PJ Harvey. Photo by Steve Gullick
PJ Harvey is back today with "I Inside the Old I Dying," a new song from I Inside the Old Year Dying, her 10th studio album. It follows "A Child's Question, August," the album's lead single. Both songs have a desolate and cryptic air to them, though "Dying" opts for skeletal acoustic guitar melodies after "Child's" droning electric guitar. Hear it below in the animated music video, directed by Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña.
In a press statement, Harvey described how the song was one of the last completed for the new album, co-written with John Parrish and produced by Flood:
This delicate and beautiful song eluded us until the very last day in the studio. Over the previous five weeks we had tried so many times to capture it and failed, and/but then John reinvented the feel of the guitar pattern. As he was demonstrating it in the control room, Flood handed me a microphone and pressed record whilst I sat next to John trying to work out how to sing to it. The result somehow captures the ethereal and melancholic longing I was looking for.
In the lyric everyone is waiting for the savior to reappear – everyone and everything anticipates the arrival of this figure of love and transformation.
There is a sense of sexual longing and awakening and of moving from one realm into another – from child to adult, from life to death and the eternal.
PJ Harvey 2023 tour dates
September 22 - Dublin, Ireland - 3Olympia Theatre
September 23 - Dublin,Ireland - 3Olympia Theatre
September 25 - Glasgow, UK - Barrowland
September 26 - Glasgow, UK - Barrowland
September 28 - London, UK - Roundhouse
September 29 - London, UK - Roundhouse
October 2 - Manchester, UK - Albert Hall
October 3 - Manchester, UK - Albert Hall
October 6 - Netherlands - Paradiso, Amsterdam
October 7 - Netherlands - Paradiso, Amsterdam
October 9 - Brussels, Belgium - Cirque Royal
October 10 - Brussels, Belgium - Cirque Royal
October 12 - Paris, France - Olympia
October 13 - Paris, France - Olympia
October 15 - Switzerland - Volkshaus, Zurich
October 16 - Switzerland - Volkshaus, Zurich
October 18 - Prague, Czech Republic - Velký sál Lucerna
October 19 - Prague, Czech Republic - Velký sál Lucerna
October 21 - Berlin, Germany - Admiralspalast
October 22 - Berlin, Germany - Admiralspalast
October 24 - Warsaw, Poland - Palladium
October 25 - Warsaw, Poland - Palladium
October 27 - Copenhagen, Denmark - Falkonersalen
October 28 - Copenhagen, Denmark - Falkonersalen
October 30 - Oslo, Norway - Sentrum Scene
October 31 - Oslo, Norway - Sentrum Scene
