew I wanted to go into the arts in some way and that I'd want to show that work in some way.

drawing stories art

I'm a very private person, so obviously I don't enjoy talking about more personal matters. But at the same time I care very much about my work and I would like people to know that it exists. So I appreciate that there's a meeting point, where I would like people to know about the work that I'm doing, and that requires me to talk about it.

appreciate talking people

I don't hold onto anything, because it's a waste of energy to do so, really. There's nothing that I can do about the way people want to write about me. I just try and concentrate on my work and do that as well as I can.

writing trying people

I'm finding that writing poetry is strengthening my songwriting, because you're learning to make a piece of writing work on a page with nothing else. I was also finding within poetry I felt a lot more free to write about very different matters, to write about social issues or things that are going on around me.

issues matter writing

When a poem might become a song, then certain parts are repeated and might become a refrain or a chorus, so they change in that way. But it's more the nature of the words and what they're saying that determines whether it's a poem or a song.

song might way

Some things lend themselves well to songs, some things don't, and I'm learning that a lot at the moment. It's still a relatively new way of writing. It's only really the last five to 10 years that I've taken my writing seriously in this way, as something I can keep working toward. I think I feel myself much more before as simply a songwriter.

taken writing song

I do take enormous interest in what's going on. I try to see what... by PJ Harvey

I do take enormous interest in what's going on. I try to see whatever I can, whenever I can.

enormous interest trying

First off, I think nudity is taken differently in America, though they did make a fuss in England, too.

taken america thinking

I have learnt through doing interviews throughout my life that the way that somebody can write about something can change entirely how it was meant, or what actually happened.

interviews writing way

But huge photographs of dead bodies are slightly different. I cou... by PJ Harvey

But huge photographs of dead bodies are slightly different. I couldn't find much humor there.

different body photograph

And all of these writers offer me a greater understanding of what it is to be alive, and that is such an incredible thing art can do for other people. It made me want to try and get close to this strange, mysterious thing that people can do with words.

mysterious-things people art

You can sing a very aggressive word in such a way that it's very funny. You can change words, completely turn them around on their head so that they mean exactly the opposite of what they are written down. There are endless possibilities which I think Diamanda Galás is doing already. She turns everything upside down by the way she sings it. She makes you feel nauseous or horrified or ridiculous just by her voice. I think that's an incredible power.

opposites mean thinking