After catching up on Peaky Blinders, I have listened to a lot of Nick Cave and PJ Harvey. The series is highly recommended by the way, another career high for Cilian Murphy. My wife and I loved it.
But this evening, after a hot day, my 8 year old son saw his two best friends playing together next door from out of his window. One of them does live next door to be clear. We are still under quarantine in our house, despite the government supposedly easing the lockdown. So he found that really hard to see, and it devastated me. He is young, and half his life his mum has been ill, in intensive care twice, and now at risk of another serious virus.
So I have been resorting to art now, and tonight Polly Harvey, and particularly Down By The Water, from 1995.
I have had an on off relationship with PJ Harveys music. I liked her early stuff, then lost touch until Stories From The City in 2000, and again until Let England Shake in 2011. But working back I have found her whole catalogue, and this tune is especially good. The spoken word ending, “Big fish, little fish, swimming in the water, come back here and bring me my daughter”. She has mesmerising way with lyrics, and a ghostly way with a melody, that combined bring an almost spiritual feeling to the song, that at times seems like you have known it forever, but are still hearing it for the first time.
I can really recommend it, and in the current climate, suggest it as a great way to make the pandemic go quickly.