SOUNDTRACK: PJ HARVEY-“Let England Shake” [Live on the Andrew Marr Show] (2011).
PJ Harvey has a new album out. I’ve listened to it free on NPR, and in the introduction, they mention this live version on the Andrew Carr show. Harvey (solo) plays an autoharp, and the melody is provided by a sample of the original version of “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” (done by The Four Lads).
The album version doesn’t use the sample, although the melody is the same.
I loved PJ Harvey back on her first few albums, but I didn’t even get White Chalk. Harvey has undergone a bizarre transmogrification, where not only is she no longer a rocking guitar woman, her voice has lost its growling edge and his been replaced by an amazing falsetto.
This version also differs from the official release in that this one is shorter (probably time constraints on the show) and has fewer verses. It also has Harvey singing the “Istanbul” chorus which isn’t on the disc. So, this is a unique interpretation of the song, one that likely won’t be available anywhere else.
I wasn’t expecting to like this as much as I did. It’s not the PJ I know, but this new PJ is certainly interesting.
[READ: January 31, 2010] Lemon
Krauser hand-scribbled the covers of all 10,000 extant copies of this book. So if nothing else, the covers are all unique! (Click here for a larger scan).
This is one of the first half-dozen or so books that McSweeney’s published and to me it speaks volumes about the kind of absurdist books that they initially released. Those early titles were weird and possibly ironic and maybe post modern and were kind of interesting but not necessarily enjoyable. Thankfully, they have since published very very readable books, but everyone has growing pains, right?
That sounds like I didn’t like this book, which is not exactly true. I was bemused by it, but mostly I kept thinking I can’t believe that this guy did this much research about lemons, he was practically as obsessed about lemons as his main character. For indeed, that is what this book is about: a man’s obsession with lemons. Or, specifically, one lemon. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 