#pj harvey white chalk

[lifeis-strangemercy]

[demolitionbullets]

pj harvey ▪︎ white chalk

[sowhatifiliveinfukuoka]

PJ Harvey (2007)

[texaschainsawmascara]

PJ Harvey

[saramencken]

[fezzian]

white chalk, gorse-scattered land

scratch my palms

there's blood on my hands

[pjhfan83]

PJ Harvey 2007

[materia-infinita-blog]

[horacio-oliveira-74]

Guarda "White Chalk | PJ Harvey | From The Basement" su YouTube

...ossa rotte...

[total-derangement-of-the-senses]

Song of the Day

11 Jun., ‘24

[xxmolls]

Since I’m posting a lot of PJ Harvey tonight, I’ll share one of my PJ Harvey covers.

I recorded this in 2011. I was 21 years old and incredibly sick with (at the time) an unexplainable illness.

My Tourette’s had increased greatly in severity. In addition to my tics, I was having full body pseudo - seizures. My constant uncontrollable movements made it very hard for me to function.

I also had a bad “foot stomping” tic. I would stomp my feet so hard and so frequently, my doctors were afraid I was going to shatter my feet and leg bones so they insisted I not walk or stand anymore.

I found it very hard to communicate with my constant vocal and breathing tics, so I didn’t speak much.

I had just decided to leave college after my junior year to focus on my health. I was spending my days and nights living in my parents’ basement, often lying on a bare mattress (my tics made it impossible to keep a sheet or blankets on).

I was in terrible physical pain. I would often cry out for help, the pain was so bad, but my family would assume it was a vocal tic, and they wouldn’t come.

I often went to bed in such unbearable pain that I had the absolute certainty that I was going to die in my sleep, and there was nothing I could do about it. I wrote goodbye notes to my loved ones for them to find on my phone.

The bright side of my weird illness was that my uncontrollable movements seemed to lessen when I would sing and play guitar. I also noticed I may have trouble speaking coherently, but I could sing words just fine.

I had a Mac laptop with garage band on it that was my lifeline. I would spend hours in my parents’ basement, often in the middle of the night, recording songs on GarageBand. In that time, I got really into figuring out arrangements of my original songs as well as my favorite songs that other people had written.

I would start with a basic guitar and vocal track, then I would overdub vocal harmonies as well as any random instruments I had sitting around the house.

For one particular song I recorded, I sent my mom out to Walmart at 8 am (after I had been up all night writing music) to get a child’s xylophone that I was CERTAIN would be the perfect addition to a song I was working on.

Oddly enough, despite my entire body falling apart, I think during the worst years of my illness my voice and guitar playing were the best they’d ever been, just because I was using them so much.

2011 was also the year I got into PJ Harvey.

I had formative memories of when her album “Stories from the City…” came out. I was 11 years old and my dad constantly played the record at home.

My favorite songs were “This is Love” and “Big Exit.” I freaked out some of my middle school teachers by singing the lyrics to “Big Exit” in front of them and declaring it my favorite song. I loved how dark the song was (even at 11 I loved some dark shit), but I didn’t realize just how dark and upsetting the lyrics were (if you have not heard the song, it’s about suicide).

In 2011, PJ Harvey came back into my life when she released her album “Let England Shake.” I was obsessed with that album. I pored over the lyrics, analyzing them and looking up different WWI events they referenced.

I fell in love with the autoharp because of that album and immediately went out to buy one at a local pawn shop.

I began to dig deep through PJ Harvey’s entire discography, collecting things like my favorite acoustic live performances of songs, and my favorite b-sides.

On the day I recorded this specific cover, I had just gotten her album “White Chalk.”

About 15 minutes before I recorded this cover of the title song, I heard it for the first time. I was instantly entranced, as well as inspired.

The original version is mostly piano based, but I wanted to figure out a good acoustic guitar version.

I had been favoring playing my 2nd guitar: a Gibson J-45 from 1993. It sounded more tin-ny when plugged in, but acoustically it had such a rich, warm sound.

I pulled it out and quickly figured out the chords and a good finger picking style for the song.

I clearly did not know the words. The melody was instantly stuck in my head, but I have always had trouble remembering lyrics. Since 15 minutes before was the first time I had ever heard the song, I pulled up a safari tab on my laptop and had the lyrics in front of me while I was recording.

I still clearly messed up some of the lyrics. You will definitely notice that if you know the original song.

I had fun adding background vocals in different places, though the song didn’t need much.

I also noticed that on the original track, there’s a lot of delay (I think is the term) so the vocals kind of echo. I added that to mine too (and of course reverb as usual. I was never very light on the reverb when recording demos).

I am pretty pleased with the result. I like the arrangement and the quirky lil effects. It also brings me back to those almost manic days of creativity. The Lyme disease was definitely “eating my brain” at the time (those spirochete bastards easily cross the blood brain barrier), so who knows how much of this recording is hypomania driven.

It gave me a break from my suffering, though, and for that I am grateful.

[sowhatifiliveinfukuoka]

PJ Harvey (2007)

[texaschainsawmascara]

PJ

[sacredfolly-blog]

Music Monday - Holding Genius - PJ Harvey

Music Monday – Holding Genius – PJ Harvey

Music from White Chalk, one of the best albums I have ever heard. When under Ether Grow Grow Grow Silence Dear Darkness Broken Harp Image of PJ Harvey, photo by Maria Mochnacz – from NME: PJ Harvey explains the story behind ‘White Chalk’ November 21, 2022Brooklyn, NY